4. God cannot let them go (11:8-11)

Like Hosea, who cannot abandon his wife even when she has left him for other lovers and has ended up on the slave block, so God cannot abandon Israel to her well-deserved fate. Admah and Zeboiim (v.8) were two of the five cities of the plain (Ge 14:8) that were utterly destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (Dt 29:23). Here God says (contra Dt 29:23) that Israel’s destruction will not be like that. Where a human being might carry out total destruction simply for the sake of revenge, God will not do so (v.9). He is holy and never acts from vindictiveness (see Lk 23:34). So God promises that on the other side of the Exile there will be a blessed return to the land of promise (vv.10-11).