"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her."
What the study notes say (written by Robert I. Vasholz)
With this third therefore, the reason for the punishments for Israel's roaming becomes clear- to bring Israel to repentance. The verb allure can have the idea "to entice or seduce" (Judges 14:15- "On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, 'Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?'"), but here it is paralleled with speak tenderly to her. The Lord will woo his estranged wife away from her lovers with the language of courtship (Ruth 2:13- "Then she said, 'I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.'"; Isaiah 40:2-"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins."; 2 Samuel 19:7- "Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the LORD, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now."). Bring her into the wilderness depicts the wilderness (Exodus 19:1-2- "On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness.") as if it were a brighter time in the marriage.
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