HOSEA—PROPHET OF GRAPHIC INTROSPECTION
#682 HOSEA—PROPHET OF GRAPHIC INTROSPECTION
Scripture Hosea 2:1-23, NIV
Orig. 10/26/1977
Passage: [a]“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
Israel Punished and Restored
2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor[b] a door of hope.
There she will respond[c] as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.[d]’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in[e] righteousness and justice,
in[f] love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in[g] faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.[h]
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.[i]’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,[j]’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
Introduction
Approximately half a life-time would pass between the death of Jeroboam II and the Assyrian invasion that would spell the end of the northern kingdom. Hosea, then, probably reached adulthood soon before the death of that king. He was sensitive enough to know what was going on among the people. Little could he imagine, however, that he would be called upon to be the prophet of graphic introspection. Hosea would be called upon to do things for the purpose of spiritual introspection for the nation.
Because they [would be] unfaithful brides, Hosea would be called upon to wed a woman of harlotry. Because God’s spiritual children were being directed to the gods of the nations, the prophet’s children, at least the children of the prophet’s wife, would be given names by which Hosea would call them, that proved that they were not his children. Because the nation had chased off after other lovers, Hosea would stand by helplessly as his wife left him to return to his lovers of the past. It would be commonly accepted knowledge the wife of the prophet was unfaithful to him and publicly flaunted it.
Finally, because God was in the business of bringing His people to repentance, and because He would willingly receive them back to Himself again, the prophet would willingly open his life again to this woman without virtue who comes back to him only when she has nowhere else to go. And Hosea would do it all gladly, so that the people would understand the love of God.
I. Hosea’s Marriage: The Symbol of Crisis, Chapters 1-3.
Hosea’s character is questioned. Gomer was his chosen bride. Her harlotry could have preceded. It could have followed her marriage.
The children of the union [were] Jezreel (“God shall sow”), Lo-ruhamah (“not loved” [or] “no mercy”), and Loammi (“not my people”).
The names of the two children are called back to our attention in chapter 2. “Say to your brothers, ‘My people’; to your sisters, ‘Objects of my mercy.’” 2:22f, “The fruit of the earth shall answer for Jezreel. Israel shall be my new sowing in the land, and I will show love to Lo-ruhamah, and say to Loammi, ‘You are my people,’ and he will say, ‘Thou art my God’” (NEB). And in 14:3, “Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Ye are our gods’; for in Thee the fatherless find mercy.”
No way this could be an allegory. Certainly much can be made of the symbolic names. No symbolism in using "Gomer.” A prophet was chosen in whose life and experience the sin of the nation could be revealed.
Dealing with sin realistically: Gomer has sinned and she must pay. The nation likewise. Only after proper restitution is paid will restoration be made. The offended party goes in search of the offending one. Love finds a way.
Jeremiah 3 has an interesting parallel.
II. Israel’s Sin—The Indictment of Evidence, Chapters 4-7.
Hosea 4:1, The Lord has a controversy with the people of the land because there is no truth, mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. Religious leaders—“Like people, like priest” (4:9). Princes—“Give ear, O house of the king” (5:1). People—“They sacrifice on the top of the mountains, and make offerings upon the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth because their shade is good” (4:13). Their foreign policy—“Ephraim is like a silly dove. . . . They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria” (7:11).
II Kings 15:19, Menahem; 17:1, Hoshea; 18:13-15, kings of Judah (Hezekiah).
III. Israel’s Punishment—The Judgment of Compromise, Chapters 8-10.
The judgment upon Samaria’s false religion, Hosea 8:6. The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. Jeroboam I had arranged to keep them away from the temple.
Judgment upon their lifestyle, Hosea 9:6. Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver; thorns shall be in their tents. Hosea 10:1, Israel is a luxuriant (empty) vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built.
IV. Israel’s Restoration—The Yearning of Covenant Love, Chapters 11-14.
The love of the father for his child. Hosea 11:1, When Israel was a child, I loved him.
Love of the husband for his wife. Hosea 11:4, How shall I give thee up?
Love of the parent in the regret of necessary punishment. Hosea 12:9, I that am the Lord thy God from the Land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles.
It is the Love of One who has chanced all on the outcome of love and has won. Hosea 14:8, Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him and observed him: I am like a green fir tree, from me is thy fruit found.