We are offering some brief thoughts on the text of the minor prophet Hosea on Thursdays for the next few weeks. We introduced Hosea last week and observed that he preached during the time when Israel fell to Assyria. The unique approach of Hosea’s preaching and life is that he, by divine command, married a prostitute and had three children by her who were walking examples / parables to the nation of Israel. It would be as if, every time someone asked about my daughters, I launched into a sermonette on Christians being “Jewels” in the eyes of God or being recipients of God’s “grace” (“Hannah / Ana”).
Gomer, Hosea’s wife, was an adulterer (3:1; 7:4). She was a “wife of harlotry” (1:2; 2:4, 6; 4:12; 5:4). Chapter three appears to indicate that, after the marriage, Gomer went back into harlotry, selling her body for profit. Her behavior reflects the regular and persistent unfaithfulness of the sons of Israel (3:1). God told Hosea to go back and buy Gomer again, which Hosea did with a mixture of food supplies and money. It was not much, but then again, how much is a prostitute really worth?
Hosea gave her a second chance, as God would Israel (3:3). At the end of, apparently, a probationary period, God would take Israel back (3:5) as they will have another leader, a king, King David, or rather his Descendent. This is the only time Hosea mentions David. Notice that this return and this reign will be in the “last days” (cf.Acts 2:17ff).
What was Israel’s problem? Fundamentally, it was because they lacked “knowledge” of Jehovah God. Not head knowledge but the intimate relationship with God that comes with having that knowledge in their hearts. There was no “faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land” (4:1). Half the ten commandments were being broken on a regular basis (4:2). Simply put, the people were destroyed for a lack of “knowledge” (4:6). They had forgotten the law of God, the Torah, the law of Moses. So, God will forget them.å
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Their lives had improved economically but they gloried in that rather than in their relationship with God. So, God would turn their glory into shame (4:7). Within the context of the worship of Baal, the fertility god, Israel sought productivity, both for themselves and their cattle and their crops. But, as punishment, God would not allow them to increase (4:10). The verb “to act as a prostitute” is found most frequently in Hosea: 1:2; 2:7; 3:3; 4:10, 12, 13-14, 18; 5:3; 9:1. Clearly God was hurt and upset that Israel had chosen to trust in man instead of following the word of God.
We see the imagery of Israel “playing the harlot” in the paragraph 4:11-14. Hosea challenged Israel not to make oaths on the calf they worshiped (4:15). They were acting like a stubborn calf, refusing to be led to pasture by Jehovah God (4:16). Even their rulers were playing the harlot; they “loved shame” (4:18). Eventually, they will be ashamed of their behavior (4:19).
Hosea’s message is clearly relevant for us today as so many, even Christians, want to accommodate themselves to the contemporary culture rather than staying faithful and loyal to the word of God. But God does not change. The blessings for faithfulness and the punishment for compromise will be just as real for Christians as it was for the Israelites.
Paul Holland
