THE BOOK OF HOSEA: AN AMAZING LOVE STORY
Bro. Bill Yake Arlington, Virginia [email protected]
Unless otherwise noted, all verses cited from the English Standard Version (ESV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 1 United Flight 250: Washington, D.C. to Portland July 26, 2018
Passenger to Bill Yake: “I’m a teacher of religious studies at Georgetown Prep…”
“I’m not really familiar with either with the Old Testament or the Book of Hosea. I’m interested in this. Please tell me about the book and its themes….can you wrap this up in 1 minute?”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 2 Class 1: Marriages of Hosea Class 3: Refusal of Israel to Repent and Yahweh to Unfaithful of Her Adultery (Hosea 6-7) Spouses (Hosea 1-3) Class 4: Judgment of Israel by God Class 2: Spiritual and Physical (Hosea 8-10) Adultery of Israel (Hosea 4-5) Class 5: Restoration of Israel to God (Hosea 11-14)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 3 Class 1: Marriage of Hosea to Gomer and Marriage of Yahweh to Israel (Hosea 1-3)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 4 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 5 What’s In A Name? ’,Hošēā‘, ‘salvation ,הֹו ֵשׁ ַע .The prophet Hosea (Heb Gr., Ὠσηέ, Ōsēe - see Romans 9:25), whose name is identical with the original name of Joshua (Numbers 13:6), and Hoshea, the last king of Israel (2 Kings 15:30). The names Hosea, Joshua, Hoshea, and Jesus are all from the same Hebrew root word. "Hosea" translates as "salvation" but "Joshua" and "Jesus" carry an additional idea: "Yahweh Is Salvation."
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 6 The Difficulties of the Book of Hosea “Scarcely any book in the Old Testament is more difficult of exposition than the Book of Hosea….It is his heart that speaks…the sentences fall from him like the sobs of a broken heart.”
James Robertson, “Hosea” in James Orr, ed., The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1939/1994), Vol. 3, p. 1426.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 7 The Book of Hosea: The Challenge “The book of Hosea is one of the most turgid, confused, difficult parts of the Bible….Few can pick up the book and read it with much intelligent understanding, unless they have a background of knowledge of the man and his times, against which to set the strangely confused sentences.”
William Pierson Merrill, Prophets of the Dawn: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah: The Beginnings of the Religion of the Spirit (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1927), p. 74.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 8 Timeline: From Jeroboam I to Jeroboam II
Jeroboam I Elijah Jeroboam II
920 B.C. 860 B.C. 750 B.C. “Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” - 1 Kings 19:18 (NASB)
Israel’s population in 800 B.C. was estimated to be about 450,000. http://bibleissues.atspace.com/israel/finalpop.htm
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 9 Eighth Century B.C. Prophets
“of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” - Hebrews 11:38
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 10 OMRI 884-873 B.C.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 11 The Book of Hosea: Perspectives
Personal • Hosea 1-3 Prophetic • Hosea 4-14
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 12 Gross Darkness During The Time of Prophet Hosea “The time during which Hosea prophesied was the darkest period in the history of the kingdom of Israel….Politically all was anarchy or misrule; kings made their way to the throne through the murder of their predecessors, and made way for their successors through their own…The whole kingdom of Israel was a military despotism…” E.B. Pusey, “Introduction to the Minor Prophets, and Chiefly to Hosea” in E.B. Pusey, ed., Barnes’ Notes: The Minor Prophets: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1885/1996), Vol. 8, pp. 10-11. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 13 Message of 8th Century Prophets
• Focus on justice for the poor, needy, and disenfranchised Amos (e.g., children, widows, orphans, foreigners, poor, etc.)
• Justice is essential, but is also subordinate to mercy Hosea • Focus on faithfulness, love and mercy
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 14 Book of Hosea: Main Themes
The Lord Jesus Christ Book of Hosea (Matthew 23:23) a. Love a. Love b. Faithfulness b. Faithfulness c. Justice c. Justice d. Mercy d. Mercy
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 15 Unfaithful to God
Arrogant Israel’s Do not and Main love their Ignorant Problems neighbors
Gross Idolatry (Baal)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 16 Israel’s Worship of Baal “They forsook the LORD, the “He [Ahaziah] served and worshiped Baal and aroused the God of their ancestors, who anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, had brought them out of just as his father had done.” Egypt. They followed and - 1 Kings 22:53 (NIV) worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the LORD's “And Elijah came near to all the anger because they forsook people and said, ‘How long will you go limping between two different him and served Baal and the opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Ashtoreths.” him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ And the people did not answer him a word.” - Judges 2:12-13 (NIV) 1 Kings 18:21
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 17 Israel in the Eighth Century: Ideas on Safety and Security
Israel relied strictly on their military strength and political alliances
Prophets exhorted Israel to rely on God and seek first His righteousness
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 18 Not Unlike Our Own Day “The days of…Jeroboam II [who reigned from about 782 to 741 B.C.] in Israel were marked by great prosperity, in fact, the most prosperous for the Northern Kingdom. Israel was at the height of her power under this king. The period was one of great wealth, luxury, arrogance, carnal security, oppression of the poor, moral decay, and formal worship. The moral declension and spiritual degeneration of the people was appalling.” Charles Lee Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976), p. 86. See 2 Kings 14:23-29 for detailed account of the reign of Jeroboam II. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 19 Between Hosea and Today: The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same
The parallels between the Israel 753 B.C. that Hosea knew and the world in which we live are remarkably close:
• Peace and Prosperity
• Material Affluence
• Moral Decay and Corruption A.D. 2018 • Religious Syncretism
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 20 “It Was The Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times”
“It was a situation which in Politically and many ways is closely paralleled economically, it was by the contemporary affluent a time of peace and prosperity society of the twentieth under the long and secure reign century, a society, which like of Jeroboam II who reigned that of Israel, is characterised 41 years, and he significantly by selfishness, a lack of “restored the territory of Israel” moral sense, and a general (2 Kings 14:25). indifference towards the needs of others… The lesson of Israel Spiritually, however, it was needs to be remembered in this a time of rampant corruption day and age.” and moral decay (2 Kings 14:24). J.K. Howard, Amos Among The Prophets (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1967), p. 93.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 21 “Now I Know What You Mean” “The message of hope in Hosea’s book reveals that the harsh punishment was not an end in itself, but rather paved the way for a rekindled romance. After all, one cannot build a true relationship on the basis of punishment.”
-Zdravko Stefanovic, Thus Says the Lord: Messages From the Minor Prophets (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2012), p. 18.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 22 Style in the Book of Hosea “An interesting characteristic of Hosea’s literary style is a rare skill in using graphic metaphors and apposite epigrams [fitting, clever sayings], which convey his message most arrestingly. These parables in miniature undoubtedly made considerable impact upon the minds of his hearers; and they would linger in their memories, for such vivid word-pictures are not soon forgotten.” Herbert F. Stevenson, Three Prophetic Voices: Studies in Joel, Amos and Hosea (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), p. 126.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 23 Flora and Fauna Similes in The Book of Hosea FAUNA FLORA Israel: “heifer” and “lamb” - Hosea 4:16 Israel: “grapes” - Hosea 9:10 God: “moth” and “dry rot” - Hosea 5:12 Ephraim: “palm” – Hosea 9:13 God: “lion” and “young lion” - Hosea 5:14 Israel: “dove” - Hosea 7:11 Israel: “root” and “fruit” - Hosea 9:16 Assyria: “eagle” or “vulture” – Hosea 8:1 Israel: “vine” - Hosea 10:1 Israel: “wild ass” - Hosea 8:9 Israel: “chaff” - Hosea 13:3 Israel: “bird” - Hosea 9:11 Israel: “lily,” “trees of Lebanon” Israel: “calf” - Hosea 10:11 and “olive” – Hosea 14:5-6 God: “lion” - Hosea 11:10 God: “evergreen Cyprus” - Hosea 14:8 Israel: “birds” and “doves” - Hosea 11:11 About 40 similes God: “lion” and “leopard” - Hosea 13:7 God: “bear,” “lion” and “wild beast” - Hosea 13:8 in Book of Hosea The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 24 Metaphors of People in The Book of Hosea PEOPLE “Guilty Mother” – Hosea 2:2 “Wife” – Hosea 2:2 “Harlot” – Hosea 2:4, 7 “Sick Person” – Hosea 5:13 “Gray Haired Man” – Hosea 7:9 “A Young Child” – Hosea 11:1 “Dishonest Merchant” – Hosea 12:7 “Unborn Son” – Hosea 13:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 25 Viewpoints: God’s vs. Ours
• Many people view religion Micah as “transactional” (business)
• God views religion as “relational”, e.g., LORD, Hosea husband and parent
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 26 Hosea 1-3: Perplexing Problem "The first three chapters of the Book of Hosea have furnished Hosea 1 one of the very interesting and one of the most perplexing Hosea 2 problems in the interpretation of Israelitish prophecy, from the Hosea 3 earliest commentators to the present day."
Leroy Waterman, "The Marriage of Hosea," Journal of Biblical Literature 37 (3-4) 1918, p. 193.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 27 Breakdown of Hosea 1-3
1. REJECTION: Symbolized in Hosea’s marriage (Hosea 1:2-9)
2. RESTORATION: On the basis of the covenant (Hosea 1:10-2:1)
3. REBUKE: Due to Israel’s infidelity (Hosea 2:2-13)
4. RENEWAL: Based on the covenant (2:14-23)
5. RECONCILIATION: Symbolized by Hosea’s marriage (3:1-5)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 28 The Book of Hosea: Its Three Main Sections Section Beginning: Section Ending: Section Chapters The Accusation The Return Section 1 Hosea 1-3 “…the land commits great harlotry “Afterward the children of Israel shall by forsaking the Lord” (Hosea 1:2) return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:5) Section 2 Hosea 4-11 “Hear the word of the LORD, O “they shall come trembling like birds children of Israel, for the LORD has a from Egypt, and like doves from the controversy with the inhabitants of land of Assyria, and I will return them the land. There is no faithfulness or to their homes, declares the LORD.” steadfast love, and no knowledge of (Hosea 11:11) God in the land” (Hosea 4:1) Section 3 Hosea 12-14 “…they multiply falsehood and “Those who live under its protection violence…The Lord has an will surely return. Their grain will indictment against Judah, and will flourish; they will blossom like a vine, punish Jacob according to his ways” and Israel's scent will be like wine (Hosea 12:1-2) from Lebanon.” (Hosea 14:7, ISV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 29 Book of Hosea: 5 Cycles of Judgment and Restoration Cycle 1 Judgment: Hosea 1:2-9 Restoration: Hosea 1:10 – Hosea 2:1
Judgment Cycle 2 Judgment: Hosea 2: 2-13 Restoration: Hosea 2:14 – Hosea 3:5
Cycle 3 Judgment: Hosea 4:1 – Hosea 5:14 Restoration: Hosea 5:15 – Hosea 6:3
Restoration Cycle 4 Judgment: Hosea 6:4 – Hosea 11:7 Restoration: Hosea 11:8-11
Cycle 5 Judgment: Hosea 11:12 – Hosea 13:16 Restoration: Hosea 14:1-9 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 30 Hosea 3:1 Gomer: The Adulterous Wife “But the wife of the prophet became an adulteress. What shame, what public disgrace, what burning anguish to the sensitive heart of the prophet! Ah, but no worse than the wife of Jehovah consorting with other gods and loving cakes of raisins…What shame and open scandal this was in the eyes of God can be gleaned only faintly from the counterpart on the human scale in the life of the prophet.” Charles Lee Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976), p. 24.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 31 Hosea 1 - The Marriage of Faithful Hosea and Adulterous Gomer “For centuries, Biblical readers and scholars have wrestled with what has rightly been called ‘the vexed question of Hosea’s marriage.’ It would seem that every possible theory has already been advanced, with regard both to the actual nature of the event and the two accounts of the incident, A (chapters 1-2) and B (chapter 3).” Robert Gordis, “Hosea’s Marriage and Message: A New Approach,” Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. 25 (1954), p. 9.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 32 Divine Direction “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.’” - Hosea 1:2
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 33 Hosea 1-3: Sequences of Events in Hosea’s Marriage to Gomer “The story of the marriage is told in Hosea 1-3. Unfortunately for us moderns, Scripture is more concerned with the message that arose from the marriage than with the human interest in it. As a result there is hardly a feature in it that can be interpreted with certainty.” Henry Leopold Ellison, The Prophets of Israel: From Ahijah to Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 97.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 34 Messenger and Message Alike “Hosea was not a mere messenger for God. He was also the message and the sign. His own life filled with pain and hope was a powerful sermon preached day by day to all who would listen and see….The story of Hosea’s marriage and family life served as the platform for the prophetic message that the Israelites needed to hear.”
-Zdravko Stefanovic, Thus Says the Lord: Messages From the Minor Prophets (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2012), pp. 20-21.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 35 The Marriage God is the Bridegroom (Exodus 6:7) at Mt. Sinai Israel is the Bride (Exodus 6:7) Moses is the “Best Man” “not like the covenant that (Exodus 19:17) I made with their fathers on Married Under a Chuppah the day when I took them by (Exodus 19:17) the hand to bring them out God Makes an Oath (Ketubah) to Israel of the land of Egypt, my (Exodus 19:5) covenant that they broke, Israel Agrees to the Ketubah though I was their husband, (Exodus 24:7) declares the LORD.” God gives copy of Ketubah to Israel (Exodus 20:1-17)
- Jeremiah 31:32 Marriage is consummated at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:15-16)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 36 Natural Spiritual Faithful Faithful Husband: Husband: Hosea Yahweh
Unfaithful Unfaithful Wife: Wife: Gomer Israel
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 37 HOSEA’S FAMILY TREE
Beeri Diblaim ? “well” or “pit” “double layers of grape cake”
Hosea Gomer “salvation” “complete”
Jezreel Lo-Ruhamah Lo-Ammi “God scatters” “not pitied” “not my people”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 38 Hosea 2 and Gomer’s Children Hosea 2:23 Jezreel “I will plant her for “God scatters” myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my Lo-Ruhamah loved one.' I will say to “No Mercy” those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my Lo-Ammi people'; and they will “Not my people” say, 'You are my God.'"
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 39 “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’
And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.” - Hosea 1:10-11 40 A Promise is a Promise: From Abraham to Hosea to Us “I will surely bless you, and “Yet the number of the I will surely multiply your children of Israel shall be offspring as the stars of like the sand of the sea, heaven and as the sand that which cannot be measured is on the seashore. And your or numbered. And in the offspring shall possess the place where it was said to gate of his enemies, and in them, ‘You are not my your offspring shall all the people,’ it shall be said to nations of the earth be them, ‘Children of the living blessed, because you have God.’” obeyed my voice.” - Hosea 1:10 - Genesis 22:17-18
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 41 Spiritual Harlotry in Time of Hosea “This period of Hosea’s ministry, from about 740 to 725 BC, was probably the most idolatrous period in all of Israel’s history. Hosea speaks out against this idolatry in the strongest terms. He brands it spiritual harlotry, and the entire first three chapters are dedicated to this theme….Because they believed that they were gaining material benefits from this Baal-worship, it became a kind of spiritual prostitution, practiced through lust and for material gain.” David Allan Hubbard, With Bands of Love: Lessons From the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 42-43.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 42 A Biblical Paradigm Shift Towards Reconciliation “In this setting, God has the right to divorce an adulterous “She will chase after her wife. Some interpreters lovers but not catch them; understand it to refer to the legal action of divorce she will look for them but proceedings. Others, however, not find them. Then she point out that God as husband seeks to avoid divorce and to will say, 'I will go back to find some means of my husband as at first, for reconciliation. In Hosea 2:7, for example, God as husband then I was better off than intervenes between his wife now.’” and her lovers in the hope that she will return to him.” Christina Bucher, The Prophecy of Amos and Hosea - Hosea 2:7 (NIV) (Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 1997), pp. 34-35.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 43 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 44 Fundamental Biblical Principle: We Can’t Serve Two Masters “And Elijah came near “No man can serve to all the people and said, ‘How long will two masters: for either you go limping he will hate the one, between two different and love the other; or opinions? If the LORD else he will hold to the is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow one, and despise the him.’ And the people other. Ye cannot serve did not answer him a God and mammon.” word.” 1 Kings 18:21 - Matthew 6:24 (KJV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 45 The Genesis of the Samaritan Problem of Worship “Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.”
- 2 Kings 17:41
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 46 Loss of Moral and Material Perspective “Their mother has been “She has not unfaithful and has acknowledged that conceived them in I was the one who gave disgrace. She said, 'I will her the grain, the new go after my lovers, who wine and oil, who give me my food and my lavished on her the water, my wool and my silver and gold-- which linen, my olive oil and they used for Baal.” my drink.‘” - Hosea 2:8 (NIV) - Hosea 2:5 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 47 Hosea 2:13-14 Paradox of Divine Grace “‘I will punish her for the days of the Regarding Hosea 2:14, “This is one of Baals when she used to offer sacrifices the most arresting verses in the book. to them and adorn herself with her Surely it will pronounce a third earrings and jewelry, and follow her judgment; a final stroke; a decisive lovers, so that she forgot Me,’ declares hammer blow! Not so, instead of a the LORD. climax in chastisement is something startlingly unexpected – the paradox of Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring divine grace. At the revealing of the her into the wilderness and speak extremity of sin, deserving severest kindly to her. Then I will give her vineyards from there, And the valley of judgment, is the pronouncement of Achor as a door of hope. And she will mercy, ‘I will allure her…and speak sing there as in the days of her youth, As comfortably (literally, ‘to the heart’) in the day when she came up from the unto her.” land of Egypt.” Herbert F. Stevenson, Three Prophetic - Hosea 2:13-15 (NASB) Voices: Studies in Joel, Amos and Hosea (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), p. 108.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 48 “And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my Forget About people, to swear by my name, ‘As the LORD lives,’ even as they Baal taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in “And in that day, the midst of my people.” declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My - Jeremiah 12:16 Husband,’ and no “How long shall there be lies in the longer will you call me heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy ‘My Baal.’” the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my - Hosea 2:16 name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?”
- Jeremiah 23:26-27
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 49 True Love Always Wins Out “We all have wilderness experiences in which, even if we aren’t being punished we feel abandoned, or at least distant from God. Hosea says that God comes to that wilderness to win us back.”
Charles L. Aaron, Jr., Preaching Hosea, Amos, and Micah (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005), p. 26.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 50 The Promises of Hosea 2 “Only the Groom promises, but what promises they are!....they are weighted with some of the greatest themes in Scripture, themes that belong to the very essence of God.” H.D. Beeby, Grace Abounding: A Commentary on the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p. 30. 51 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 52 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 53 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 5454 Hosea in the New Testament “and I will sow her for “As he says in Hosea: ‘I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; myself in the land. And I and I will call her 'my loved one' who is will have mercy on No not my loved one, and, ‘In the very place where it was said to them, 'You Mercy, and I will say to are not my people,' there they will be Not My People, ‘You are called 'children of the living God.’” my people’; and they - Romans 9:25-26 (NIV) shall say, ‘You are my “Once you were not a people, but now God.’” you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have - Hosea 2:23 received mercy.” - 1 Peter 2:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 55 New Covenant and New Names "She receives back her ancient vineyards and olive orchards. The blessings of the new covenant extend to nature. The wild beasts forget their fierceness and the earth is wonderful in her productiveness. The names of the children are changed. Jezreel becomes the symbol of productiveness. Lo-ruhamah becomes Mercy and Lo-ammi becomes My people." L.F. Badger, "Israel in Hosea," The Old and New Testament Student 13 (2) August 1891, p. 78.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 56 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 57 Hosea 3: The Process of Redemption and Restoration
Adultery “But Gomer proved faithless to her marriage vow. Ensnared perhaps by the wild orgies of Baal and Ashtoreth, she deserted her husband. Estrangement She fell at last into slavery. But in this her lowest degradation her husband does not abandon her. By divine command he Desertion redeems her from bondage, and brings her home again….A touching picture, is it not, of the prophet watching with unabated love over Slavery the guilty wife of his youth; waiting patiently, if peradventure tears of penitence might cleanse her sin-stained soul, and her heart Reconciliation again respond to his untiring love.” Alexander Francis Kirkpatrick, The Doctrine of the Restoration Prophets: The Warburtonian Lectures for 1886-1890 (London: Macmillan, 1892), pp. 118-119.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 58 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 59 Hosea 3: 81 Words of Succinct Beauty “Though the third chapter of Hosea consists of but eighty-one words in the original Hebrew, it rightfully takes its place among the greatest prophetic pronouncements in the whole revelation of God. The expression, ‘multum in parvo’ (much in little space), is certainly true of this passage. With skillful and quick lines, the prophet, through the Spirit of God, paints for us the complete picture of Israel’s national history. The fourth verse of the chapter is one of the surest proofs of the divine origin of prophecy and the Bible in general.” Charles Lee Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976), p. 23.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 60 Barley: “Food Fit For Beasts” “So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley. Then I told her, ‘You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” - Hosea 3:2-3 (HCSB and NIV)
Pliny and some of the Jewish writers describe barley “as food fit for beasts.” Compare to Exodus 21:32 and cost of a slave gored to death by a bull.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 61 Hosea 3: The Model of Forgiveness and Reconciliation “Hosea is the locus classicus for the restoration of an erring wife guilty of porneia – she was a whore and yet the grieving prophet took her back into his home. Was that not how God treated his adulterous people Israel? And should not the pious Israelite, therefore, model his own marriage relationship on the same accepting compassion and forgiveness as the Bridegroom of Israel?” Hugh Dickinson, “Bound or Free?,” Theology 89 (727) January 1986, p. 106.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 62 Hosea 3:1: It’s Interesting What’s Not Said •“When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.’” (Hosea 1:2) •“And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (Hosea 3:1) •No where is Hosea told to “Go, divorce your wife who has been unfaithful to you and deserted you for other men.”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 63 Amazing Grace “Gomer had merited a sentence of death (Deut. 22:22, Lev. 20:10): that was the law. But God (Hosea) will not be bound by law, not even his own law. He will show mercy…that extends beyond law…. Grace is a vastly different thing” than law. Bruce Vawter, Amos, Hosea, Micah, With An Introduction to Classical Prophecy (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1981), p. 89.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 64 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 65 Class 2: Spiritual and Physical Adultery of Israel (Hosea 4-5)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 66 Hosea 4: The Outline of Indictment
THE INDICTMENT BOOK OF HOSEA Summons To Hear “Hear the word of the LORD” Name Of The Accused “O people of Israel….inhabitants of the land” Name Of The Accuser “For the LORD” Announcement Of Trial “has a controversy” General Accusation “There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 67 Complaints Against Israel Complaints Against Israel:
1. threefold indictment (Hosea 4:1-19)
2. three guilty parties (Hosea 5:1-7)
3. threefold alarm (Hosea 5:8-15)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 68 Hosea 4: Divine Summary “Hosea 4 offers a summary of the entire book’s prophetic message. It begins a long indictment on the morally corrupt, politically decaying, and spiritually dead nation presented from God’s point of view….All of nature suffers the tragic consequences of human sin.”
-Zdravko Stefanovic, Thus Says the Lord: Messages From the Minor Prophets (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2012), p. 21.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 69 Hosea 4: Inexorable Laws of History and God “What we do morally and spiritually will ultimately take its toll on what we are politically. Perhaps the most significant factor in the collapse of Israel was the moral and spiritual degeneracy of the people.” David Allan Hubbard, With Bands of Love: Lessons From the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), p. 41.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 70 Breach of Covenant “The messages of the prophets are essentially indictments of Israel for breach of covenant.” George E. Mendenahll, Law and Covenant In Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh, PA: The Biblical Colloquim, 1955), p. 19.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 71 The Basis of the Indictment “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land…my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”
- Hosea 4:1, 6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 72 Unfaithful Israel “The people of Israel and “They have turned back to the people of Judah have the iniquities of their been utterly unfaithful to forefathers, who refused me," declares the LORD.” to hear my words. They have gone after other gods - Jeremiah 5:11 (NIV) to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers.”
- Jeremiah 11:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 73 Hosea to Our Time: Similarities? Time of Time of Time of Hosea Christ End
“they are all “an evil and adulterers” adulterous ? (Hosea 7:4) generation” (Matthew 12:39)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 74 Varro on Virtue Near Time of the Birth of the Messiah “Virtue has disappeared; ungodliness, treachery and sensualism are rife everywhere.” - Varro (116-27 B.C.), known as the most erudite man and the most prolific writer of his times who wrote 620 books was commenting on the moral climate in the last days of the Roman Republic before it became known as Imperial Rome in 31 B.C.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 75 Rome During The Time of Augustus (63 B.C. – 14 A.D.) ‘Rome was full of men who had lost their economic footing and their moral stability: soldiers who had tasted adventure and had learned to kill; citizens who had seen their savings consumed in the taxes and inflation of war and waited vacuously for some returning tide to lift them back to affluence…. multiplying divorces, abortions, and adulteries.” Will Durant, Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from Their Beginnings to A.D. 325 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944/1972), p. 211.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 76 Each Civilization Must Choose Wisely and Carefully British anthropologist J.D. Unwin (1895-1936) observed that every civilization is established and consolidated by observing a strict sexual moral code, and is maintained while this strict code is kept, and decays when sexual license is allowed. ‘Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom: the evidence is that it cannot do both for more than one generation.’”
- Joseph Daniel Unwin, Sex and Culture (London: Oxford University Press/Humphrey Milford, 1934), p. 412.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 77 Are We at This Point in Civilization? British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872- 1970) observed that, “At a very low level of civilization adultery is sometimes tolerated.” Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (New York: Liveright, 1929), p. 132.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 78 Spiritual and Physical Adultery in Our Modern Age “Our generation proves this with overflowing force. Let there be spiritual adultery and it will not be long until physical adultery sprouts like toadstools in the land. In the 1930s liberalism took over almost all the churches in the United States and in the 1960s our generation is sick with promiscuous sex. It is the same in Britain and other countries. These things are not unrelated: They are cause and effect.”
Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church Before The Watching World: A Practical Ecclesiology (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1971), p. 51.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 79 Moral Corrosiveness of Our Age Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges: “We live in an adulterous age. We live in an age when promises and faithfulness, the hard work of fidelity, to values, to the moral life, seem secondary to the drive to attain fleeting scraps of pleasure. Adultery is often viewed as a secondary sin….Adulterers are thrust into a life of deceit. Children born of the affairs, can grow up with feelings of rejection and inadequacy. Lies, as any affair goes on, pile one on top of the other. It is morally corrosive.” Chris Hedges, Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (New York: Free Press, 2005), p. 116.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 80 The Challenge of All Ages: From Hosea to Here “And yet these impulses exist within all of us. No matter how hard we may try to resist the pull of attractive men and women, the promise of excitement, maybe even of fulfillment, holds out the possibility of satisfaction in our unsatisfactory lives. Our urges can overpower our mind and our heart.” Chris Hedges, Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (New York: Free Press, 2005), p. 116.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 81 Adultery Becoming Commonplace
The New York Times reported in 1948 that adultery was becoming “commonplace.” Richard H. Wels, “The Argument for a New Divorce Law,” The New York Times Magazine, December 19, 1948, p. 10.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 82 Job’s Perspective on Adultery “If my heart has been enticed toward a woman, and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door, then let my wife grind for another, and let others bow down on her. For that [adultery] would be a heinous crime; that would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges.” Job 31:9-11
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 83 The Shocking Numbers In 1993, the General Social Surveys, conducted nationally in the U.S. by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, revealed that 21 percent of men and 12.8 percent of women have committed adultery. * Numerous other studies since then indicate similar figures. Richard Morin, “How To Lie With Statistics: Adultery,” The Washington Post, March 6, 1994, p. C5.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 84 Adultery: A Global Problem
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 85 Learning Lessons From The Book of Judges “permissive morality leads to misery and bondage” - Edward M. Blaiklock (1903-1983), professor emeritus of Classics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in E.M. Blaiklock, “The Breath of Hell: Perils of Permissiveness,” Christianity Today, May 7, 1976, p. 14.
86
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 86 Hear, Listen, O Israel!! “Hear [shâma] the word of “Hear [shâma] this, O priests! the LORD, O children of Israel, Pay attention, O house of Israel! for the LORD has a Give ear, O house of the king! For the controversy with the judgment is for you; for you have been inhabitants of the land. a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.” There is (1) no faithfulness or (2) steadfast love, and - Hosea 5:1 (3) no knowledge of God in the land” “My God will reject them because they have not listened [shâma] to him; they - Hosea 4:1 shall be wanderers among the nations.”
- Hosea 9:17
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 87 Hosea 4: The Divine Summary “there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” - Hosea 4:2 “the concluding phrase of Hosea 4:2, wĕdāmîm bĕdāmîm nāgā û (‘bloodshed touches bloodshed’), which seems to describe an unending series of crimes”
Göran Eidevall, Grapes in the Desert: Metaphors, Models, and Themes in Hosea 4-14 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1996), p. 53.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 88 Hosea’s Perspective on the Knowledge of God
“Hear the word of the LORD, O children of “Let us know, let us pursue Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with knowledge [da`ath] of the the inhabitants of the land. There is no LORD; his coming is as certain faithfulness or steadfast love, and no as the dawn. He will come to us knowledge [da`ath] of God in the land” like the rain, like the autumn and spring rains come on the - Hosea 4:1 earth.”
“My people are destroyed for lack of - Hosea 6:3 (ISV) knowledge [da`ath]; because you have rejected knowledge [da`ath], I reject you “For I desire steadfast love and from being a priest to me. And since you not sacrifice, the knowledge have forgotten the law of your God, I also [da`ath] of God rather than will forget your children.” burnt offerings.”
- Hosea 4:6 - Hosea 6:6 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 89 The Beauty of Knowledge “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no “I have written to him priest to me: seeing thou the great things of my hast forgotten the law of law, but they were thy God, I will also forget counted as a strange thy children.” thing.”
- Hosea 4:6 - Hosea 8:12
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 90 Knowing God and Being Known of God: Yada, Yada, Yada “I know [yada`] all about Ephraim; “I will betroth you to me in Israel is not hidden from me. Ephraim, faithfulness. And you shall know you have now turned to prostitution; [yada`] the LORD” (Hosea 2:20) Israel is corrupt.”
- Hosea 5:3 (NIV) “Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the “But I am the LORD your God from the spirit of whoredom is within them, land of Egypt; you know no God but and they know [yada`] not the me, and besides me there is no savior. LORD.” (Hosea 5:4) It was I who knew [yada`] you in the wilderness, in the land of drought”
- Hosea 13:4-5
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 91 Our Joy and Heart’s Delight? “Bible reading “When your words came, I ate them; they has declined were my joy and my since the 1980s heart’s delight, for and ‘basic Bible I bear your name, knowledge is at Lord God Almighty.” a record low.’” - Jeremiah 15:16 (NIV) Stephen R. Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Only one-third of Americans know that Every American Needs to Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, Know – And Doesn’t (San ten percent of Americans believe that Joan Francisco, CA: of Arc was Noah’s wife, and a significant HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), number of Americans believe that Sodom p. 30. and Gomorrah were husband and wife.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 92 Without Divine Guidance: Runnin’ Wild? “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful”
- Proverbs 29:18 (NLT)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 93 The Source of Morality: Fidelity and Love of Family American Lutheran religious scholar Martin Marty (1928 - ) of the University of Fidelity Chicago commented in 1985 that, “A lot of morality comes from fidelity. People Morality say: ‘I am not going to do something that would embarrass or hurt my Loyalty spouse or family.’” “The State of American Values,” U.S. News & World Report, December 9, 1985, p. 55.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 94 What’s The Point? In 1973, George Gilder (1939 - ), highly influential thinker and chair of Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality, wrote that, “The widespread belief that monogamous marriage is obsolete is a grave portent for our society.” George F. Gilder, Sexual Suicide (New York: Bantam Books, 1973), p. 47.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 95 Hosea 4: The Divine Summary “Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.” - Hosea 4:3
Michael De Roche contends that Hosea 4:3 speaks of a “reversal of creation.”
Michael De Roche, “The Reversal of Creation in Hosea,” Vetus Testamentum 31 (4) October 1981, pp. 401-409.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 96 The Genesis Directive “And the LORD God took the “The ravaged world, the polluted atmosphere, the man, and put him into the poisoned rivers, dead lakes, garden of Eden to dress it and encroaching desert, and all the to keep it.” irreversible damage to man's fragile environment comes from treating the globe we live on - Genesis 2:15 with contempt. Modern man is arrogant and domineering. Man was put in a garden, says The Hebrew word “keep” in the old Hebrew account in Genesis 2:15 is shâmar which Genesis ‘to tend it.’” means “to guard, protect, E. M. Blaiklock, The Psalms of preserve, save.” the Great Rebellion (London: Lakeland, 1970), p. 39.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 97 Glory in the Book of Hosea “The more priests there are, the “Ephraim’s glory shall fly away more they sin against me. They like a bird— no birth, no have exchanged the glory of God pregnancy, no conception!” for the shame of idols.” - Hosea 9:11 - Hosea 4:7 (NLT) “The inhabitants of Samaria “Their drink is sour: they have tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. committed harlotry continually: Its people mourn for it, and so do her rulers love shame more than its idolatrous priests— those glory” * who rejoiced over it and over its glory— for it has departed from - Hosea 4:18 (King James 2000 them” Bible) * The phrase “more than glory” not in most translations. - Hosea 10:5 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 98 Israel: Under the Spell of Idols “Preferring Disgrace to Honor” "The people of Israel are under the "They made kings, but not through spell of idols. Let them go their me. They set up princes, but I knew own way. After drinking much it not. With their silver and gold wine, they delight in their they made idols for their own prostitution, preferring disgrace destruction. to honor." I have spurned your calf, O Samaria. - Hosea 4:17-18 (GNT) My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces."
- Hosea 8:4-6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 99 The Genesis of Corruption “You grow rich from the sins of my people, and so you want them to sin more and more.” - Hosea 4:8 (GNT)
“A commercial attitude to life always breeds callousness and lack of humanity, culminating in unscrupulous actions. ‘The love of money is the root of all evils’.” -J.T.E. Renner, Chi Rho Commentary on Hosea (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1979), p. 81.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 100 Hosea 4:10-15: Ephraim “Playing The Harlot” with Assyria “But they acted treacherously against the God of their fathers and played the harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria, even the spirit of Tilgath- pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
- 1 Chronicles 5:25-26 (NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 101 Hosea 4:11: Deuteronomy and Hosea “The central theological issue of covenant faithfulness is also developed in terms of Deuteronomic ideas. The statement of Hosea 4:11 is that wine and new wine take “Harlotry, wine away ‘the heart of my people,’ the heart and new wine take being the center of loyalty and decision- away the making. They are unable to choose or honor understanding” the choices they have made. This is an indictment which is closely related to the - Hosea 4:11 summons of Deuteronomy 6:5: ‘You shall (NASB) love the LORD your God with all your heart.’”
Walter Brueggemann, Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1968), pp. 44-45. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 102 “They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.” - Hosea 4:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 103 Israel Has “Played the Harlot” “For their mother has played the “Though you, Israel, play the harlot; She who conceived them has harlot, Do not let Judah become acted shamefully. For she said, 'I will guilty; Also do not go to Gilgal, Or go after my lovers, Who give me my go up to Beth-aven And take the bread and my water, My wool and my oath: ‘As the LORD lives!’” flax, my oil and my drink.‘” - Hosea 4:15 - Hosea 2:5 (NASB)
“Then I said to her, ‘You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you.’”
- Hosea 3:3 (NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 104 Idolatry at Bethel and Gilgal “Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not “Don't worship at the pagan Judah become guilty. altars at Bethel; don't go to Enter not into Gilgal, nor the shrines at Gilgal or go up to Beth-aven Beersheba. For the people of [Bethel][“Wicked Gilgal will be dragged off into House”], and swear not, exile, and the people of ‘As the LORD lives.’” Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” - Hosea 4:15 - Amos 5:5 (NLT)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 105 Hosea 4: Probing of Israel’s Sin of Idolatry “Like a skillful and experienced physician, the prophet Hosea keeps probing at the core of Israel’s sin, namely, her idolatry.”
Charles Lee Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976), p. 49.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 106 Hosea 4: Part 1 Shame in the Book of Hosea “For their mother has “When their drink is gone, played the whore; she they give themselves to who conceived them has whoring; their rulers acted shamefully…” dearly love shame. A wind has wrapped them in its - Hosea 2:5 wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.” “The more they increased, the more they sinned - Hosea 4:18-19 against me; I will change their glory into shame” - Hosea 4:7
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 107 Part 2: Shame in the Book of Hosea “Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved”
- Hosea 9:10 “The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol”
- Hosea 10:6 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 108 The Forgotten Concept of Shame “Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame”
- Jeremiah 3:3 (NIV) “‘Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,’ says the LORD.”
- Jeremiah 6:15 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 109 What Brought Israel Shame “Then, at the evening sacrifice, I “A whirlwind will sweep them rose from my self-abasement, away, and their sacrifices will with my tunic and cloak torn, bring them shame.” and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the LORD - Hosea 4:19 (NIV) my God and prayed: ‘I am too ashamed and disgraced, my “It will be carried to Assyria as God, to lift up my face to you, tribute for the great king. because our sins are higher Ephraim will be disgraced; than our heads and our guilt Israel will be ashamed of its has reached to the heavens.’” foreign alliances.”
- Ezra 9:5-6 (NIV) - Hosea 10:6 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 110 What Brought Israel Shame “Then, at the evening sacrifice, I “A whirlwind will sweep them rose from my self-abasement, away, and their sacrifices will with my tunic and cloak torn, bring them shame.” and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the LORD - Hosea 4:19 (NIV) my God and prayed: ‘I am too ashamed and disgraced, my “It will be carried to Assyria as God, to lift up my face to you, tribute for the great king. because our sins are higher Ephraim will be disgraced; than our heads and our guilt Israel will be ashamed of its has reached to the heavens.’” foreign alliances.”
- Ezra 9:5-6 (NIV) - Hosea 10:6 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 111 Learn to Discern Good and Evil “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
- Hebrews 5:14 “For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”
- Romans 16:19
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 112 One of Main Causes of Corruption of Character As American novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) pointed out:
“Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.” Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York: A Signet Book, 1961/1964), p. 82.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 113 Really ‘Beyond Good and Evil’? “Among enlightened people it is considered rather awkward to use seriously such words as ‘good’ and ‘evil’….But if we are to be deprived of the concepts of good and evil, what will be left? Nothing but the manipulation of one another. We will decline to the status of animals.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Communism: A Legacy of Terror (Flesherton, ON: Canadian League of Rights, 1975), p. 6.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 114 Steven Muller, president of Johns Hopkins University “The failure to rally around a set of values means that universities are turning out potentially highly skilled barbarians…” - “A Conversation With Steven Muller: ‘Universities Are Turning Out Highly Skilled Barbarians,” U.S. News & World Report, November 10, 1980, p. 57.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 115 Loss of Virtue Results in Socio-Cultural Sewage Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968), the first chairman and professor of the Sociology Department at Harvard University, lamented that the trends he observed in the 1930s would caused humanity to become debased and sensual, and that most people would “sink still deeper into the muck of sociocultural sewers,” and would be “progressively destructive rather than constructive, representing in their totality a museum of sociocultural pathology rather than the imperishable values of the Kingdom of God.”
Pitirim A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Change in Major Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social Relationships (Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1957), p. 699.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 116 Loss of Virtue: What’s Left in Its Path…? “The sex-obsessed society unhesitatingly breaks both divine and human law, blows to smithereens all values. Like a tornado, it leaves it in its path a legion of corpses, a multitude of wrecked lives, an untold amount of suffering, and an ugly debris of broken standards.” - Pitirim A. Sorokin, The American Sex Revolution (Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1956), p. 88.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 117 Modern Paradox of Man Sorokin observed that “our culture simultaneously is a culture of man’s glorification and of man’s degradation. On the one hand, it boundlessly glorifies man and extols man-made culture and society. On the other, it utterly degrades the human being and all his cultural and social values.”
- Pitirm A. Sorokin, The Crisis of Our Age: The Social and Cultural Outlook (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1941), p. 242.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 118 “…my people are foolish…” “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.” - Jeremiah 4:22
“The Lord has said that they don’t even know how to do right. They have become rich from violence and robbery” - Amos 3:10 (CEV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 119 Complaint Against Three Parties “Hear this, O priests! “But if we judged Pay attention, O house ourselves rightly, of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For we would not be the judgment is for you; judged.” for you have been a - 1 Corinthians snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.” 11:31 (NASB)
- Hosea 5:1
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 120 Hosea 5:1: Our Failure to Examine Ourselves “It is always easy to discern and discuss the folly and failures of others; it is easier still to be blind to the self-same errors in ourselves.”
Herbert F. Stevenson, Three Prophetic Voices: Studies in Joel, Amos and Hosea (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), p. 124.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 121 Judgment Is Not the Final Word From God “We saw how Hosea pictures the Israelites as an unfaithful wife and God as an abandoned husband. Even though the prophets announce God’s judgment upon Israel, they also dare to speak of the future in hopeful terms. Judgment is not God’s final word….Israel’s infidelity does not lead to divorce, but rather, God’s faithfulness brings about reconciliation.”
Christina Bucher, The Prophecy of Amos and Hosea (Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 1997), p. 47.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 122 “…until there was no remedy” “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.”
- 2 Chronicles 36:15-16
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 123 Hosea 5:4 A Study of Repentance in The Book of Hosea “Afterward the children of Israel “I will return [šûb] again to my shall return [šûb] and seek the LORD place, until they acknowledge their God, and David their king, and their guilt and seek my face, they shall come in fear to the LORD and in their distress earnestly and to his goodness in the latter days” seek me” - Hosea 5:15 - Hosea 3:5 “Come, let us return [šûb] to “Their deeds do not permit them to the LORD; for he has torn us, return [šûb] to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, that he may heal us; he has and they know not the LORD” struck us down, and he will bind us up” - Hosea 5:4 - Hosea 6:1
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 124 Threefold Alarm in Hosea 5 “Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven; we will follow you, O Benjamin!” - Hosea 5:8
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 125 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 126 Hosea 5:11 “Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious “Ephraim is oppressed, beauty, which is on the crushed in judgment, head of the rich valley because he was of those overcome with determined [yâʼal: wine!” resolved or pleased] to go after filth” - Isaiah 28:1 - Hosea 5:11 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 127 True Humility Humility was so foreign a concept in the pagan world that there was no equivalent word for it (as defined by Judeo-Christian ethics) in any secular language. In fact, the Greek word for humility (tapeinophrosune and tapeinoo) in the biblical texts has the connotation of “abject” or a term of contempt among most contemporary and ancient pagan authors.
E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1951), p. 215.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 128 Humility: The Pathway to Honor “The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes “Before a downfall the before honor.” heart is haughty, but humility comes before - Proverbs 15:33 honor.” - Proverbs 18:12 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 129 Hosea 5:12-13 Ephraim Went to Assyria for Help
“But I am like a moth [ʻâsh] to “Therefore I'm pus to Ephraim, and like dry rot to Ephraim, dry rot in the house the house of Judah. When of Judah. When Ephraim saw Ephraim saw his sickness, and he was sick and Judah saw his Judah his wound, then pus-filled sores, Ephraim went Ephraim went to Assyria, and running to Assyria, went for sent to the great king. But he help to the big king. But he is not able to cure you or heal can't heal you. He can't cure your wound.” your oozing sores.”
- Hosea 5:12-13 - Hosea 5:12-13 (MSG)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 130 Hosea 5:12-13 Ephraim Went to Assyria for Help Regarding Hosea 5:12, German Protestant scholar Hans Walter Wolff (1911-1993), comments: “Moreover, the moth destroys clothing (Isa. 50:9; 51:8), not people. That ‘pus’ is the correct meaning is conclusively shown in the continuation of Hosea 5:13a, which speaks of ‘sickness’ and ‘wound’ as the consequence of Yahweh’s theophany of judgment. ‘Rottenness’ also destroys people, not things.” Hans Walter Wolff, A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea. Translated from the German by Gary Stansell. Edited by Paul D. Hanson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965/1974), p. 115.
In Hosea 5:12, the Septuagint uses the milder terms of "disturbance" (xapaxn) and "goad" (kevxpov) as epithets of Yahweh rather than “pus” and “rottenness.” The primary root of ʻâsh can either mean “pus” and “moth.”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 131 Wounded By Sin “From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.”
- Isaiah 1:6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 132 Samaria: Source of Sin “The problem with Samaria was that she was toxic; her infection had spread to Judah.” - Warren W. Wiersbe, “Micah” in The Bible Exposition Commentary (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2002 ), Vol. 4, p. 391.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 133 Hosea 5:14: "the strongest possible metaphor of destruction" "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue."
Hosea 5:14
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 134 Hosea 5:15 Fundamental Principle for All “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.”
- Hosea 5:15
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 135 Class 3: Refusal of Israel to Repent of Her Adultery (Hosea 6-7)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 136 God as Ultimate Physician: Hosea 6:1-3 He will cure us
He will heal us
He will restore us to life
He will resurrect us
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 137 “But you must return to your Hosea 6:1 God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God Return in Hosea always.” “She shall pursue her lovers but not - Hosea 12:6 (NIV) overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then “Return, O Israel, to the she shall say, ‘I will go and return to LORD your God, for you have my first husband, for it was better stumbled because of your for me then than now.’” iniquity. Take with you words - Hosea 2:7 and return to the LORD; say to him, “Take away all “Come, let us return to the LORD; iniquity; accept what is good, for he has torn us, that he may heal and we will pay with bulls the us; he has struck us down, and he vows of our lips.” will bind us up.” - Hosea 6:1 - Hosea 14:1-2
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 138 HEAL: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets Prophet Verse Amos Word related to “heal” not found in Book of Amos.
Hosea “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.” (Hosea 6:1, NIV) “whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets” (Hosea 7:1, NIV) Micah “For my people's wound is too deep to heal. It has reached into Judah, even to the gates of Jerusalem” (Micah 1:9, NLT) Isaiah “Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.” (Isaiah 30:26)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 139 Healing in the Book of Hosea
“When Ephraim saw his sickness, “when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of and Judah his wound, then Ephraim Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of went to Assyria, and sent to the Samaria, for they deal falsely; the thief great king. But he [King Jareb or breaks in, and the bandits raid outside” Sargon II] is not able to cure you or - Hosea 7:1 heal your wound” “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; - Hosea 5:13 I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them”
“Come, let us return to the LORD; - Hosea 11:3 for He has torn us, that He may heal “I will heal their apostasy, I will love them us; He has struck us down, and He freely, For My anger has turned away from will bind us up” them”
- Hosea 6:1 - Hosea 14:4 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 140 The Certainty of The Resurrection
“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”
- Hosea 6:1-2
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 141 Judgment and Mercy “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” - Hosea 6:2
“For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs [katakauchaomai] over judgment.” - James 2:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 142 “Have Mercy on Me LORD” “Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, “And when he [Bartimaeus] LORD, for my heard that it was Jesus of bones are in Nazareth, he began to cry agony.” out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on - Psalm 6:2 (NIV) me!’”
- Mark 10:47
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 143 The Parable of Two Debtors (Matthew 18:23-35) King and Servant Two Servants The King in the parable forgave his The same servant was owed servant a debt of 10,000 talents. 100 denarii by a fellow-servant which was one-day’s wage. This amount 1 denarii = 1 day’s wages equaled about four months’ salary. 1 talent = 6,000 denarii 100 denarii equivalent to about 10,000 talents = 60,000,000 denarii $11,700 for minimum wage worker ($35,200 annually). Based on minimum wage, this debt equaled $7.04 billion, and would take “And in anger his master delivered him to 200,000 years of work to pay off. the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matthew 18:25)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 144 Relationships and Redemption "When we find it in ourselves to hate and reject others, however compelling our reasons may seem, we shut off God’s love and are all rejected. If, on the other hand, we can find it in our hearts to forgive, to accept, and, against all odds, to create loving relationships, we can redeem ourselves and allow God to redeem us. In this world, God’s love is only as real as we make it, and we can only make it real by loving one another."
- Mark L. Solomon, "Scandal or the Birth of a Prophet," European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 32 (1) Spring 1999, p. 62.
145 Justice and Mercy? How Does God Resolve the Conundrum?
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 146 God’s Choice of Based on Our Repentance and Response “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, “Lovingkindness and a God merciful and gracious, slow truth have met together; to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, Righteousness and who keeps lovingkindness for peace have kissed each thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will other.” by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the - Psalm 85:10 (NASB) grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.“
- Exodus 34:6-7
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 147 Goodness and Severity of God: Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment
Severity (Punishment “If you, LORD, and Judgment) kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?”
Goodness - Psalm 130:3 (NIV) (Mercy and Love)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 148 Biblical Considerations of Judgment Common Biblical Focus and Viewpoint Purpose of of Judgment Judgment Retributive only Random for the wicked Serves Remedial No Purpose (to bring about humility If a purpose,purpose, it’s and repentance) only retributive Restorative The End Itself Redemptive
Means to an End
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 149 How Do We Resolve the Conundrum?
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 150 Hosea 6:2: Renewal of Covenant
“Particularly the two divine promises of a national resurrection (Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37:1-14) would seem to speak of the New and lasting Covenant to be concluded in messianic times….The New Testament shows that the Saviour’s death and resurrection were seen as the accomplishment of the New Covenant.”
J. Wijngaards, “Death and Resurrection in Covenantal Context (Hos. VI 2),” Vetus Testamentum 17 (2) April 1967, p. 238. The New Testament refers 18 times to the Lord Jesus Christ rising “on the third day.”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 151 Hosea 6:4 “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” - Hosea 6:4
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 152 Cut to the Core “Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth - then my judgments go forth like the sun.”
- Hosea 6:5 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 153 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 154 Hosea 6:6: The Hebrew Idiom “Similarly, when God says, ‘I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice’ in typical Hebrew idiom, he is saying, ‘I desire steadfast love more than sacrifice.’ The second line bears this out: ‘the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.’ And so in making this contrast, he is not rejecting sacrifice completely but stressing inward attitude more than outward act.”
David Allan Hubbard, With Bands of Love: Lessons From the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), p. 94.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 155 Hosea 6:6: What Could be Better Than Sacrifice? “And Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.’”
- 1 Samuel 15:22
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 156 The Perils of Refusing to Listen “This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.”
- Jeremiah 13:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 157 God and Sacrifice: The Real Point “21 This is what he LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! 22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.”
- Jeremiah 7:21-23 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 158 Hosea 6:3 Loftiest Goal: To Know God “Let us know; let us press “And this is eternal life, that they [radaph] on to know the LORD; know you, the only true God, and his going out is sure as the Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains - John 17:3 that water the earth.” “but let him who boasts boast in - Hosea 6:3 this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who “I will betroth you to me in practices steadfast love, justice, and faithfulness. And you shall righteousness in the earth. For in know the LORD” these things I delight, declares the LORD.” - Hosea 2:20 - Jeremiah 9:24
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 159 Knowing the Lord Jesus is Vital For Eternal Life and This Life “For I determined “But grow in the to know nothing grace and knowledge among you except of our Lord and Jesus Christ, and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory Him crucified.” both now and to the day of eternity. - 1 Corinthians 2:2 Amen.”
- 2 Peter 3:18 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 160 Hosea 6:7: Like Adam or “As At Adam”?
“the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho.”
- Joshua 3:16
“As at Adam, they have broken the covenant; they were unfaithful to me there.”
- Hosea 6:7 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 161 Broken and Ill-Advised Covenants in the Book of Hosea “As at Adam, they “They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make have broken the covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the covenant; they were furrows of the field” unfaithful to me - Hosea 10:4 there” “they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to - Hosea 6:7 (NIV) Egypt” - Hosea 12:1
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 162 The Economic and Political Climate of Israel in 8th Century How they As a kept peace? result… • Israel paid enormous • Israel’s leaders economic tributes to imposed policy of Assyria heavy taxation • Difficult economic burden • People resented Israel’s foreign policy
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 163 Israel’s Covenants and Treaties
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 164 Hosea 6:9: “On The Road to Shechem” “You priests are like a gang of robbers in ambush. On the road to Shechem you murder and commit other horrible crimes.”
- Hosea 6:9 (CEV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 165 Hosea 6:9 The Cities of Refuge were six Levitical towns in the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah in which the perpetrators of manslaughter could claim the right of asylum.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 166 Hosea 6:10 Ephraim: The Divine Horror Show
“In the house of Israel “But the prophet may be I have seen a horrible thing; referring to a fertility rite Ephraim’s whoredom is there; which the women undergo Israel is defiled.” before marriage. In the shrine, they have sexual - Hosea 6:10 intercourse for the first time “An appalling and horrible thing with any stranger present or Has happened in the land: The with a priest.” prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own - Bernhard Lang, Monotheism and authority; And My people love it the Prophetic Minority: An Essay in so! But what will you do at the end Biblical History and Sociology (Sheffield, England: The Almond of it?” Press, 1983), p. 32. - Jeremiah 5:30-31
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 167 Kings of Israel in 8th Century
Israel’s Kings Timeframe How Died Reference 1 Jeroboam II 790-749 B.C. Died of natural causes 2 Kings 14:23-29 2 Zechariah 748 B.C. Murdered by Shallum 2 Kings 15:8-12 (son of Jeroboam II) (reigned 6 months) 3 Shallum 748 B.C. Murdered by Army captain – (son of Jabesh) (reigned 1 month) Menahem 2 Kings 15:10-17 4 Menahem 748-738 B.C. Died of natural causes 2 Kings 15:14-22 (son of Gadi) 5 Pekahiah 738-736 B.C. Murdered by band of 2 Kings 15:23-26 (son of Menahem) 50 led by Pekah 6 Pekah 737-732 B.C. Hoshea led conspiracy Army captain – (son of Remaliah) and murdered Pekah 2 Kings 15:27-31 7 Hoshea 730-721 B.C. Imprisoned by 2 Kings 17:1-5 (son of Elah) Assyrians; cause of death unknown
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 168 Hosea and the Concept of Kingship “They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies”
- Hosea 7:3 (KJV)
“Burning like an oven, they consume their leaders. They kill their kings one after another, and no one cries to me for help.”
- Hosea 7:7 (NLT)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 169 Hosea 7:4 Adultery in Israel “They are all adulterers; they are like a “They were well- heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough fed, lusty until it is leavened.” stallions, each - Hosea 7:4 neighing for his
“They have eyes full of adultery, neighbor’s insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady wife.” souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!” - Jeremiah 5:8 - 2 Peter 2:14
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 170 “Baal was celebrated on several ‘days’ according to Hosea 2:15. Hosea 7:5 On these days there were processions and offerings of incense. Of more importance, “The Day of Baal” however, is Hosea 7:5, where ‘the Day of our King’ is mentioned….On this day there “On the day of the was a presentation of Baal’s victory over his enemies and of festival of our king his re-creation of fertility as well the princes become as his hieros gamos.” inflamed with wine, Gunnar Östborn, Yahweh and Baal: Studies in the Book of Hosea and and he joins hands Related Documents (Lund, Sweden: with the mockers.” C.W.K. Gleerup, 1956), p. 42. Hieros gamos or Hierogamy (Greek ἱερὸς γάμος, ἱερογαμία “holy marriage”) is a - Hosea 7:5, NIV sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 171 Baal: God of the Canaanites “Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.” (1 Kings 11:7)
“And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” (Jeremiah 32:35) “The name [Baal] was so obnoxious to the Jews in later times that (bôsheth, shame) was frequently substituted for it.” “Baal” in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible: Dealing With Its Language, Literature, and Contents Including the Biblical Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1898/1988), Vol. 1, p. 209.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 172 Hosea 7:6-7 Misplaced Passion “For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their Hosea 7:7 probably refers to the rulers. All their kings have fallen, murder of Zechariah, Shallum, and none of them calls upon me. Menahem, Pekahiah and Pekah Ephraim mixes himself with the and subsequent trust in foreign peoples; Ephraim is a cake not leaders for protection and turned.” deliverance. These 5 kings reigned within the space of - Hosea 7:6-7 circa 748 to 732 B.C.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 173 Hosea 7:8 “How better [to] describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted "The people of Israel mingle policy, than by a half- with godless foreigners, baked scone?” making themselves as worthless as a half-baked George Adam Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets (Garden City, NY: cake!” Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1929), p. 23. - Hosea 7:8 (NLT)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 174 Hosea 7:8 Syncretism in Ancient Israel “They did not destroy "Ephraim mixes with the peoples, as the the nations; Ephraim is LORD commanded a flat loaf not turned them, but they mixed over.” with the nations and learned to do as they - Hosea 7:8 (NIV) did.” - Psalm 106:34-35
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 175 Hosea 7:10 Fundamental Problem “The pride of Israel “These six things doth the testifies to his face; yet LORD hate: yea, seven are they do not return to the an abomination unto him: LORD their God, nor seek (1) A proud look, (2) a lying him, for all this.” tongue, and (3) hands that shed innocent blood…” - Hosea 7:10 - Proverbs 6:16-17
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 176 Pride Takes the Witness Stand “The pride of Israel “The pride of Israel testifies to his face; testifies to his face; yet they do not Israel and Ephraim return to the LORD shall stumble in his their God, nor seek guilt; Judah also shall him, for all this.” stumble with them.” - Hosea 5:5 - Hosea 7:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 177 We’re Not Far Removed From Hosea’s Time: “Our Golden Calves” “Our idols may not take the gross forms that existed in the days of Hosea. Our golden calves may be a subtle kind of self-righteousness – or a reliance on our own abilities that leaves God out of the picture.” David Allan Hubbard, With Bands of Love: Lessons From the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 48-49. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 178 Apostasy vs. Syncretism Apostasy is defined as “an Syncretism is abandonment of what one a “compromise in has voluntarily professed; a religion” or “uncritical total desertion or acceptance of conflicting departure from one’s faith, or divergent beliefs or principles, or party.” practices.” Webster’s New International Dictionary of Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed., unabridged the English Language, 2nd ed., unabridged (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam, 1939), (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam, 1939), p. 127, s.v. “apostasy.” p. 2558, s.v. “syncretism.”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 179 Adopting The Lifestyle of Canaanites “One statement will sum up the general characteristics of ritual in these sanctuaries [Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba]: it was a syncretic mixture of Canaanite and Israelite elements.”
John D.W. Watts, Vision and Prophecy in Amos: 1955 Faculty Lectures, Baptist Theological Seminary, Rüschlikon/Zh, Switzerland (Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1958), p. 70.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 180 Syncretism: Yahweh and Baal “Hosea’s judgment is that the religion of Israel has become Canaanitized; it is the old native gods that are worshipped, though under the name of Yahweh.”
A.B. Davidson, “Hosea” in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible: Dealing With Its Language, Literature, and Contents Including the Biblical Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1898/1988), Vol. 2, p. 423.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 181 Sin of Syncretism “Hosea’s main attack was directed towards this disastrous syncretistic mixture which threatened to distort and possibly engulf the faith once delivered to Moses. The Canaanite religion was based on nature myths which laid great stress on fertility and little if any on morality….Instead of one God the Canaanites had more like seventy gods….Male and female prostitutes thronged the shrines, making sanctuaries indistinguishable from harlotry. The faith of Hosea’s fathers had become so debased that in almost every respect it was now the opposite of the great original.” H.D. Beeby, Grace Abounding: A Commentary on the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p. 2.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 182 An Unrepentant Israel
Yahweh Remembers
Israel Forgets
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 183 The Humble and Repentant: God’s Memory Towards Them “I, I am he who “Remember not the blots out your sins of my youth or transgressions for my transgressions; my own sake, and according to your steadfast love I will not remember me, for the remember your sake of your goodness, sins.” O LORD!”
- Isaiah 43:25 - Psalm 25:7 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 184 Hosea 7:6 The Heart in the Book of Hosea
“Therefore, look! I will now “Their hearts [leb] are like an allure her. I will make her go oven; they approach him with out to the wilderness, and will intrigue. Their passion smolders speak to her heart [leb].” all night; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire” - Hosea 2:14 (ISV) - Hosea 7:6 (NIV) “Whoredom and wine and “Ephraim also is like a silly dove new wine take away the heart without heart [leb]: they call to [leb].” Egypt, they go to Assyria.”
- Hosea 4:11 (KJV) - Hosea 7:11 (KJV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 185 HEART: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets
Prophet Verse Amos “‘and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day,’ declares the LORD” (Amos 2:16) Hosea “Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their pillars.” (Hosea 10:2)
“but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me” (Hosea 13:6) Micah The word “heart” does not appear in the Book of Micah.
Isaiah “Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness:” (Isaiah 46:12)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 186 Hosea 7:14 The Heart in the Book of Hosea
“They do not cry out to me from their “As they had their pasture, hearts [leb] but wail on their beds. They they became satisfied, and slash themselves, appealing to their gods being satisfied, their heart for grain and new wine, but they turn [leb] became proud; Therefore away from me” they forgot Me” - Hosea 7:14 (NIV) - Hosea 13:6 (NASB)
“Like a bear whose cubs have “Their heart [leb] is deceitful [faithless], been taken away, I will tear and now they must bear their guilt. The out your heart. I will devour LORD will demolish their altars and you like a hungry lioness and destroy their sacred stones” mangle you like a wild animal.” - Hosea 10:2 (NIV) - Hosea 13:8 (KJV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 187 Hosea 7 The Alliances of Idolatrous Israel ISRAEL’S FOREIGN ALLIANCES 1. Baasha > Benhadad (Syria) 2. Ahab > Jezebel (Phoenicia) 3. Jehu > Shalmaneser III (Assyria) 4. Menahem > Tiglath-pileser (Assyria) 5. Pekah > Rezin (Syria) 6. Hoshea > So - Osorkon IV (Egypt)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 188 “But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.”
- 2 Kings 17:4 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 189 Hosea 7:9 Lack of Spiritual Self-Awareness? “Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not”
- Hosea 7:9
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 190 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 191 The Worship of Baal: Hosea 7:14 “And they cried aloud and cut [gâdad] “They do not cry to me from themselves after their custom with the heart, but they wail upon swords and lances, until the blood their beds; for grain and wine gushed out upon them.” they gash [gûwr] themselves; they rebel against me.” - 1 Kings 18:28 “Why should I forgive you? Your - Hosea 7:14 children have abandoned me and sworn by those who are not gods. I Some translators have the satisfied their needs, yet they phrase “they assemble committed adultery; they gashed themselves” (yitgôrārû) in [gâdad] themselves at the prostitute's Hosea 7:14 while some think house.” and correct this phrase as “they gash themselves” (yitgôdādû). - Jeremiah 5:7 (CSB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 192 Hosea 7:14 Rebellion in the Book of Hosea “They do not cry to “Samaria shall bear her me from the heart, guilt, because she has but they wail upon their rebelled against her beds; for grain and wine God; they shall fall by they gash themselves; the sword; their little they rebel against me.” ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their - Hosea 7:14 pregnant women ripped open.”
- Hosea 13:16
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 193 “REBELLION”: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets Prophet Verse Amos “Come to Bethel and rebel; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tenths every three days.” (Amos 4:4, HCSB) Hosea “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.” (Hosea 7:14)
“Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.” (Hosea 8:1) Micah “All this is for the rebellion of Jacob And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the rebellion of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:5, NASB) Isaiah “You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth.” (Isaiah 48:8, NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 194 Our Rebellion: Crux of the Problem “Men rise up against God and oppose his will, thereby narrowing the good in the world and opening the way to evil. Human rebellion against God – this is the central motif not only in Genesis but throughout the Scriptures.” - Irving M. Zeitlin, Ancient Judaism: Biblical Criticism from Max Weber to the Present (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), p. 28.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 195 The Conclusion: Israel’s Refusal to Repent “The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return [šûb] to the LORD their God, nor seek him, for all this”
- Hosea 7:10 “They do not turn [šûb] to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words. For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt”
- Hosea 7:16 (NIV)
“They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return [šûb] to me”
- Hosea 11:5
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 196 Class 4: Judgment of Israel by God (Hosea 8-10)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 197 More Charges Against Unfaithful Israel 1. The lesson on the broken covenant (Hosea 8:1-14)
2. Prophetic reaction: Israel is doomed (Hosea 9:1-9)
3. The lesson on the unprofitable plants (Hosea 9:10-17)
4. Prophetic reaction: Israel is a wayward vine (Hosea 10:1-8)
5. Prophetic advice: Israel is a trained heifer (Hosea 10:9-15)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 198 "Put the trumpet to your lips! An eagle is over the house of the LORD because the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law.”
- Hosea 8:1
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 199 Hosea 8:1 “Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture [nešer] is over the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant “The Hebrew term nešer and rebelled against my law.” may also be translated as ‘eagle,’ which is a bird of - Hosea 8:1 prey. The imagery of the eagle frequently symbolizes the Assyrian kings or the “Put the trumpet to your lips! An god Assur, who is portrayed eagle [nešer] is over the house of in a winged sun disk much the LORD because the people have like an eagle about to swoop broken my covenant and rebelled down on prey.” against my law.” - Marvin A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, - Hosea 8:1 (NIV) 2000), p. 85.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 200 Prologue to the Great Sinai Pericope "The prologue to the great Sinai pericope (Exodus 19:1-Numbers 10:10) also contains vocabulary and thematic material consistent with Hosea. YHWH is said to have borne Israel to the mountain in the wilderness ‘on eagle’s wings’ and to seek obedience from the people to ‘his covenant’ (Exodus 19:4-5)….The eagle imagery is reversed (Hosea 8:1) in the historical moment of judgment, and the language of holiness (qādaš) is employed in the critique of people and priesthood (4:14)." J. Andrew Dearman, The Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), p. 39.
A pericope (/pəˈrɪkəpiː/; Greek περικοπή, "a cutting-out") in rhetoric is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, suitable for public reading from a text, now usually of sacred scripture.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 201 Hosea 8:3: Spurning the Good “He has told you, O man, “Israel has what is good; and what spurned the good; does the LORD require of the enemy shall you but to do justice, and pursue him.” to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your - Hosea 8:3 God?”
- Micah 6:8
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 202 Hosea 8:4 Israel Rejected Yahweh as Their King
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
- Judges 21:25
“And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all “They made kings, but not through that they say to you, for they have me. They set up princes, but I knew not rejected you, but they have it not. With their silver and gold rejected me from being king over they made idols for their own them.” destruction.”
- 1 Samuel 8:7 - Hosea 8:4
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 203 Reaping What You Sow: “Reap The Whirlwind” “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
Hosea 8:7
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 204 Israel’s Hired Lovers and Foreign Allies “For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone; Ephraim has hired [tânâh] lovers. Though they hire [tânâh] allies among the nations, I will soon gather them up. And the king and princes shall soon writhe because of the tribute.”
- Hosea 8:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 205 The Divine Memory in the Book of Hosea “As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember [zâkar] their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.”
- Hosea 8:13
“They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah: he will remember [zâkar] their iniquity; he will punish their sins.”
- Hosea 9:9
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 206 Hosea 8:14 Israel’s Willful Forgetfulness “For Israel has forgotten his Maker “And I will punish her for the feast days of and built palaces, and Judah has the Baals when she burned offerings to multiplied fortified cities; so I will them and adorned herself with her ring send a fire upon his cities, and it and jewelry, and went after her lovers and shall devour her strongholds” forgot me, declares the LORD”
- Hosea 8:14 - Hosea 2:13
“My people are destroyed for lack of “but when they had grazed, they knowledge; because you have rejected became full, they were filled, and knowledge, I reject you from being a their heart was lifted up; therefore priest to me. And since you have they forgot me” forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children” - Hosea 13:6 - Hosea 4:6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 207 Forget Me Not? “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.” - Jeremiah 2:32
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 208 “But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”
- 2 Peter 1:9 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 209 The Idolatry of Samaria and Israel “I have spurned your calf, “The inhabitants of O Samaria. My anger Samaria tremble for burns against them. How the calf of Beth-aven. long will they be incapable Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous of innocence? For it is priests— those who from Israel; a craftsman rejoiced over it and over made it; it is not God. The its glory— for it has calf of Samaria shall be departed from them.” broken to pieces.” - Hosea 10:5 - Hosea 8:5-6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 210 Hosea 8:14 Trusting In The Arm of Flesh “For Israel has forgotten Assyrian King his Maker and built Sennacherib took all the palaces, and Judah has cities of Judah during multiplied fortified the reign of Judah’s King cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it Hezekiah: “against all shall devour her the fortified cities of strongholds.” Judah and took them”
- Hosea 8:14 -2 Kings 18:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 211 The One Building They Didn’t Fortify “And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria…. And king Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones.”
- 2 Kings 16:8, 17 “…and he shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the LORD, the God of his fathers.”
- 2 Chronicles 28:24-25
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 212 Belittling God the Creator
“Modern man is so fascinated by his own skills that he increasingly forgets or belittles God the Creator. He forgets that he is merely the child in the nursery playing with the building blocks that God has provided for him.” H.L. Ellison, The Prophets of Israel: From Ahijah to Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 81.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 213 The Cycle of Sin: Vice and Things Not So Nice “And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.”
- Judges 2:19
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 214 During Time of Hosea and Ezekiel: Politically and Spiritually Corrupt “You played the whore also with the “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not Assyrians, because you were not hidden from me; for now, O Ephraim, satisfied; yes, you played the whore you have played the whore; Israel is with them, and still you were not defiled.” satisfied.” - Hosea 5:3 - Ezekiel 16:28 “Rejoice not, O Israel! Exult not like “My people inquire of a piece of wood, the peoples; for you have played and their walking staff gives them the whore, forsaking your God. You oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has have loved a prostitute's wages on all led them astray, and they have left threshing floors.” their God to play the whore.” - Hosea 9:1 - Hosea 4:12
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 215 The Book of Hosea: Holiness, Judgment and Love “The dire consequences of sinning against Yahweh became a major theme of the eighth century prophets. Although renowned for his stress upon divine love, Hosea paints the coming woe more graphically than any other. In the light of love, evil is exposed in all of its ugliness.” Clyde T. Francisco, “Evil and Suffering in The Book of Hosea,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 5 (2) April 1963, p. 33.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 216 The Lesson of Hosea 9:1-3 “Don’t waste your life in wild orgies, Israel. Don’t party away your life with the heathen. You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously at every sex-and-religion party on the street. All that party food won’t fill you up. You’ll end up hungrier than ever.”
Hosea 9:1-3 (MSG)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 217 Israel’s Worship of Baal “Phoenician Baalism spread its moral pollution around the entire Mediterranean. Babylonia had its female votaries to this worship and Canaan its sacred prostitutes, both men and women.” Leroy Waterman, "The Marriage of Hosea," Journal of Biblical Literature 37 (3-4) 1918, p. 199.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 218 The Human Heart: Idol Factory “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them?” - Ezekiel 14:3
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 219 One Prophet: 150 Statements of Sin . Hosea utters approximately 150 statements concerning the sins of Israel. More than half of these statements deal with the sin of idolatry. . Using metaphors and similes, Hosea upbraids Israel for these sins:
1. Lying 2. Murder 3. Covetousness 4. Idolatry 5. Insincerity 6. Ingratitude
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 220 The Spirit of Jezebel “He [Ahab] not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.” - 1 Kings 16:31 (NIV) “But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” - Revelation 2:20
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 221 The True Cost of False Worship “…the offspring of the sacred prostitute were the object of much consideration in Hebrew society….There is also evidence of the terrible seriousness with which the worshippers took their religion. The virginity of their daughters and the life blood of their sons were at the disposal of the deity.”
Herbert Gordon May, Hosea and Israel’s Cult (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1932), pp. 29, 38.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 222 Spiritual and Cultural Assimilation: “We Want to Be Like Everyone Else” “You say, ‘We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the world, who serve wood and stone.’ But what you have in mind will never happen.”
- Ezekiel 20:32 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 223 “The Days of Gibeah”
“They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.” - Hosea 9:9 (NIV) “Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, Israel, and there you have remained. Will not war again overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?” - Hosea 10:9 (NIV) “And all who saw it said, ‘Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak.’” - Judges 19:30
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 224 CORRUPTION: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets Prophet Verse Amos “For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.” (Amos 5:12) Hosea “They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah: he will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.” (Hosea 9:9) Micah “Arise and depart, for this is not your rest because it is polluted; it has become corrupted and with a great corruption” (Micah 2:10, Jubilee Bible 2000) Isaiah “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” (Isaiah 1:4) The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 225 Israel’s Shameful Idolatry “When I found Israel, it was like finding “You shall not worship the LORD your grapes in the desert; when I saw your God in that way, for every abominable ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit thing that the LORD hates they have on the fig tree. But when they came to done for their gods, for they even Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to burn their sons and their daughters in that shameful idol and became as vile the fire to their gods” [“abominable”] as the thing they loved” - Deuteronomy 12:31 - Hosea 9:10 (NIV) “but now they are sinning more and more, “So I went in and saw; and behold crafting idols from melted silver. Their every form of creeping things, and idols are made with the most exacting abominable beasts, and all the idols of skill, all of it the work of craftsmen. People the house of Israel, portrayed upon say about them, 'They offer human the wall round about” sacrifice, and kiss calf-shaped idols.‘” - Ezekiel 8:10 (KJV) - Hosea 13:2 (ISV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 226 Concept of Kingship During Time of Hosea “Because of all their wickedness in “Where now is your king, to Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of save you in all your cities? their sinful deeds, I will drive them out Where are all your rulers— of my house. I will no longer love them; those of whom you said, all their leaders are rebellious.” ‘Give me a king and princes’? I gave you a king in my anger, - Hosea 9:15 (NIV) and I took him away in my wrath.”
“For now they will say: ‘We have no - Hosea 13:10-11 king, for we do not fear the LORD; and a king—what could he do for us?’”
- Hosea 10:3
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 227 The Power of Metaphor in the Book of Hosea “The denial of Yahweh’s love and the stubborn rebellion of the princes led “Ephraim is stricken; to the death of the nation. Hosea pictures this fact in a metaphor in their root is dried up; which he likens the nation to a tree stricken by blight or harmful insects. they shall bear no The root of the nation had withered, it would produce no more fruit….the fruit. Even though metaphor depicts the end of the nation as they knew it. The corrupt they give birth, I will society of Hosea’s day was to come to an end, never to be restored. The put their beloved glory that had contributed to its false pride and its rebellion against God children to death.” would perish.” Thomas Edward McComiskey, ed., The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker - Hosea 9:16 Academic, 2009), p. 156.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 228 Hosea 9:15 The Downfall of Gilgal "Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to "So I am to them like a lion; hate them. Because of the like a leopard I will lurk wickedness of their deeds I beside the way. I will fall will drive them out of my upon them like a bear house. I will love them no robbed of her cubs; more; all their princes I will tear open their breast, are rebels." and there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild beast - Hosea 9:15 would rip them open."
- Hosea 13:7-8
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 229 Hosea 9:17 Rejecting God…Wandering Off “My God will reject them “Thus says the Lord because they have not listened to him; they shall be concerning this people: wanderers among the “They have loved to wander nations” thus; they have not - Hosea 9:17 restrained their feet; therefore the Lord does not “They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; accept them; now he will they shall run to and fro, to remember their iniquity and seek the word of the Lord, but punish their sins” they shall not find it”
- Amos 8:12 - Jeremiah 14:10
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 230 231 EXILE: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets Prophet Verse Amos “Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end…. For this is what Amos is saying: "'Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.” (Amos 6:7, Amos 7:11, NIV)
Hosea “My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.” (Hosea 9:17, NIV) Micah “Writhe and groan like a woman in labor, you people of Jerusalem, for now you must leave this city to live in the open country. You will soon be sent in exile to distant Babylon. But the LORD will rescue you there; he will redeem you from the grip of your enemies.” (Micah 4:10, NLT) Isaiah “Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst.” (Isaiah 5:13)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 232 Hosea 10:1 Ephraim: A Fruitful Vine Indeed “Israel is a luxuriant vine “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a that yields its fruit. The fruitful bough by a spring; his more his fruit increased, the branches run over the wall” more altars he built; as his country improved, he - Genesis 49:22 improved his pillars.” “The second son he named - Hosea 10:1 Ephraim and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’”
- Genesis 41:52 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 233 Biblical Usage of “Ephraim”
Frequency of Term Book “Ephraim” Hosea 34 Judges 23 Joshua 16 2 Chronicles 16 Isaiah 14
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 234 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 235 Ephraim and Fruit “You have plowed iniquity; you “Ephraim is stricken; their root is have reaped injustice; you have dried up; they shall bear no fruit. eaten the fruit of lies. Because you Even though they give birth, I will have trusted in your own way and put their beloved children to in the multitude of your warriors” death.”
- Hosea 10:13 - Hosea 9:16 “O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.”
- Hosea 14:8 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 236 You Reap What You Sow “You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of “As I have seen, those lies. Because you have who plow iniquity and trusted in your own way sow trouble reap the and in the multitude of same.” your warriors” - Job 4:8 - Hosea 10:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 237 The Harvest of Corruption and Injustice “They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.” - Hosea 10:4
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 238 RIGHTEOUSNESS: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets Prophet Verse Amos “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24) Hosea “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” (Hosea 10:12, KJV) Micah “Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.” (Micah 7:9, NIV) Isaiah “The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness” (Isaiah 33:5)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 239 “Unplowed Earth” “This is what the LORD says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem: ‘Break up your unplowed [fallow] ground and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done-- burn with no one to quench it.’”
- Jeremiah 4:3-4 (NIV) The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 240 Hosea 10:5 Kemarim: “Black Coats and Shouters” “The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests [kemarim]— those who rejoiced over it and over its glory— for it has departed from them.” “The priests of Samaria, says French Benedictine monk Antoine Augustin - Hosea 10:5 Calmet [1672-1757], are here called “So they shouted louder and kemarim, that is, black coats, or shouters, slashed themselves with swords because they made loud cries in their and spears, as was their custom, sacrifices.” until their blood flowed.” - Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing The Old and New Testaments (New York and Cincinnati: The - 1 Kings 18:28 (NIV) Methodist Book Concern, 1898), Vol. 4, p. 644. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 241 Hosea 10:5-6: Modern Day Idolatry “The gods of today – the idols of “Therefore, my dear friends, our materialistic generation; the things we set our hearts on, and flee from idolatry.” value above all else, although they are but the works of men’s - 1 Corinthians 10:14 (NIV) hands – these will in the end prove as unavailing to deliver or to comfort in the day of calamity “Dear children, keep as was the calf of Beth-aven. yourselves from idols.” Thorns and thistles – tokens of the curse ensuing upon the sin of Adam – will come up on the - 1 John 5:21 (NIV) idolatrous altars, Hosea affirmed…” Herbert F. Stevenson, Three Prophetic Voices: Studies in Joel, Amos and Hosea (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), p. 140.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 242 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 243 The Sin of Israel Destroyed by God’s Wrath “Samaria’s king shall perish “Then the kings of the earth and like a twig on the face of the the great ones and the generals waters. The high places of and the rich and the powerful, Aven, the sin of Israel, shall and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and be destroyed. Thorn and among the rocks of the thistle shall grow up on their mountains, calling to the altars, and they shall say to mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and hide us from the face of him and to the hills, ‘Fall on us.’” who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the - Hosea 10:8 Lamb’” - Revelation 6:15-16 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 244 Wrong Source of Trust “You have plowed iniquity; “Thus says the LORD: you have reaped injustice; ‘Cursed is the man who you have eaten the fruit of trusts in man and makes lies. Because you have flesh his strength, whose trusted in your own way heart turns away from the and in the multitude of LORD.’” your warriors” - Jeremiah 17:5 - Hosea 10:13
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 245 Class 5: The Restoration of Israel to God (Hosea 11-14)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 246 247 Great Expectations Noted English Congregational scholar Dr. John Pye-Smith (1774-1851) wrote: “That from the earliest time an expectation prevailed of a great personage to rise at some future period, and to be the Deliverer and Saviour of mankind from their mortal and natural miseries, is a fact well known to all who have studied primeval history, and is generally received by believers in revelation. This expected benefactor was the Messiah described in the Hebrew sacred books; who should unite in his own person the dignities of prophet, priest, and king, that he might confer salvation on our fallen world.” John Pye-Smith, The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah: An Inquiry With a View to a Satisfactory Determination of the Doctrine Taught in the Holy Scriptures Concerning the Person of Christ (London: Jackson and Walford, 1837), Vol. 1, p. 203.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 248 Birth of a Great Savior “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, “But Ahaz said, ‘I will who are too little to be among the not ask, and I will not clans of Judah, from you shall come put the Lord to the forth for me one who is to be ruler test.’ And he said, in Israel, whose coming forth is ‘Hear then, O house of from of old” David! Is it too little for you - Micah 5:2 to weary men, that you weary my God also?’ “For to us a child is born, to us a son Therefore the Lord himself is given; and the government shall will give you a sign. Behold, be upon his shoulder, and his name the virgin shall conceive shall be called Wonderful Counselor, and bear a son, and shall Mighty God, Everlasting Father, call his name Immanuel” Prince of Peace” - Isaiah 7:12-14 - Isaiah 9:6
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 249 Hosea Citations in the New Testament
Book of Hosea Citation New Testament Verse Quoting Hosea 1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, “and remained there until the death of and out of Egypt I called my son” Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord (Hosea 11:1) had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Matthew 2:15) 2 “For I desire steadfast love and not “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6) to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13) 3 “For I desire steadfast love and not “And if you had known what this means, sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6) would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matthew 12:7)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 250 Hosea Citations in the New Testament
Book of Hosea Citation New Testament Verse Quoting Hosea 4 “The high places of Aven, the sin of “Then they will begin to say to the Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, thistle shall grow up on their altars, and ‘Cover us.’” (Luke 23:30) they shall say to the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us.’” (Hosea 10:8) 5 “The high places of Aven, the sin of “calling to the mountains and rocks, Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and Fall on us and hide us from the face of thistle shall grow up on their altars, and him who is seated on the throne, and they shall say to the mountains, ‘Cover from the wrath of the Lamb, for the us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us.’” great day of their wrath has come, and (Hosea 10:8) who can stand?’” (Revelation 6:16-17)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 251 Hosea Citations in the New Testament Book of Hosea Citation New Testament Verse Quoting Hosea 6 “and I will sow her for myself in the “As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those land. And I will have mercy on No who were not my people I will call ‘my Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, people,’ and her who was not beloved I ‘You are my people’; and they shall say, will call ‘beloved.’” (Romans 9:25) ‘You are my God.’”(Hosea 2:23) 7 “I shall ransom them from the power of “O death, where is your victory? Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O death, where is your sting?” O Death, where are your plagues? O (1 Corinthians 15:55) Sheol, where is your sting? Repentance is hidden from my eyes” (Hosea 13:14) 8 “Yet the number of the children of Israel “Once you were not a people, but now shall be like the sand of the sea, which you are God’s people; once you had not cannot be measured or numbered. And received mercy, but now you have in the place where it was said to them, received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10) ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’” (Hosea 1:10)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 252 A Loving Father
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them."
Hosea 11: 1, 3-4
253 The Love of Our Heavenly Father
“I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.”
- Hosea 11:4 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 254 Divine Call Ignored “The more I called out to them, the farther they fled from me; they sacrificed to Baals, “I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their burning incense to fears upon them; because when carved images.” I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but - Hosea 11:2 (ISV) they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.”
- Isaiah 66:4
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 255 Israel: Unrepentant, Unresponsive “Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?”
- Hosea 11:5 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 256 Hosea 11:7 Apostasy of Israel The Hebrew word for apostasy is mĕšûbâ which is derived from the root šwb which means “And my people are “turning” or “turning one” and bent on backsliding “backsliding” or “treacherously from me: though they turning” as used in Hosea 11:7 call them to him that is on high, none at all will “Return [šûb] faithless children, exalt him” I will heal [rāpā] your apostasies [mĕšûbōtékem]” - Hosea 11:7 (ASV) - Jeremiah 3:22 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 257 But God Can’t Let Israel Go “Israel, I can’t let you go. I can’t give you up. How could I possibly destroy you as I did the towns of Admah and Zeboiim? I just can’t do it. My feelings for you are much too strong” - Hosea 11:8 (CEV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 258 God Is Not Indifferent to Our Plight “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.” - Isaiah 63:9 (NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 259 GOD’S COMPASSION: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets
Prophet Verse Amos “The Lord had pity [relented] upon this: It shall not be, said the Lord.” (Amos 7:3) Hosea “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” (Hosea 11:8)
Micah “He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19) Isaiah “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.” (Isaiah 54:7, NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 260 Hosea 11: The Heart of God “Our prophet presents the Lord as the God of the loving heart. Someone has well said, ‘He is the first prophet of Grace, Israel’s earliest Evangelist.’ Just as Luke presents the prodigal Son, so Hosea portrays the prodigal wife.”
Charles Lee Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1976), p. 14.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 261 Hosea 11 “Hosea 11 is one of the Bible’s greatest passages on God’s love, forgiveness, and acceptance. No matter how bitterly we disappoint God and no matter how far we have strayed from Him, He still loves us. Once this sinks deep into the heart, it changes the sinner. The Lord, while He feels the human emotions of hurt and anger, chooses to rise above them to show love and compassion. His love is not weak or just sentimental, but it is rather dependable and strong. It promises to bring healing to the repentant sinner.” -Zdravko Stefanovic, Thus Says the Lord: Messages From the Minor Prophets (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2012), p. 30.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 262 Significance of Hosea 11:8-9 “…gives a convenient summary of the book’s message…here we penetrate deeper into the heart and mind of God than anywhere else in the Old Testament.” H.D. Beeby, Grace Abounding: A Commentary on the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p. 140.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 263 Hosea 11: 8-9 Divine Love Has the Last Word “What is highlighted While the wickedness of these cities caused them to is the struggle within be “overthrown” (Heb. Yahweh, a struggle hāpak, Gen. 19:21, 25), now between the sense it is God's caring heart that is of justice and love.” “overthrown” (Heb. hāpak, Hosea 11:8b)! Joy Philip Kakkanattu, God’s Enduring Love in the Book of “…My heart is turned over Hosea: A Synchronic and [hāpak] within Me, all My Diachronic Analysis of Hosea compassions are kindled” 11, 1-11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), p. 81. - Hosea 11:8 (NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 264 Hosea 11: 8-9 “G. Campbell Morgan paraphrases thus: ‘My compassions are in spasm, deeply affected.’ We are in the presence here of the perfect love of God – a love that is not the mere sentimental outgoing of an emotional nature, evanescent and passing; but love that becomes an agony; love that becomes a tragedy.” Paul T. Butler, The Minor Prophets: The Prophets of the Decline: Obadiah – Joel – Jonah – Amos – Hosea (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1968/1984), p. 550.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 265 God Cares For You “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”
- 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NASB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 266 267 The Divine Appeal to You “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
- Jeremiah 33:3
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 268 The Verdict and Response to Israel’s Deceitfulness 1. Israel’s deceitful politics They turn, but not upward, they (Hosea 11:12-12:1) are like a deceitful bow; Their 2. Israel’s deceitful record princes will fall by the sword (Hosea 12:2-6) Because of the insolence of their 3. Israel’s deceitful practices tongue. This will be their derision (Hosea 12:7-11) in the land of Egypt.”
4. God’s dealings with deceitful - Hosea 7:16 (NASB) Israel (Hosea 12:12-14) 5. Israel’s deceitful pride “Ephraim has surrounded me (13:1-16) with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks 6. Hosea’s prophetic advice (14:1-3) with God and is faithful to the Holy One.” 7. Yahweh’s divine consolation (14:4-8) - Hosea 11:12
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 269 Synopsis of the Life of Jacob “In the womb he grasped “Yahweh is the his brother's heel; as a man he struggled with God. God of Hosts; Yahweh is His name.” He struggled with the - Hosea 12:5 angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there” - Hosea 12:3-4 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 270 Hosea 12:2-14 cp. Genesis 35:2-4: From Jacob to Israel: The Model of True Repentance “The passage recalls both Jacob’s failures and his readiness to return to God….The narrative from Genesis testifies that in the end he not only survived the encounter with God, but also prevailed. Thus he became a model of true repentance to all who face their own weaknesses and who hope for something better. Hosea’s use of the full title ‘the Lord God of hosts’ turns the focus away from idols toward the glory of Israel’s God who is also the God of the whole world.”
-Zdravko Stefanovic, Thus Says the Lord: Messages From the Minor Prophets (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2012), p. 30. The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 271 “Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Deceiving The Judah: ‘Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!’ Do not listen to Deceiver Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you “but they shall sit will eat of his own vine, and each one every man under of his own fig tree, and each one of you his vine and under will drink the water of his own cistern, his fig tree, and no one shall make until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain them afraid, for and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, the mouth of the a land of olive trees and honey, that you Lord of hosts has may live, and not die. And do not listen spoken.” to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” - Micah 4:4 - 2 Kings 18:28, 31-32
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 272 Hosea 12 The Purpose of Punishment “The punishment is not just vindictive or restrictive; it is designed to reeducate and reform. A change of heart intended is similar to that of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament. Suffering brings awareness and regret, if not remorse and penitence.” H.D. Beeby, Grace Abounding: A Commentary on the Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), p. 25.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 273 “Always Put Your Hope in God” “But you must return to your God. Maintain love and justice, and always put your hope in God.”
- Hosea 12: 6 (HCSB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 274 Hosea 12:7: What is Correct Translation?
“The merchant [Kĕna`an] uses Kĕna`an is the Hebrew word dishonest scales and loves to overwhelmingly used in defraud” reference to Canaan, the son of Ham, and to the “land of - Hosea 12:7 (NIV) Canaan.”
The root of the word Canaan “Canaan! in his hand are is kana` which literally means balances of deceit! To oppress “to be humble, be humbled, he hath loved” be subdued, be brought down, be low, be under, be - Hosea 12:7 (YLT) brought into subjection.”
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 275 The Necessity for Repentance “The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him, for all this.” - Hosea 7:10
“They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me” - Hosea 11:5
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 276 Israel’s Lack of Self-Awareness “17 Beware lest you say in “Ephraim boasts, ‘I am very your heart, ‘My power rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth and the might of my hand they will not find in me any have gotten me this iniquity or sin.’” wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the LORD your - Hosea 12:8 (NIV) God, for it is he who gives you power to get “For you say, I am rich, I wealth, that he may have prospered, and I need confirm his covenant that nothing, not realizing that he swore to your fathers, you are wretched, pitiable, as it is this day.” poor, blind, and naked.” - Deuteronomy 8:17-18 - Revelation 3:17
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 277 God’s Invitation to Israel “I have been the LORD your God ever since you came out of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again, as in the days of your appointed festivals.” - Hosea 12:9 (NIV) The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 278 Viewpoint of Prophets in Samaria “The days of punishment are “I spoke to the coming, the days of reckoning are prophets; it was I at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many who multiplied and your hostility so great, the visions, and through prophet is considered a fool, the inspired person a maniac. The the prophets gave prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet parables.” snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his - Hosea 12:10 God.” - Hosea 9:7 (NIV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 279 Hosea 13:7-8 The Sadness of These Similes “The ferocity of the attack of God on his people is again highlighted by the employment of similes from the animal world. These are, for the most, easily understood and need little comment; the picture of God destroying his people is an extremely vivid and gory one. If God comes to destroy his people, then there is none to protect them – they are totally helpless against his rapacious and mighty judgment.”
-J.T.E. Renner, Chi Rho Commentary on Hosea (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1979), p. 87.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 280 Similes in “Like some other passages in the prophets, this most movingly Hosea 13:1-12 expresses the travail of the heart of God at the determined “The above similes are all apostasy of His people; His designed to show how swiftly reluctance to give them up, and Israel will vanish from the to bring upon the judgment they scene of life. Swift is the so richly deserve. Once more disappearance of mist, dew, the prophet portrays, in vivid, chaff, and smoke – they have kaleidoscopic terms, what they no enduring worth. To such is were, in contrast with what they Israel is likened.” might have been.”
-J.T.E. Renner, Chi Rho Commentary on Herbert F. Stevenson, Three Prophetic Hosea (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing Voices: Studies in Joel, Amos and Hosea House, 1979), p. 86. (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), p. 149.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 281 Aftermath of Spiritual Amnesia “I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them -- a wild animal will tear them apart.” - Hosea 13:5-8
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 282 Who Should We Really Fear? “And do not fear “There is those who kill the only one body but cannot kill Lawgiver and Judge, the the soul. Rather fear One who is able to save him who can destroy and destroy. But who both soul and body are you to judge your in hell [gehenna].” neighbor?”
- Matthew 10:28 - James 4:12
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 283 Hosea 13:4-5 God and Israel in the Wilderness “Yet I have been the LORD “They spoke your God Since the land of Egypt; and you were against God, not to know any god saying, “Can God except Me, For there is no savior besides Me. I cared spread a table in for you in the wilderness, the wilderness?” In the land of drought”
Hosea 13:4-5 (NASB) - Psalm 78:19
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 284 ‘Out of Egypt’ God constantly reminds the Jewish people that, “I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2) This phrase and variants appears about 125 times in the Old Testament.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 285 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 286 Hosea 13:14: The Hope of Israel: Resurrection of the Dead “I will deliver this people “And he said to me, ‘Son of from the power of the man, can these bones live?’ grave; I will redeem them And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, from death. Where, O death, you know.’” are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? "I - Ezekiel 37:3 will have no compassion” “For if their rejection means the - Hosea 13:14 (NIV) reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”
- Romans 11:15
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 287 Hosea 13:14 Positive Assertion or Negative Question? "I will ransom them "Shall I ransom them from the power of the from the power of grave; I will redeem Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death: them from death? O Death, where are your O death, I will be thy thorns? O Sheol, where plagues; O grave, I will is your sting? be thy destruction: Compassion will be repentance shall be hid hidden from My sight." from mine eyes." - Hosea 13:14 (NASB) - Hosea 13:14 (KJV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 288 The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 289 Hosea 13:16: Assyrian and Babylonian Invasions "Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little "Their infants will be ones shall be dashed in dashed in pieces before pieces, and their pregnant their eyes; their houses women ripped open" will be plundered and their wives ravished." - Hosea 13:16 - Isaiah 13:16
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 290 King Ahaz of Judah (732 - 716 B.C.) “Ahaz [who reigned between 732-716 B.C.] even made metal images for the Baals, and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 28:1-3
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 291 Valley of Hinnom: Gehenna
“And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom [Gehenna], to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind”
- Jeremiah 7:31
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 292 Hosea and Gomer: Types of the Lord Jesus Christ and Us
Gomer was a “type” of the Gentile bride of the Lord Jesus Christ
◦ The bride chosen from a sinful people
◦ We did not love him first; he loved us first
◦ We did not choose him; he chose us (John 15:16)
◦ We did not deserve his love and mercy
◦ Like Gomer, we each only taste of grace when we become wearied and tired of sin
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 293 Hosea 14 After Hosea… “But our Bible does not end in Hosea. The name Hosea meant salvation…There came One in the fulness of time…we find out at last in Jesus, how God can be just, and the Justifier of the sinning soul….Through Christ He has made the way by which sinning souls can be conformed to His image, His likeness, His will. The Gospel is gleaming in Hosea. It is shining in full radiance in Christ.”
Paul T. Butler, The Minor Prophets: The Prophets of the Decline: Obadiah – Joel – Jonah – Amos – Hosea (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1968/1984), p. 551.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 294 Hosea 14:1-2 “It’s Not Too Late”
“Return, Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: "Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.”
- Hosea 14:1-2
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 295 FORGIVENESS: Comparative Analysis of the 8th Century B.C. Prophets
Prophet Verse Amos “When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, ‘O Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!’” (Amos 7:2) Hosea “Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: ‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.’” (Hosea 14:2, NIV) Micah “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.” (Micah 7:18, NIV) Isaiah “The people of Israel will no longer say, ‘We are sick and helpless," for the LORD will forgive their sins.’” (Isaiah 33:24, NLT) “Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, so He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will freely forgive." (Isaiah 55:7, HCSB)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 296 Always a Faithful Remnant “Ephraim has “Yet you have still a surrounded me with few names in Sardis, lies, and the house of people who have not Israel with deceit, but soiled their garments, Judah still walks with and they will walk God and is faithful to with me in white, for the Holy One.” they are worthy.”
- Hosea 11:12 - Revelation 3:4
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 297 Hosea 14:3: “Assyria Shall Not Save Us” “Assyria shall not save “Ephraim is like a dove, silly us; we will not ride on and without sense, calling horses; and we will to Egypt, going to Assyria.” say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of - Hosea 7:11 our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
- Hosea 14:3
298
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 298 Love You Without Limit “Israel, you have “I will heal their rejected me, but my faithlessness; I will love anger is gone; them freely, for my I will heal you and anger has turned from love you without them.” limit.” - Hosea 14:4 (RSV) - Hosea 14:4 (CEV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 299 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved”
- Ephesians 2:4-5
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 300 Hosea 14:8: God’s Perspective “Ephraim [shall say]: 'What have I to do any more with idols?' As for Me, I respond and look on him; I am like a leafy cypress-tree; From Me is thy fruit found”
- Hosea 14:8 (JPS Tanakh 1917)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 301 Hosea 14:8-9 Forgiving Parent and Wounded Lover: Ready to Restore “Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will answer him and care for him. I am like a flourishing juniper; your fruitfulness comes from me. Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.” - Hosea 14:8-9 (NIV) The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 302 Deepest Consolation of this Life “…Hosea yet believed that God is a God of love, that mercy shall “Then David said to somehow or somewhere triumph over justice, that God will smite Gad, ‘I am in great sin, and yet will spare. Hosea's distress. Let us fall into was a real and not a sham message, and it was a message the hand of the LORD, full of comfort; and still more full of comfort was the reason, ‘for I for his mercy is great; am God, and not man.’ The deepest consolation of life lies in but let me not fall into this, God and not man is the judge. God is the Father of the the hand of man.’” prodigal.” - 2 Samuel 24:14 Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903), Dean of Canterbury
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 303 All the Prophets, Including Hosea, Typified Jesus “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
- Isaiah 53:3
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 304 In Conclusion: Hosea Brings Us Closer to Christ “In lesser measure Hosea did what the Lord Jesus did for all men perfectly, made his personal sorrows and agonies a redeeming power for human life…. In coming near to Hosea, we come very near to Christ.” William Pierson Merrill, Prophets of the Dawn: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah: The Beginnings of the Religion of the Spirit (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1927), pp. 90-91.
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 305 Class 1: Marriages of Hosea Class 3: Refusal of Israel to Repent and Yahweh to Unfaithful of Her Adultery (Hosea 6-7) Spouses (Hosea 1-3) Class 4: Judgment of Israel by God Class 2: Spiritual and Physical (Hosea 8-10) Adultery of Israel (Hosea 4-5) Class 5: Restoration of Israel to God (Hosea 11-14)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 306 THE BOOK OF HOSEA: AN AMAZING LOVE STORY
Bro. Bill Yake Arlington, Virginia [email protected]
Unless otherwise noted, all verses cited from the English Standard Version (ESV)
The Book of Hosea: An Amazing Love Story 307