5. Hosea

[Music] again just to recapitulate briefly what we've covered this is v now in a series of 12 so we're right on track we started with Amos and we sort of made a circle and we're coming back now to hosea who was actually after amos but if we just review these in chronological order the first of the prophets would be Obadiah but we looked at last week 9th century prophets he along with joel are the earliest of them Obadiah of course was prophet under the reign of jehovah who was not a good king and it was under his reign in Judah in Jerusalem that Jerusalem was sacked as you recall by the Philistines and also by some others and the participated in that at least to some degree rejoicing relishing this invasion of Jerusalem and Obadiah comes to the scene at that point to really castigate the and no uncertain terms the short prophecy the shortest of all of them but he really lays it on and we looked at that last week I if I could put you know one phrase on Obadiah it's the fundamental principle of natural justice what goes around comes around that was the message to Obadiah are the two eat them from Obadiah that you may be relishing right now the misfortune of your cousin's the Jews here in Jerusalem but it's only a matter of time and these things are going to come back on you and with the measure that you dished it out it'll come back upon your own heads so it's a it's an interesting book difficult book really but nevertheless that seems to be the basic theme then we move to Joel 20 years later Obadiah is about 8:40 Joel is about 8:20 in round numbers Joel of course comes under the reign of joash it was a successor to Jehoram who's Jehoram a keziah who dies after a year then the queen-mother Athol is Earth's the throne for six years Joe accident is put on the throne after a palace coup in which atholea is killed and so Joe Ashe is a good king especially when he's under the tutelage of jehoiada the high priest but when jehoiada dies joash loses focus you recall and that's what calls joel forth and he calls both the king and the people the priests the leaders the entire society back to a repentant state before God trying to prevent them from drifting away and it seems as if he was quite successful and at least we read between the lines of Joel and especially the great promises that we find there it seems as if that was a very effective ministry that he had that brings us now to the eighth century and the reign of the northern king we've been so far we've been looking at the southern Kings there in Jerusalem now we shift to the north and Jeroboam ii we've mentioned him before he presides over Israel or Samaria as it's sometimes called the ten northern tribes during the time of their greatest prestige and wealth and success and three prophets come to Israel during that long reign of Jeroboam ii he reigned from 793 to 753 forty years three prophets the first of them is Jonah Midway is Amos and then finally our guy this morning Hosea Jonah at the beginning before really there'd been this rise to power and prestige tells Jeroboam and tells the people God is going to bless them in spite of them that God is going to pour out great mercy upon them and they'll have wealth and the stock market is going to go up and things are going to be well it's going to be a good life all of that even though they that richly don't deserve it you know and then Jonah becomes surprisingly I think even to him the very means whereby that great blessing pours out mainly the Ninevites or the Assyrians are pushed away made less of a threat and so Jonah goes to Nineveh preaches and we know from ancient history Nineveh did and the Syria did sort of settle down for about 40 years came back with a vengeance in 744 under the reign of argon the second to put ports out of their land but anyway you've got you've got this period of time in which a serious ceases to be such a threat and Israel has a time of real prestige and you would think maybe that might make them grateful they would see God's blessing they were recognized that's all the good things that are happening have to be the result the consequence of God's Grace's toward them that they would wake up and realize all maybe we should be thanking God for all of this mercy but so far from that they use it as an excuse not only to compromise themselves religiously basically a diluting their faith mixing it in with the paganism of the surrounding nations but also the even their wealth is on the backs of the poor there's an exploitive opportunistic aspect to the riches that was enjoyed in Israel during that time and the rich were using Vegas kind of social Rafi duh he's got a powerful message calling people and warning them of the consequences that would come just a few he's about 760 so Jonah's 780 beginning of jeroboams reign 760 roughly is Amos now about five years later the last of the prophets who comes to Jeroboam the second to his Hosea Hosea is right at the tail end and he really segues us into the last few years of the of the life the national life of Israel and Hosea as I say has a fascinating intriguing difficult story that we'll look at first let's have a word of Prayer and then we'll get started father we're grateful that you have again given us this opportunity to gather here we thank you for your word we thank you especially for these great characters of history that you anoint especially for the task that was before them in their time at the same time we thank you that we can learn from them lessons that help us we pray that particularly as we examine the life of Hosea if you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear those things you have for us this morning give you thanks for it in the name of Christ faithfully and that marriage took suit a woman of the street is going to become a great object lesson of the fact that in a sense God Yahweh has been married is a word to a prostitute himself in his people the justice he had wayward ways so the people of God have had wayward ways and just as Hosea is put in the position of having to pursue her so God had been pursuing his people but they would keep turning away that they would keep abandoning him in returning to things that were so much so infinitely inferior to what was available to them in that relationship with their covenant Lord and so Hosea has this kind of illustration in his very life of this relationship between God dia there was that God had been pursuing his people and had pursued them and blessed them and given them all of these things that should have drawn them back to him and yet they keep thumbing his nose and Isaiah as a message is that things are going to change Amos had warned you of it Amos told you you know it's time to straighten things out and yet you haven't done it now Hosea comes probably five years later probably about 755 and really is the last word warning to them before there's going to be a great Cataclysm jeroboams reign itself ended violently as Amos had predicted he's assassinated his son Zechariah comes to the throne he reigns for about a year he's assassinated Shalem is his assassin he reigns for one month he's assassinated following salim isman a ham Menahem is on the throne for about ten years from 752 to 742 he dies a violent death along comes pika hiya pika hiya seizes the throne two years he dies a bloody death he's followed by pika pika reigns for eight years he died the bloody death at the hands of Hosea who's not the same as Hosea keep in mind Oh Shia the last king of Israel he reigns from 732 to 722 and finally the last bell rings sargon ii comes Sargon is the king of Assyria they've already been pounding at the door all of this has been a time of incredible upheaval violence bloodshed palace whose disruption collapsing institutions within the society to finally now they're just hauled away scattered is it word of the four winds and this is the this is the climate that that Hosea is introducing is it you've had your opportunity you thought this could never change life has been so good you know the dot-com bubble how can it ever end it ended and all of the things that though we thought we're going to be permanent fixtures of the good life just collapse right out from under us in a heartbeat and that's really Hosea's message that you people have been unfaithful and now the final consequence of that is going to come home to roost and yet at the same time as negative as that is there's something of the pain thoughts of this story Hosea undoubtedly if we could look at him humanely held out such hope for this woman that he married and in a sense we hear the same great hope in the heart of God as he keeps pursuing his people and in fact as ugly as the story seems in some ways it does have a remarkable kind of conclusion and so all of that weaves together in this in this amazing story all right well let's let's take a look at the Hosea this is by the way on page 835 after using the Pew Bible as I am here and so if you'd like to find your way there I'd like for you to do that appreciate it Hosea chapter 1 verse 1 I'll just tell you this much about Hosea that the book is in basically three sections we have the first three chapters that more or less that's really all we'll cover this morning and even not all of that but will will reportedly restrict our attention to those three chapters then there's chapters 4 through 13 which really represents the ongoing message of Hosea probably many years into the future and then finally the last chapter chapter 14 which is a final call for repentance those middle chapters 4 through 13 sound a lot like Amos in many ways this is Amos read ivities this is Amos once again coming with this renewed message through the mouth of Hosea and so those chapters if you read those you'll see that a lot of the themes the opportunism and exploitation the abuse of those who are weak in society by those who are strong all of those things come up once again as warnings from Hosea in many ways now directed not only to Israel but to Judah in the south but it's the first three chapters that really represent the sort of the distinctive contribution of those a and that which we usually think of him connection with Hosea is the longest by the way of the minor prophets 14 chapters long actually longer by chapters than Daniel Daniel's considered a major Prophet Hosea is actually a little longer but has been in the list of the minor prophets so much more than we can cover in its entirety but we'll take a look at these first couple of chapters here alright let's let's start verse 1 chapter 1 the word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Bieri in the days of Kings Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of joash in Israel that's nice isn't that nice Hosea tells us when he comes you know some of the frustration we have with some of these prophets who don't bother to mention who was the king what the calendar were you know what it was that they came to the scene so we have to sleuth it out piecing together details and little pieces of evidence from the actual book but here Hosea happily enough gives us a pretty good idea when his ministry takes place you'll notice he gives it in terms of the time frame both of the kings of Judah and of the kings of Israel he only mentions one king of Israel Jeroboam Jeroboam the second that we've been talking about Jeroboam reigns down to the year 753 he also mentions in the South museu Uzziah rains toward the end overlapping with Jeroboam toward the end of jeroboams reign so he reads from 767 onto 740 and so you've got about 15 years where the two of them overlap it seems most likely and most commentators agree almost every one of them agrees that Hosea comes right at the tail end probably the last year or two of the reign of Jeroboam the second after Amos certainly everybody agrees on that and so he comes to the scene here just at the tail end just as things are starting to turn as things are just starting to get ugly Hosea comes and brings us this message you notice he gives us the the names of several of the kings of Judah Isaiah is a good king reigns down to 740 contracts leprosy at the end of his reign as a judgment from God for presumptive act he committed and so he's Kol reigns with his son Jotham Jotham reigns to 735 followed by a has who reigns to 715 and then finally as a kite who reigns down to 868 so all of it's a very extensive period of time Hosea seems to have been active all during that time he seems to have had a prophetic ministry yo well into his later years but the critical moment is early the critical moment the real time that we think about with Hosea early as indeed tends to intimate here the reason that Hosea doesn't mention all those northern kings as well as probably because he just didn't recognize them being legitimate Kings once Jeroboam the second was gone in his son Zachariah the rest of these were just usurpers these were knifings in the night bloodshed in the hallways of the palace this was not legitimate rule these were you surfers who came in and it's I think Hosea doesn't even dignify them by mentioning them as kings of Israel he mentions the kings of Judah because they're legitimate they're fought part of the line of David but he doesn't even go through the names with the kings of Israel so we know when he came to Israel with this message and now really right off the bat we're just confronted with the stark command that God lays on Hosea's it's hardly a harsh language and we run into it here in verse 2 when the Lord first spoke through Hosea the Lord said to Hosea go take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom for the land commits great hoard on man forsaking the Lord repetition of the word three times in a row classic Hebraic literary structure to just emphasize something and put it right in your face and of course in this case the word is a hard word whoredom and a strong word is it's just as strong in hebrew if not more so than the word we have here in the english text it's a very striking stunning dramatic offensive word and so this message comes to hosea that he is to go and marry we would say in normal nomenclature a you know a prostitute a woman of the street and so what does Hosea do so he went and took Gomer daughter of dablam and she conceived and bore him a son you can imagine commentators of all various stripes what they you really get some interesting variations of opinion here one very common view of this well let me say this were the commentators generally you could put in two great categories one category of commentators those who say this never really happened this way this is all figurative and the other classic add of commentators saying no this really did happen so you got that basic class of those who say it didn't happen they are not necessarily just disregarding the biblical message in fact some very good people take that position that this is all by way of a kind of dramatic illustration Hosea is in effect being commissioned to go to the people and say to them it is as if I have been commanded to marry a prostitute and borne children through that prostitute who had these names and that would be the meaning of it and so that's the way that it's taken by some now before you discount that opinion I want to mention to you there's some very good nations who have been associated with that particular view that it's a figurative in fact not the least of whom would be John Kalman my beloved John Calvin you know of course on the Calvinists you know that dog hardcore card-carrying five-point Calvinist I am one you sin so that means any time I hear the name Calvin I genuflect I'm you know whatever Calvin speaks I listen I think this but here I have to say my great master and whom I love so much I think he got this one wrong you know so I have to just be candid at this point I think Calvin was just too horrifying himself at the thought that those of Jose I was being commanded to go and and marry a woman of the streets I think even Calvin couldn't quite to divide that thought many others both liberal and conservative have a taken the view that this is figurative however I think I have to say with all you know kind of Highness here in the generosity I think that's just a little bit of cowardice I'm part of the commentators because the text is really clear and the commentators that take the alternative view that's always where they go what does texts actually say it doesn't imply this is any kind of allegory that it's real history so the other view is that this was something Hosea was actually commanded to do but among them you've got a couple of alternative views you've got those who would say well Hosea was commanded to marry this woman or indeed he at least did marry her but maybe he did not know her true character indeed maybe when he married her her true character had not yet exhibited it itself that she didn't really depart from him and commit this treason against their relationship until after they had been entered in into their marriage and then it became the great object lesson that God intended so that's a view and that could be argued fairly effectively again those who don't accept that still come back to the text that's not what the text actually says and I have to say is I just don't wrestle with this myself a little bit and thinking about it I at least at the moment I'm in the the last class that actually says this particular way it makes me thinking of what must have been in the mind of Hosea we should be cautious here it's not as if the there's no message in Hosea that somehow this is the worst of all possible kind of person to be of a person to prostitute that somehow they're beyond the pale s not the point at all you know it's Jesus as you know what he came he was famous for hanging out on the streets with among other things prostitutes that was part of a scandal that was associated with the Ministry of Jesus that he was always on the street he was with the sort of darrell acts of society you know instead of hanging around with people that would be more respectable he's always gravitating to those who are really at the very bottom of the social ladder and that's where he seems to magnetically drawn to them there's no sense biblically in which somehow somebody is so bad that we just should discount that's not the idea at all that nothing is even fact if anything this is the opposite of that so that's not the point the point certainly much more is that is that done Hosea is being commanded to enter into a covenant relationship which is going to be so dreadfully painful for him it's not the Gomer this one who would become his wife was so evil that you know she didn't deserve any attention but how do you reach someone with help you see do you rescue someone by marrying them not a good plan you know I mean some people do that you know that some people just want to help so want someone so much they marry them a girl falls in love with a guy who's just sort of a stray dog you know what I mean you know what I'm you know what I'm saying don't your parents just go crazy no you don't want to marry this guy and she thinks somehow if she marries him she'll fix him up you see or a guy you know as it just wants to be kind of a knight in shining armor somebody's hero and marry some troubled person and make them happy no no that's not a good reason to marry people so you know that's that's also not the message of Hosea but in some ways that's the way it feels isn't it but Hosea is going to rescue this I wonder if that's what it was in Hosea's mind maybe he didn't see the whole story and thought that this was an opportunity to be someone's hero and he goes to this woman who seems to have such a broken tragic life and he's going to make it better who knows we don't but be that as it may he does act in obedience to this command and goes we don't know how he found her we don't know what the connection is here she's given a name she's given a name of a father but beyond that we are clueless about who this person is but in any event he goes to her and somehow or other is you know wins her from this from this life and takes her to himself and then they began having children they have a family and maybe there's even a sense of hope here maybe this is going to turn out all right you see and so the Lord's dissociation she conceives or Sun and the Lord said to him name him Jezreel for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel here the play on words there that's the same way in Hebrew those two names are very similar Israel Jezreel and so what's the first message here well they have a son they'd given this name Jezreel the name Israel Israel means prince with God it's the name that of course was given to Jacob at Peniel when he wrestled with the angel and prevailed the one who prevails wrestling with God prince with God hence is the idea Israel nobility Jezreel a very similar hebrew word means scattered like scattering chaff to the wind is blows away it's gone be the very opposite Israel imply substance wait Jezreel implies flaky light blowing in the wind lost you see and the point is Israel becomes Jezreel that which had weight and dignity is going to be cast aside that's the idea and the name of this child is supposed to communicate that that that's part of the judgment that's coming is that there's going to be this loss of national identity is there cast aside the mention here of Jay who is actually a little bit more of a specific historical datum Jay who was a commander under King Ahab you recall a hab and Jezebel wicked and God had pronounced the judgment against them and commissioned Jay who to go and purge the family of Ahab which he did he was anointed by Elijah and went and carried out that task but because Jehu although he did what he was supposed to do did it for the wrong reasons he did it with misguided motives he did the right thing for the wrong reasons in other words he also comes under the judgment of God he did it for the selfish reasons for reasons of personal achievement and ambition rather than simply to obey the the the command of God to him and so God pronounces a judgment that he will not have more than five in other words cluding himself for successors to the throne he became the king it was followed by two hodad's followed by joash known as also his joash followed by Jeroboam the second followed by Zachariah then kaput end of the line for Jehu the reason Jezreel is associated with Jehu is that the place where jay who had killed a hab and his family was just real it was a location and so Jay who has that particular name associated with him and now the name that's given to the son of Hosea is in part to say the reign of Jehu or the dynasty of Jay who is going to end but probably in a more profound sense the very national existence of Israel is going to become Jezreel so you've got all of those themes tucked into that statement a message of judgment then verse six she conceived again and bore a daughter then the Lord said to him name her lo-ruhamah for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel to forgive them the name lo-ruhamah is fundamentally the Hebrew word for not pitied or not loved so they're not only being scattered to the four winds but they're being cut off from God's pity God's care for them is going to be terminated here nevertheless verse seven I will have pity on the house of Judah the South Jerusalem I will save them by the love by the Lord their God I will not save them by bow or sore war horses or horsemen so a differentiation here the northern tribes are gonna be thrown to the four winds scattered not pitied gone Hosea's marriage these names of these children designed to communicate these wayward people are finally going to be cut off as it were divorced but God would continue to care for Judah the reason is because the godly line leading to Messiah was through Judah especially through the house of David so God would preserve them but not through armaments of military might when Messiah finally comes it would be as a root out of dry ground it'd be like a shoot out of a dead stump that's the way the house of David looked by the first century it looked like it was dead but nevertheless there was Joseph there was married descendants of David and out of them out of their family came the Messiah so he's going to preserve Judah albeit through difficult tumultuously a scattered not pitied thrown away you see and then finally verse 8 she can see when she had weaned lo-ruhamah she conceived and bore a son then the Lord said name him lo army for you are not my people and I am not your God that's divorce language I am you're not my people I am not your God your unfaithfulness has led to a termination I've been married to a wayward woman goddess say and you've been wavered enough it's over you're scattered you're not pitied you're cut off had the book ended there it would be perfectly appropriate but God is always relentlessly unexpectedly gracious you see so just about the time we think that's it the last nail in the coffin is in stories over then we have verse 10 and this huge word yes yeah you think it's as bad as it can get and then you've got a big word like but or yet or nevertheless you see that's grace all through the Bible and so here's the gracious yet verse ten the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea which could neither be measured or numbered and in the place where it was said to them you are not my people there it will be said to them you're children of the Living God the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together and they'd see the Judah and Israel these true that have been separated so long gathered now and they still a point for themselves one head who is obviously Messiah and they shall take possession of the land for great shall be the day of Jezreel say to your brother army not lo army not my people but army my people and say to your sister rahu ma you see not lo-ruhamah not pity but rue hama pity a reversal here we might wonder exactly how does this happen this great message of hope and one of the things we have the advantage of us to see some of these texts through the lens of the New Testament so for example this text that we just quoted here beginning at verse 10 is quoted by Paul in Romans chapter 9 in which he is construing its meaning from a New Testament point of view and the sense that Paul derives out of this text is that God had and since cast away these people and yet in a sense at the same time preserve them so that at some point in the future he would pour out in some remarkable and unexpected way a new and rich blessing which was manifestly in Paul's mind through the Messiah see the Romans 9 text really develops this whole theme when Paul says in verse 6 not all Israel are of Israel not every descendant of Jacob is true Israelite ethnicity is not the issue as to whether a person is truly Israel those who are of faith are the seed of Abraham the New Testament emphasizes Paul says in Romans 2 the Jew is not one outwardly in the flesh but true Jewishness is inward its circumcision as it were of heart you say not a body that makes the person a true Israelite and so this means the Gentiles with Jewish people can all come through the door of Messiah and become the seed of Abraham heirs of the promises to Abraham and his seed that's the spin that Paul puts on this text from the New Testament point of view and yet Paul is very clear in Romans chapter 9 to say that those who populate this new Israel of the New Testament are still in part Jewish people he calls them from Israel and from the Gentiles you see the criterion is faith in Christ not blood or birth or some kind of you know status ethnicity or anything like that but it's a matter of faith and so all of these people come in that's the way Paul views this text and I think that's the way we have to view it as Christian people from a New Testament point of view looking at it nevertheless even from the Old Testament point of view there is a sense of looking forward to God still even though he throws these people to the four winds hanging on to them somehow hanging on to them and with that in mind I'd like to know I'm going to skip by a fair amount of chapter 2 I certainly would recommend you read it it's but I'd like to jump down and land at verse 21 where he's picking up the same theme and in a sense we're looking at this now once again from an Old Testament perspective looking forward to the work of Messiah and verse 21 on that day I will answer says the Lord I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth and the earth shall answer the grain and the grain the wine and the oil and they shall answer Jes Rio and I will show him for myself in the land there's a play on words here that so rich because the word Jezreel does mean to scatter but it also means to scatter in the sense of two so it's a it's a stunning kind of image we think of Israel the ten northern tribes being hauled off into captivity in 722 scattered lost end of national existence it's over kaput is it that's in some ways the feel and yet what Hosea is saying is that in even though there's that aspect of it which needs to be taken seriously in some sense or other these people of Israel as they're being scattered are being scattered like seed and that's another meaning of the word Jezreel to scatter seed and seed of course grows and so here these people they're thrown to the world and yet many of them regardless of where they wound up began to grow they've been cut off from their land because of their disobedience it'd been a huge catastrophic reversal of national fortunes it seemed as if there was no hope and yet God's grace still didn't quite let go of them and here one of them winds up in media one winds up in Persia one winds up in Babylon one rides up over on Asia Minor and Lydia and that vicinity and one right wave may be clear over in Greece and elsewhere they these people is scattered you see around the ancient world yet everywhere they want they go many of them kind of hang on to their faith and even in that very disparate dispersed circumstance they become seed and so there's a different sense to Jezreel hammock here the earth shall answer they shall ant I will sow them for myself in the land verse 23 I will have pity on lo-ruhamah you see I will say to lo ami you are my people and he shall say you are my God that even in this circumstance of huge loss God is still pursuing and that brings us back to the story of Hosea we gather that Hosea went he found this woman Gomer a process possibly this is not certain but it's likely she may have been a temple prostitute but that was nevertheless still not an easy life and people didn't wind up in that profession because they had a really great upbringing in a wonderful home that's not the way you wound up there these were usually people with tragic stories and they find themselves in that circumstance but however it may have been hosea finds this woman he marries her they form a home they have children Hosea probably entertained at least at some point the hope that she had indeed been rescued she was probably rough around the edges you know she was probably not exactly cultured and refined as maybe Hosea himself had been but nevertheless his love was going to conquer his love was going to transform her into not only someone who would be a faithful wife to him but a faithful worshiper of God way and all of that was probably in his mind in his hopes and so reading between the lines we come with a jolt then to verse 1 of chapter 3 when it says the Lord said to me again go love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress just as the Lord loves the people of Israel though they turned to other gods and love raisin cakes watch out for raisin cakes out there you what happened this woman had come and she had been with Hosea and had been his wife but kind of like woody alluded in the sermon this morning one day she got up and left a note on the refrigerator she was gone don't know if Hosea saw that coming we don't know what the emotions were that he went through we know that he had made the great sacrifice here to try to give her a better life to do things for her that she could never have reasonably expected would be done she thought she had disqualified himself from the good light and yet she somehow was the special object of Hosea's affection and love and all been winning her and making her and yet she walks away she walks right back to the street I mean what kind of dagger was that in the heart of Hosea I don't know Hosea knew that was coming but it really made the object less than all that more profound and poignant because that was exactly the way the people of God responded to Yahweh their Lord and I have to say to you frankly it's the way we treat our Lord he does good things for us and day by day we find ways to commit treason against him we know what we should do and yet somehow we find ways to sidestep God's call on us you know that I know that well maybe you don't maybe I do that and how do we justify that and what does it what is it you see what have I done since I rolled out of bed this morning that gives God any justification to give me the next breath I take what is it mercy did we live by Mercy day in and day out and then we'll presume on that mercy and walk away and pursue our own course disregarding this God who's loved us just as Gomer walks away leaves a note on the refrigerator she's gone out of there back on the street this mention of raisin cakes by the way the reason that top pops up this is by the way part of the reason people have thought that Gomer may have been involved in temple prostitution was that raisin cakes were one of the standard offerings that were brought to pagan temples and so the fact that Hosea makes that mention of it at this point seems to suggest rather strongly that she wasn't simply a woman of the street but kind of a woman of the religious Street which was still not a happy career choice and so anyway she's gone and God says there God says to Hosea again go and get her second time even though she's dealt you this your love is not going to give up so first - I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a Homer of barley and a measure of wine this is redemption this is his wife but he's redeeming her out of slavery this was the standard price of a slave it's an agrarian culture so the medium of exchange for goods and services included in part your commodities like this silver barley wine a goodly amount a fair Sun and so Hosea has to buy what is his own possession to buy her out of slavery you see and bring her back and I said to her Hosea speaking he brings her back home back to her children back to the place where she should have been all along I said to her you must remain as mine for many days you shall not play the you shall not have intercourse with a man nor I with you he brings her back and yet the very circumstance of the situation requires that and essentially be brought back in some sort of provisional way she's brought back and this again is an argument that this was a temple prostitution kind of situation because there was an understanding in ancient paganism which slopped over into the Israelite culture that if a woman had been involved in temple prostitution and then finally left that she had to remain celibate for an extended period of time as and there's kind of a whole you know mythology associated with that that it frees her in a sense from the spirits that were involved in that particular acid way of life I don't really go into detail it's not really all that pertinent but the idea here is that Hosea is respecting that that she has to come back but in a sense they're going to live a celibate life at least for a time we don't know if it's forever but the point is that it's it's you know a recovery now but it's different and that becomes a message to Israel because what he says in the next verse explains in a sense how that parallels the national experience for Israel verse 4 for the Israelites shall may remain for many days without king or Prince without sacrifice or pillar without ephod or teraphim all those terms are simply ways of describing worship in Israel the temple the epod you know the the garment worn by the priests all of the trappings and accoutrement associated with the worship of Yahweh at the right time in the right place are gone and in a sense these people now are going to be in a kind of celibate as it were existence cut off from their God because they've taken lightly the benefits of being with him they're now going to be as it were in the proverbial two ladies that we're probably that they're going to be cut off from him you don't know I make this up as I go along it's it's sometimes I say things and then I think why did I say that later so but anyway he's they're going to be isolated from their covenant husband here separated and in a sense that's the way Gomer finds herself cut off she's with her husband but not with him and how long would that last well in the history of the Israel it lasted for a long time you see they were cut off from the land they were exported deported for many years finally they began trickling back this is after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus and 539 and then of course Ezra Nehemiah that whole story you may know some of that where they come trickling back into the land representing all 12 tribes not just to 12 tribes finding their way back into the land gradually but never quite realizing the way it used to be never quite having the great privileges that were theirs until some new dazzling thing happens and it doesn't happen until the first century when God gives the greatest gift of all indeed David who had been anticipated all through these year and the hint of that then is in verse five afterward verse five the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king that's messianic the reason the Judah was preserved through those years was so that David their King the Lion of the tribe of David you see the root and offspring of David his revelation tells us Messiah Christ Jesus would come on the scene and he would be the final realization of the true covenant husband from whom they had been cut off all those years just as Gomer was at least for a time cut off as it were from her husband while nevertheless being redeemed back to him it's a it's a remarkable story it's a remarkable lesson object lesson the possibilities of thinking about this the layers of which we can think about it personally are just infinite but I've tried to at least this morning give us some idea of the basic historical setting and significance of our good friend Hosea thank you all let's let's have a word of Prayer and we'll be dismissed father were grateful for this remarkable character Hosea that he is he had to exhibit such remarkable human love for one who challenged his emotions gives us a dim reflection of you who have pursued us and how many times have we left a note on the refrigerator for you and yet you still came this Hound of heaven we're grateful for that we thank you that we manifestly don't deserve it we continue to be the objects of that mercy and we pray that you would win our hearts increasingly so that we wouldn't be wayward but that we would be those who find with increasing desire energy and integrity find our way into the very presence of your goodness we give you thanks for it we thank you for the time we've had together this morning Jesus [Music] you

Channel: Bruce Gore

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Keywords: Hosea, prophet hosea, minor prophets, Old Testament, Bruce Gore, Bible Study

Id: tFFEgNnv0I0

Length: 49min 15sec (2955 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020