He said, "Call his name Lo-Ammi{Lo-Ammi means "not my people"}; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.
He makes them His; He becomes their’s. This mutual exchange is so often expressed in Holy Scripture, to show how God loveth to give Himself to us, and to make us His; and that where the one is, there is the other; nor can the one be without the other. This was the original covenant with Israel: “I will be your God, and you shall be My people” Leviticus 26:12; Exodus 6:7; and as such, it is often repeated in Jeremiah Jeremiah 11:4-5; Jeremiah 24:7; Jeremiah 30:22; Jeremiah 31:1, Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:38 and Ezekiel Ezekiel 11:20; Ezekiel 14:11; Ezekiel 36:28; Ezekiel 37:23, Ezekiel 37:27. Afterward, this is expressed still more affectionately. “I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters” 2 Corinthians 6:18. And in Christ the Son, God saith, “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son” 2 Samuel 7:14. God, who saith not this to any out of Christ, nor even to the holy Angels, (as it is written, “Unto which of the Angels said He at any time, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to Me a son?” Hebrews 1:5), saith it to us in Christ. And so, in turn, the Church and each single soul which is His, saith, or rather He saith it in them Song of Solomon 2:16, “My beloved is mine, and I am His,” and more boldly yet, I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine” Song of Solomon 6:3. Whence also at the holy communion we say, “then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us;” and we pray that “we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us.”