The book of the Prophet Hosea. Hosea lived
in the northern kingdom of Israel which he sometimes calls EPHRAM or JACOB
about two hundred years after they had broken off from southern Judah. Remember
the story from 1 Kings. Hosea was called to speak on God´s behalf during
the reign of one of Israel's worst Kings Jeroboam the second. The nation was
descending into chaos, and in the year 722 the big bad Assyrian empire swooped
in, and decimated Israel. Again, see the story in 2nd Kings and Hosea had seen
all of this coming. the book is a collection of some
twenty-five years of his preaching and writing it's almost all poetry and this
whole collection has been designed to have three main sections. Lets just dive in you'll see how it works.
The opening part tells the story of Hosea´s broken marriage to a woman named
Gomer, who commits adultery. Now it's not totally clear whether Gomer slept around
with other men before or only after they got married, but they did have three
children together and things fell apart. The important point is that God tells Hosea
that despite Gomer´s unfaithfulness He is to go find her, to pay off her debts to
her lovers, and to commit his love and faithfulness to her once again, and then
God says that all of this: the broken and repaired marriage, the children, it's all
a prophetic symbol telling the story of God's relationship to Israel. So God has
been like a faithful husband to Israel, He rescued them out of slavery, He brought
them to Mount Sinai where He entered into a covenant with them. He asked them
to be faithful to Him alone, but then He brought Israel into the promised land
and they took all the abundance that He gave them and they dedicated it to the
worship of the Canaanite god baal, and so God has a legitimate reason. He could end the covenant and divorce Israel and He thinks about doing so but
instead, He says that He's going to pursue Israel again and renew His
covenant with them. And He says why. It's purely because of His own love,
compassion and faithfulness. Hosea then spells out what all this means. He says
the consequences for Israel's rebellion will be imminent defeat by other nations
and exile. But there's hope for future restoration. One day Israel will once again repent
and come back to worship their God and Hosea says he will place over them a new
messianic King from the line of David who will bring God's blessing. And so this
opening section introduces all the main ideas of the book. Israel has rebelled and God's going to
bring severe consequences but, God's own covenant love and mercy are more
powerful than Israel's sin. And so in the remaining sections of the book Hosea´s poetry explores these themes in more depth. So there are two collections of his
accusations and warnings for Israel and then each of these is concluded by a
very hopeful poem about God's mercy and hope for the future. So chapters 4 through 10, Hosea
explores the causes and effects of Israel's unfaithfulness. He says numerous
times that Israel lacks all knowledge or understanding of God. The Hebrew word "to know" which is Yadá it's more than just intellectual activity it described
personal relational knowledge Is the difference between just knowing about
someone and then actually knowing that someone. And God wants Israel to know Him
like that, in a relationship. He wants them to experience His love for them and
become the kind of knowledge that transforms their hearts and lives so
that they love Him in return. And so this is why Hosea is constantly exposing the
hypocrisy of Israel's worship. He constantly shows how they're breaking
the Ten Commandments, how they're allowing grave injustice in their
communities and then they go to their sacred temples and they offer sacrifices
to God like everything is just fine. But it's not fine and not only because of
their hypocrisy because they're worshiping all of these other gods too. He mentions many times their altars to baal at the cities of Bethel and Gilgal and
not only have they given their allegiance to other gods Hosea repeatedly accuses Israel for trusting in their political alliances with Egypt and
Assyria. So instead of trusting God to protect them they want to become like
these nations and rely solely on military power and God says its all going
to come crashing down on their head because in not too long Assyria will turn on them and come to ravage their lands. In this other section of warning Hosea gives an ancient Israelite history lesson to
show how this family's been unfaithful from the beginning so he alludes to the
patriarch Jacob´s lying and treachery --remember Genesis 27 and 28-- he alludes to
Israel's rebellion in the wilderness --remember the Book of Numbers-- he alludes to their appointment of the corrupt King Saul who led the people into sin and
disaster --remember the stories in 1 Samuel-- this is all Hosea´s way of
saying "some things in this family never change." So what hope does Hosea have. What we know from Chapter 3 that God's going to do something to save and restore His people and that´s what these two concluding chapters explore.
Chapter 11 is beautiful. The poem depicts God as a loving father who raised His
son Israel and then shared everything with him but the son grew up and rebelled
and turned on the father, taking advantage of His generosity and so in
this poem God is emotionally torn apart. One moment He's angry and naturally He
says He's going to bring severe consequences but the next moment He's
heartbroken and then he says that He's moved by His mercy and compassion and
He's going to forgive the son that He loves. He says how can I give you up, Ephram? My heart churns inside of Me all my compassion is aroused. And so while God did allow Israel to be conquered by Assyria face the consequences... that's not God's final word there's still hope. And that's what the last chapter is about. Hosea calls Israel to repent and turn back to their God but he knows that it won't last because it never has before. And God says that one day He will heal their waywardness and love them freely. God goes on to describe
this new healed Israel as a lush tree that will grow deep roots and broad
branches and offer shade and fruit to all of the nations. It's an image of God's
promise to Abraham - how Israel was to become a blessing to the nations and
God is saying if that's ever going to happen it's going to require an act of God's grace and healing power to
repair the deep brokenness and sinful selfishness of the human heart so that
God's people can receive His love and love Him in return. This is what God promises to do. After
this poem concludes we find the very last words of the book. They´re like an
appended note. They're likely from the author who collected Hosea´s poetry and
now wants to speak to you the reader for a second and he says who is wise and
discerning to understand all of this, in other words, Hosea´s poems. The ways of the Lord are right. The righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them, so the
author wants you to know that Hosea´s ancient poetry to northern Israel is not
locked in the past. It reveals deep truth about God's character and purposes and
human nature and while God should and does bring His justice on human evil, His
ultimate purpose, His heart, is to heal and to save His people and that's what the book of Hosea is all about.
