Hosea Week 4
Review Hosea 1-9
Hosea prophesies over a long period of time potentially 30+ years
The major theme in his book is spiritual adultery and he uses the imagery of physical adultery to demonstrate it.
Thought she is a wayward bride, God is always call for Israel to return
Hosea uses lots of imagery, “Israel is like a…” we’ll see more of that today.
9:10-17
We’ll label this section - “The end of Israel’s children”
Let’s highlight some words that keep coming up in this section.
Vs. 11 - birth, pregnancy, conception - underline those
Vs 12 - children - underline that
Vs 13 - children - underline that
Vs 14 - womb - underline that
Vs 16 - birth, children - underline those
You can see how this section has a common theme running through it. Now let’s walk through each verse and see what it says about that theme.
Vs 10 - He’s talking about Israel’s “fathers” so this is a reference to Israel’s history. You’ll remember that the people of Israel came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and crossed into the wilderness. They go to Mt. Sinai where God calls them to keep his commandments and the people say, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” That’s a great start. In our verse, God compares this surprising and refreshingly great start to the refreshing surprise of stumbling across fruit in the wilderness. “Wow! There’s grapes out here. This is great.” or “Wow! The fig tree is already ripening. This is great!” But then they make it through the wilderness and are just about to go into the promised land. They’re right next to the Jordan river when they get caught in Baal worship and sexual sin at a place called Baal-peor. You can read about that one in Numbers 25. “Well, that devotion to me was short-lived.” In last week’s Hosea passage he compares their love to the morning fog. Seems big at the beginning then disappears quickly and we see that again here. It’s a common theme that they start well and end poorly.
Vs 11-12 - In verse 11 we see that Ephraim’s glory shall fly away and then at the end of vs 12 it says that God will depart from them. Which is it? Oh! God is Ephraim’s glory! God is saying that he will fly away from them like a bird. And what is the result? When God leaves, they will no longer have any children. The children that they already have will grow up and then they will become barren. What happens when your nation stops having children? You have no future. Part of God’s blessing on his people is giving them children - Ps. 127:3 says children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is a reward. And for Israel he says, I’m removing that blessing from you. Now let’s be careful not to apply this wrongly. This does not mean that if you are unable to have children that God is also punishing you. It would be wrong to state this absolutely so that all lack of children is always a punishment for unfaithfulness. Just as it would be wrong to say that Jonah was punished with a storm in a boat so every time you experience a storm in a boat he’s punishing you too. No, this specific punishment is God’s way of ending Israel. Their nation will be finished within a generation.
Vs 13 - I don’t really understand. There’s some translation issues here that make it difficult so we’ll just keep moving.
Vs 14 - The only gift they will receive from the Lord at this point is miscarriage, again the blessing of children is removed from Israel
Vs. 15 The reference to Gilgal is interesting also. We mentioned Baal-Peor being where the Israelites were just before they crossed the Jordan into the land. Gilgal is where they were right after they crossed the Jordan. When they get to Gilgal they have a covenant renewal ceremony, almost like renewing the marriage vows they made with God at Mt. Sinai. However, later in Israel’s history Saul would notably sin at Gilgal and it would turn into a place of false worship.
There’s something important in vs 15 we need to pause at. God says “there I began to hate them”. Does God hate people? The old adage is that we should hate the sin and love the sinner and often we apply that to God too. That he hates sin but loves sinners. However, very clearly in this verse it states “I began to hate them” that is the people of Israel who had broken his covenant. Just so we’re clear that this isn’t an isolated reference to God hating people, it occurs elsewhere in the Bible also
Ps. 5:5 - “you hate all evildoers”
Ps. 11:5 - “his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence”
Mal. 1:3-4 - “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated”
What does this hatred mean? Let’s start with what it does not mean. God’s hatred is not like ours. It is not tainted with sin. It is not bitter hatred towards someone who didn’t meet your selfish desires. It is not an explosive hatred as if God just flew off the handle in anger. God’s anger and hatred are always perfectly patient and perfectly timed. Think of Noah. God’s anger burned against the people, but then he didn't send a flood for somewhere between 50-100 years. Or even this sinful nation of Israel. They immediately sinned when the nation was divided and Jeroboam set up golden calves. God allows 250 years to pass before he fully executes his judgment on them and even then he’s calling them to repent. So God’s hatred is not explosive or selfish.
It is however related to his covenant and his blessings. When God says he began to hate them, he is stepping away from demonstrating his patient endurance with sin that shows his grace and is now demonstrating his justice through the removal of the covenant blessings and enacting the covenant curses. The hatred of God is the removal of his gracious overlooking of sin and the enacting of his judgment against sin. To be hated by God is for the sinner to be experiencing the justice of one who is holy and destroys sin.
Vs 16 - 17 - have more references to God ending their family line and ending their national identity.
10:1-8
If we wanted to label this second section it would be the end of Israel’s false worship. Let’s highlight some words that describe worship in this section so that you can see it as a theme
Vs 1 you see altars and pillars - underline those
The pillars were tall stones they would stand up for false worship
Vs 2 you see altars and pillars again - underline those
Vs 5 - the calf of Beth-aven - underline that.
Think golden calf type false idol
In vs 5 you also have idolatrous priests - underline that
Vs 6 - his idol - underline that
Vs 8 - high places and altars - underline those
So it’s pretty clear just through the repetition of these worship related words that this section is going to be about false worship.
Vs 1 - He describes Israel as a vine that increased in lots of fruit. So let’s think about this, how would Israel receive really fruitful harvests? How would they grow lots of vines and lots of fruit? It comes back to the promises he had made in his law. Listen to what God says in Leviticus 26:3-4
“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
This is repeated multiple times throughout the law. If they obey God, he will bless them with rain and crops. But here he blesses them and it causes them to make more altars to false gods. I wonder how often God blesses us with something and we think “Good, now I can use this thing selfishly and treat it as if it belongs to me and is because of me.”
Jump down to Vs 5 and we see the mention of the calf of “Beth-aven”. I think this is a fun example of Hosea being snarky. If you remember what we’ve mentioned multiple times about Israel setting up golden calves for worship, you’ll know that as soon as the kingdom split, King Jeroboam built two golden calves to prevent people from going back to Jerusalem. One was way up north in Dan. No one talks much about that one. The other was down south near the border with Judah in a place called Bethel. The name Bethel is from two Hebrew words. Beth - means house. For instance Beth-lehem means the HOUSE of bread. The other word is -el which means God. So any name that ends in -el like Daniel, Ezekiel, Joel, Michael, etc. has God in the meaning. Like Daniel is “God judges”. So the name Beth-el means House - of God. However Hosea refuses to call it the house of God here and he changes its name to Beth-aven. Which means “house of wickedness.” So like I said, he’s being a bit snarky.
Notice here that the people are sad and mourning over the loss of these things. Last week, I told you that there is a worldly grief that mourns over the loss of stuff and not the loss of a relationship with God. Here’s another example of that. They are sad because of the glory of their idol that departed. They should have been sad that the glory of God departed which we saw a moment ago in 9:12
Let’s jump to the next section it’s going to be 10:9 down to the end of the chapter at 10:15
10:9-15
If this section had a label it might be the end of Israel’s nation, this one is a bit of a stretch, but I think it’s close to what’s happening here
Vs 9-10 talks about Gibeah. Gibeah represents perhaps the lowest point in Israel’s history. I’ll let you read about it on your own in Judges 19-21, but it’s a story of rape, murder, kidnapping, and violence that is just horrific. It’s told to highlight what life was like in the time of Judges because “there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in his own eyes” What ends up happening is that 11 of Israel’s tribes all gather together against the tribe of Benjamin where Gibeah is located. There’s a war that nearly wipes Benjamin out of existence. But everyone agreed what they did was horrific. Here in our verses Hosea is stating that just like all the tribes gathered against Gibeah for its horrible crimes, God will gather the nations against Israel for its horrible crimes.
Vs 11-13 all go together. The image here is of a calf that has been trained to pull the farm equipment without the use of a heavy yoke. At first Israel was very cooperative with God doing what he asked and vs 12 was what always happened. They sowed righteousness and they reaped God’s covenant love. When they broke up their hard hearts in humility and sought the Lord he rained righteousness upon them. But instead of continuing to do that, they have now plowed iniquity and reaped injustice. And therefore war will come destroy them
I wonder how many of us tend to try to coast on the faithfulness we expressed in our youth. When we were younger and first became Christians we were highly involved and very passionate and loved serving and caring and giving and now we’ve kind of cooled off a little in our older age. And it’s easy to still think of ourselves as that awesome younger person who really was passionate. I imagine Israel had that same temptation. We used to be awesome, I think that still counts. But Hosea constantly brings up, you started well, but you have ended horribly and it results in the loss of all of his blessings.
Ok. Final section 11:1-11
11:1-11
I would label this section “Not the end of Israel”. We had the end of Israel’s children, and the end of Israel’s false worship, and the end of Israel’s nation, but now we see it’s not the end of Israel altogether.
Vs 1-4 change the relational metaphor between God and his people. Instead of it being a husband and his wayward wife, now it describes a father with his wayward child. It is a very intimate sounding relationship. He’s a father holding his child’s hands while they learn to walk. He leads them gently. He bends down and feeds them.
But nonetheless they keep running away from him when he calls. I had a dream the other night where my son Jase was playing somewhere dangerous and I kept calling to him to stop and he was not listening at all. It was awful. That’s what God is experiencing here. His beloved little son Israel is running from him and refusing to turn back. But any of you who have experienced a wayward child know that you don’t just give up on them and abandon them. Listen to how God talks about them in vs 8.
“How can I give you up O Ephraim? How can I hand you over O Israel”
Then he lists some towns that were completely destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (You can see Admah and Zeboiim in Deuteronomy 29:23). Instead of destroying them his compassion grows warm and tender.
I want to end with verse 9. It’s very significant. A pastor named Dane Ortlund wrote a book entitled Gentle and Lowly describing the heart of Christ for sinners. I would have brought it to show you, but I’ve let someone borrow it. In that book he highlights this exact verse because it shows us something shocking. It exposes what we think God is like versus what he is actually like.
When we read the minor prophets, there’s lots of judgment. People sin God judges them. They are destroyed. The reason God does this is because part of his character is wrath and justice. He is holy. Sin is wicked. He destroys sin. That’s that. Most of us understand that. But in verse 9 God does something unexpected. It says this.
I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will… “come in wrath” right?
That’s precisely what we would expect of God. If God looks at sin and at sinners, we would think he’s going to destroy them in wrath. When we think about how God acts towards sin - what’s the most God thing that God could do towards sin? If he’s being true to the heart of what it means to be God, he’ll destroy those sinners! Right? But that’s not what this verse says at all.
God is completely unlike us. He is absolutely holy. Therefore, the most God-like thing he can do is to not come in wrath. The most God thing he can do is to not execute his burning anger. But to have warm and tender compassion.
What does this mean to you? It means that when you sin against God, his default position is not to destroy you. When you come to God and you bring your sin with you, the most holy and God-like thing he can do is to show you mercy and forgive you if you’ll ask for it. That’s what his heart is towards sinners. He doesn’t forgive them begrudgingly. As if he was really hoping to destroy us, but we’ve tricked him and now he has to forgive us. He wants so desperately to forgive. He’s like a parent with their little child. I love you so much and nothing would make me happier than to see you turn to me so that I can lift you up and care for you. You have treated me horribly, but I want to forgive. You’ve ruined yourself and you deserve punishment, but I want to have compassion. This is what kind of God he is and this is how he describes himself. Remember Exodus 34:6 “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”
Israel will be removed from the land as discipline, but they will not be utterly destroyed