The prophet Hosea has been on the scene since the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II.
Hosea lived during the tumult of the eighth century B.C. His period of activity was between 750 and 730 BC. Toward the end of his prophetic life, he would be a contemporary with Isaiah and Micah. The setting is the last period of political stability for Israel. The threat of Assyria hovers in the background. However, the book focuses on the behavior of Israel, which it evaluates and condemns in sharp terms. It is a period of apostasy of social disintegration, of wrongful leadership of failed alliances, and a period in which knowledge of and reverence for the Lord are lacking. Hosea watched uneasily as Assyria's star rose to a place of power among the nations of the ancient Near Eastern world. The disastrous alliance Israel improvised with Assyria proved very well the worst of the fears and forecasts Hosea. As Hosea watched his beloved nation disintegrate before his very eyes -- politically, economically and most heart-wrenching of all, spiritually -- this prophet received a bizarre word from the Lord, a word that imbued his message with unique accessibility. He was a critic of the religious life of Israel.
One main theme involves Israel abandoning the Lord. He expresses this in terms of the worship life and religious practices of Israel, as well as its social, sexual, and political offenses. He uses horrifying imagery.
He employs sexual and family metaphors to express the relationship between the Lord and Israel. The Lord takes the role of an angry husband who condemns, severely punishes, and publicly dishonors his unfaithful wife, who fails to recognize how good the husband had been to her. After his violent and shaming punishment is carried out, he will be willing to accept her back. Ezekiel 16 and 23 has similar imagery. The drama unfolds in a painful, real-life marital experience that Hosea undergoes at the command of the Lord, as recorded in the first three chapters. The Lord directs extreme acts to bring forth through this prophet a message concerning the parallel experiences that the Lord sees in the “marital” relationship between the Lord and Israel. We are on solid ground when we think of this marriage as part of the life of the prophet, and thus not a vision, dream, parable, or allegory. The experience of the prophet is the focus. The event stirred and shocked the life of Hosea regardless of its effect upon public opinion. It concerned him personally at the deepest level and had a meaning of the highest significance for his life. He became aware of the fact that his personal fate was a mirror of the divine pathos. His sorrow echoed the sorrow of the Lord. In this fellow-suffering is a connection with the divine pathos. Its meaning is subjective and evocative. By living through in his life what the divine consort of Israel experienced, the prophet was able to attain sympathy for the divine situation. The marriage was a lesson, an illustration. Its purpose was to educate Hosea in the understanding of divine sensibility. The idea that lies behind this experience is the covenant between the Lord and Israel.[1]
Hosea perceives the tension within the Lord between anger and compassion. He discloses the astonishing fact of the love of the Lord for this people. The Lord does demand justice, as Amos had said, but the Lord is also one in love with this people. We see this in the nostalgia for the early days of the relationship of between the Lord and Israel, as in Hosea 9 and 11. The issue here is that the conquest of Canaan by Israel was a process extending over several centuries. The Israelites did not the Canaanites. They occupied parts of the land, while other parts remained in the hands of the Canaanites. War far was common in the early decades, but gradually hostilities ceased. The two groups mingled. Without abandoning the worship of the Lord, the Israelites worshiped the gods of the land they had conquered, sacrificing on the tops of the mountains and making offers there. The rites included sacred prostitution and intoxication. It was the worship of a god of the land rather than the Lord who had established a covenant of loyalty and of ethical obligations. The Lord shattered the serenity of the people in their worship of Lord and Baal by sending this prophet. He sensed the pathos of the Lord as he conveyed in poetic form the love the Lord had for a people whom the Lord must judge. Yet, the words of judgment are not final. Their intention was to impart the intensity of divine anger. That anger did not express all that the Lord felt about the people. Intense as the anger was, the Lord was full of compassion as well. He sensed the dramatic tension within the Lord. [2] Hosea glimpses into the inner life of the Lord as the Lord ponders what has happened with Israel, disclosing that the decisive motive of the Lord is love. The Lord becomes the sensitive consort to whom deception comes and who nevertheless goes on pleading for loyalty, uttering a longing for a reunion, and displaying a passionate desire for reconciliation. He sees a drama. He senses the tenderness and mercy of Lord, and therefore the love of the Lord for Israel, expressing it as love between husband wife. Healing and reconciliation prevail. He looks for a renewal of the covenant. For this reason, the theme of apostasy is important. This preoccupation does not focus upon Israel, however, but upon the Lord, the one abandoned. He identifies with the divine partner of Israel. He forms an emotional solidarity with the Lord. His sympathy is with divine anger that arises toward this apostasy. The importance of the image of marriage in expressing the relationship between the Lord and Israel is to expose the disturbance that occurs in the life of the Lord. Idolatry is adultery. It is betrayal of the Lord. It is lewdness. Israel is like a wanton wife, the Lord like a faithful, loving, but forsaken husband. Stronger than jealousy is the longing of the Lord for reunion and hope for the return of Israel. The reconciliation will take effect as a new betrothal. While the law forbade renewing marital life after such betrayal, the love of the Lord is greater than law and emotion.[3]
He uses such imagery to explain the reasons for the disasters that befell Israel, to persuade readers to live their lives in a way consistent with the will of the Lord, and to give them hope for the future. He refers to the destruction of Israel in the land and its exile from it. He also refers to the fall of the northern monarchy. These images and references are how the Lord punishes Israel for its abandonment of the Lord.
He refers to the political life of Israel as one of promiscuity. He will use the term harlot to refer to this. Israel was a hotbed of plots and intrigues, with constant military revolts and usurpations. Zechariah was slain by Shallum, who was killed by Menahem. There was no legitimate king in the country, for kingship was a matter of divine election, which Israel had long ignored. The various political factions, pro-Egyptian or pro-Assyrian, seeking to gain power or protection with the aid of foreign states, made the country an easy prey for the appetites of Assyria and Egypt. Alliance with Assyria would mean more than partnership in arms. It would require tribute and recognition of its supreme god. He was convinced that reliance on Assyria and Egypt would end in exile.[4]
He will use the form of a legal indictment or covenant lawsuit, with the theme being the charge of unfaithfulness and absence of the knowledge of God. The point is not abstract knowledge of the Lord, but intimacy and intercourse with the Lord that constitute faithful covenantal relations. The case lays out how loss of intimacy with the Lord has produced illicit, illegitimate, and unjust relations with others. He calls for repentance from Israel, which is the path toward realization of the hope contained in his message. Such knowledge denotes an act involving concern, such as sympathy, pity, or affection for someone. In exodus 2:24-25, God heard knew the condition of the Hebrews in slavery, in the sense of had pity for it. The Lord knew their sufferings in Exodus 3:7, meaning the Lord had sympathy for and am affected by their sufferings. Israel in Exodus 23:9 knows the heart of a stranger, since it was a stranger in Egypt, meaning Israel has sympathy or feeling for the stranger. The fact that a pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph (Exodus 1:8) refers to one who did not care for Joseph. The sons of Eli in I Samuel 2:12 did not know the Lord in the sense of inner and emotional attachment. Adam knew his wife eve in the sense of attaching himself ot her (Genesis 4:1). Hosea wants Israel to have a feeling for the Lord, an inner attitude of emotional solidarity with the Lord. He wants to see sympathy for the Lord, an attachment of the whole person, an act of genuine involvement, attachment, and commitment to the Lord. Such relationship would be reciprocal, in the Lord would have such attachment with them as well. It involves complete engagement that involves inwardness as well as action.[5]
Typical of the prophetic literature, he offers the hope for an ideal future of reconciliation between the Lord and Israel. Although his message contains the doom of judgment, here is the primary reason the Lord called Hosea. [6]He offers this hope in highly poetic language. The hope led to the wide use of the book in Jewish liturgy. The hope is incredible, as he is directed beyond his broken home toward a restored family. The Lord appeals the verdict and in appeals the verdict, pointing beyond exile to reclaim the beloved. We encounter a poignant call to the know the Lord. The book moves dramatically and poetically from the passions, pains, and promises of the family of Hosea to the covenant relations exposed in the heart of the Lord.
The date of the writing would have to be before the captivity Samaria in 721. He is the only "writing prophet" of the Northern Kingdom. He gives longer statements than his contemporaries, who often spoke in short oracles. We have a narrative in chapters 1-3 and oracles in chapters 4-14. Strong feelings and emotions, like love, anger, and disappointment govern his preaching. His preaching occurs within a raving history rooted in the Exodus. He aligned himself closely to the Levites, for the general movement toward becoming increasingly Canaanite necessarily pushed them aside. He was a man of strong feeling, his preaching governed by them. The tension of his love, hate, anger, and ambivalence find expression in his oracles. He is also most comfortable when directing attention to the Exodus tradition.[7] Hosea is the first to describe the submersion of Israel into the Canaanite religion as harlotry. Its violation of the first and second commandments were the basis for the change. This condition was a failure of the priesthood. He saw the coronation of kings in Samaria, often through assassination, were judgments of the Lord. The Lord has turned against them because of their evil deeds. Yet, his prophesies of salvation represent the tension in the heart of God. Judgment becomes an education in the ways of the Lord, as the Lord will bring them back to the beginning and teach them again how to be the people the Lord intended them to be. The new saving event is prefigured in the old election tradition of the Exodus.[8]
The love of God is an act. In Hosea, throughout the book we see the action of the Lord in covenant with Israel as an expression of love. We will find the striking connection between the love of God and the knowledge of God.[9]
In Hosea 1:2-10, a segment that extends to 3:5, we have the wife of Hosea, the naming and renaming of the children. At least five years elapse during this period. This section develops a sharp contrast between the reported abandonment by Israel of the Lord and the future reconciliation between the two. Punishment is presented as a bridge that leads from one situation to another. The image of whoredom and proper marriage become the organizing principle of this material.
The uniquely painful ministry and personalized message of the prophet Hosea manages to bring the fate of an ancient country and the facts of our own struggles into a sharp double focus. Despite Hosea's extreme distance from us in days, the metaphor that defined both his personal life and his preached message continues to transfix us. The powers of his predicament as well as his predictions remain undiminished.
In Hosea 1:2-8, was the marriage of Hosea meant to be taken literally or as a figurative symbol of a prophetic message? The main concern is what the sexual sins and marital life of Gomer symbolize. These descriptions point to the harlotry of the land and its inhabitants, which invites us to consider the worship of gods other than the Lord. The image of the Lord married to Israel predominates. Within their larger context in the opening chapters of Hosea, these references point toward the possibility of repentance and return to the proper relation between the Lord and Israel as expressed in 2:20-25 and 3:5.
Of all the symbolic actions that God commanded Israelite prophets to perform, none has generated more surprise and speculation than Hosea's marriage to the prostitute Gomer. What the story sets up for the audience in Hosea and Gomer's marriage is a situation where adultery is the wife's expected behavior. In this analogy, the prophet stands in relation to his adulterous wife in the same way God stands in relation to unfaithful Israel.
The two most popular metaphors for God's covenant with Israel are those of parent and child, and husband and wife. Other covenant language in Israel and the ancient Near East also borrows its terminology from family relationships. A covenant is a social contract between two parties that, like a marriage or an adoption, takes two people who are not kin to one another, who have no legal rights or responsibilities toward each other, and legally creates a family relationship between them. This means that when God commands Hosea to marry a prostitute, he is commanding him to make a dramatic demonstration that any Israelite could understand concerning how Israel has failed to be a faithful covenant partner.
Israel was suffering from a plague of infidelity. The local, licentious religiosity of Canaanite ba'alism continually attracted the Israelites. They still claimed to be God's chosen covenant people while at the same time they carefully attended to the seasonal worship demands and sacrifices of the Canaanite cults. They were concerned about pleasing Yahweh, but they also attempted to curry favor with the ba'alist gods and goddesses. The allure of Canaanite religion was powerful. It insinuated itself into every aspect of the Hebrews' lives. By taking a prostitute as his wife, Hosea uses the Canaanite myth against itself. Monotheistic Yahwism was different from ba'alism precisely because Yahweh was not infused with sexuality, was not tied to the seasonal, cyclical fertility rites that kept the practice of cultic prostitution alive. Hosea's marriage to the prostitute Gomer transformed the ground on which people practiced these pagan rites. With their being husband and wife, the focus on the relationship was no longer mere fertility, but fidelity.
Gomer herself is a powerful image of Israel's wrongheaded, wrong-hearted attitude. Instead of seeing Gomer simply as a cultic prostitute, many scholars have concluded that she had ties to temple prostitution before her marriage. Then, in keeping with common Canaanite practices, after her marriage she continued to give herself in cultic prostitution to ensure her fertility. Nevertheless, Gomer is Hosea's wife. Her participation in this ritualized prostitution ensuring fertility instead becomes a symbol of the spiritual barrenness that now exists in Israel's heart. The genuine pain in this out-of-sync relationship poignantly depicts the anguish suffered by Yahweh at Israel's betrayal.
Hosea 1:2-3, the first divine word sounds strange to us. The oracle begins in the third-person historical narrative mode, rather than the first-person confessional mode common in prophetic writing. 2 When the Lordfirst spoke, an unusual temporal notion as to when the divine communication occurred, indicating that subsequent divine revelation will follow, and that it will contrast with the initial revelation. The life of the messenger must bear the message before his lips are ready to speak it. The word of the Lord is about more than conveying information. It is about effecting formation and evoking transformation. Further, the Lord speaks through Hosea, an affirmation common in prophetic literature (cf. I Kings 8:56, referring to Moses, and Jeremiah 37:2, referring to himself). Ancient cultures regarded prophets both within and without Israel as mouthpieces for the deity, an impression no doubt enhanced by the bizarre trances or trancelike states from which prophetic utterances issued forth (cf. Elijah’s scorn of the mantics of the prophets of Baal, I Kings 18). At the same time, however, they never divorced prophets from their historical setting. Much of the prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible, including this passage, speaks directly to such mundane and momentous affairs as social and economic arrangements, political alliances, and military undertakings. The Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom (zenunim[10] where in Hosea, which has most of the Old Testament occurrences, it refers to religious apostasy: “My people consult a piece of wood, and their divining rod gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God” (4:12).) and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” The Lord resorts to drastic and scandalous measure to reach a covenant people who have scandalized the sacred covenant. The word of the Lord is put at risk in the desperate desire of the Lord for relationship with these people. The metaphor of whoredom depends, of course, on the metaphoric description of the relationship between Israel and Yahweh as a marriage (e.g., Isaiah 54:6; Jeremiah 3:1; 20; Ezekiel 16:32; Hosea 2:2, 19, 20), an image used in its negative sense to denote unfaithfulness. It illustrates the importance of governing our sexual impulses. The spiritual disciple of chastity results when we focus on the positive aspects of our interactions with those not of the same gender as us, practicing love and seeking the good of others, especially to those who of a different gender than us. We ought not to reduce the richness of the metaphor to a single idea; the relationship between the chosen people and their god involved all the elements implied by marriage, as well as its obverse: fidelity, obligation, protection, delight, betrayal, contrition, reunion, etc. One could understand the description of her as "Promiscuous" as proleptic, this is what she would become. Since God commands him to take a wife, and the wife ends up becoming an adulterer, it was God's will to take "a promiscuous wife." The prophecy grows from the marriage. Gomer's promiscuity was sex acts in the Baal cult. Thus, she was both adulterous and an apostate. Part of Hosea's prophetic activity was his family. "How could Yahweh allow me to get married to a woman like this?" Answer: "What has happened to me is what has happened between Yahweh and Israel." The parentage of the children need not be in doubt. The Bible uses covenantal and legal language to describe Yahweh's relation to Israel. Hosea prefers the most intimate of human relationships. The emphasis on the motif of whoredom is expressed clearly by the quadruple repetition at the center of the verse. Around the center are the references to the woman and the land. The imagery suggests that the people of Israel are metaphorically the children of the land of Israel and of her husband. According to the text even if the father clearly acknowledges that the children are his, he can justifiably reject them because of the behavior of the mother. 3 So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim. Gomer was Hosea's choice. The name does not seem to be symbolic. The Hebrew root of Gomer’s name means, “to end, come to an end,” and given the content of this initial prophetic oracle, the name is highly appropriate to describe the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. (Similarly, given the statement in 3:1, that one of the signs of the Israelites’ unfaithfulness is that they “turn to other gods and love raisin cakes,” it is likely that Diblaim’s name is also symbolic, related as it is to an Ugaritic word meaning “cake of dried figs/raisins.”) One has no reason to doubt Hosea is the father. The children of Hosea and Gomer will symbolize the deteriorating relationship between Israel and her God. Further, she conceived and bore him a son. Hosea did what the Lord told him to do. That fact alone reveals volumes about Hosea's faith and faithfulness to the God of Israel. What obedience to such a heart-wrenching, heartbreaking divine command must have cost him! Scholars have noted that through this divine dictum Yahweh transformed Hosea from a parochial prophet into a "homeopathic" prophet.[11]
In Hosea 1:4-5, we have the naming and meaning of the first child, a son. 4 And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel (El sows), a plain in central Israel and a city on its perimeter, but the allusion is to the events surrounding the seizure of the property of Naboth by Ahab and Jezebel in I Kings 21:1-24 and II Kings 9:91-35; for in a little while I will punish the house (dynasty) of Jehu (the last stable dynasty in Israel, 842-747)for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. Jeroboam II did not die in battle, but there was a bewildering line of kings after him. 5 On that day I will break the bow (end the covenant) of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” This sentiment is quite different from what we find in II Kings 10:30, in which the Lord commends Jehu to bring about judgment upon the House of Ahab, and that therefore, his children would reign until the fourth generation. "Dynasty of Jehu," refers to Jeroboam II. The Jehu line will end as violently as it began. Jehu overstepped his bounds in carrying out Yahweh's judgment. The point is that just as Ahab's line must end so must Jehu's line. The name serves to remind Israel of Jehu's infidelity on the plain of Jezreel (see II Kings 10). A name that had once meant fertility will now mean destruction and woe. II Kings 9-10 recounts the "Purge of Jehu." Elijah anointed Jehu to put an end to the House of Ahab as punishment for the original crime committed at Jezreel, namely the unjust execution of Naboth and the confiscation of his ancestral property (I Kings 21). However, in the overzealous execution of his commission, Jehu himself commits a second crime at Jezreel. In addition to the house of Ahab, Jehu also kills Ahaziah, king of Judah - a cousin of Ahab's heir, King Joram - who was at Jezreel at the time of Jehu's attack. If this were not enough, Jehu also slaughtered more of the southern kingdom's royalty after the initial battle when he came across more of Ahaziah's kinsmen the following day and killed them too (II Kings 10:12-14). It is likely that Jehu's killing of Judean royal sons is what has angered Hosea.
Hosea 1:6-7 informs us of the name and meaning of the second child, a daughter. 6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah[12] (or "there is no feeling (for her)," suggesting pity is needed but not forthcoming), for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel[13] or forgive them. This is a symbolic name that signifies the rejection of Israel, but it carries a suggestive potential for reversal, which we will see in 2:1-3. The Lord has severed the most basic relationships between Yahweh and Israel. The Lord has been expelled her from a relationship of love. The gender of the child is important here as well. It is through the feminine -- through Gomer, Israel and this daughter who carries this name -- that God proclaims a loss of love for Israel. The image of a husband/father rejecting a wife/daughter, cutting them off from his protection, is a shocking family image of rejection. 7 But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.” This could be a message of affirmation about King Uzziah's piety from Hosea himself, which would place the prophecy before his death in 740. However, it could also be a statement to the post-722/1 Judah of the possibilities before them as well. Yahweh shows contempt for military armaments, showing Israel's confidence in it to be misplaced. Redemption in Hosea does not begin until rejection is complete. Restoration comes only by resurrection.
Hosea 1:8-9 relates the name and meaning of the third child, a son. 8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, meaning two to three years, she conceived and bore a son. The total process described in Chapter 1 is at least five years. Does this suggest that the Lord allowed a good passage of time to go by before pronouncing the final break with faithless Israel? 9 Then the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you (Israel) are not my people and I am not your God ('Ehyeh, alluding to Exodus 3:14).” This is a symbolic name that signifies the rejection of Israel, but it carries a suggestive potential for reversal, which we will see in 2:1-3. It constitutes the annulling of Israel's covenant with God stated in Exodus 6:7, "I will take you as my people, and I will be your God." Hosea makes a direct reference to this crucial passage where God's true name is revealed, making Israel's altered name, Lo Ammi, even more tragic. In this case, the name refers to a break between God and the people Israel. God undoes and dissolves that relationship. God annihilates the relationship with Israel. The three name oracles become more comprehensive, severe, and direct. Their covenant unfaithfulness mark their identity – or their loss of identity as the people of the Lord.
Hosea 1:10-11 contains a promise that constitutes the beginning of a salvation oracle that ends at 2:1. The oracle echoes the covenantal promise God made to Abraham (Genesis 15:5) about the future numerical greatness of Israel. 10 Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and, unlike the misbegotten, miserably named offspring of Hosea and Gomer, in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, these children of the restoration, that they are “Children of the living God.” The prophet states that eventually God will again consider Israel to be a true child of God and that God will one day reunite the northern and southern kingdoms. The name suggests the reversal of the fate pronounced in 1:9. In true prophetic fashion, Hosea holds out the possibility for redemption. In verse 11, we read that the Lord shall gather Judah and Israel and appoint themselves one head. They shall take possession of the land, for the day of Jezreel, which has a place of bloody deeds and divine punishment, shall be great and a place of future redemption. Judah and Israel will be re-united under one head, which might envision Moses in that position. The image suggested is a united country after exile. "Jezreel," now reversed to "Let God sow." Family and nation are joined through the children. In 2:1, he is to call his brothers “my people” and his sisters “lovingly accepted.” The names of the other children will have their meaning reversed, turning separation from the Lord into future closeness to the Lord. Such an announcement of future restoration and hope following condemnation and judgment is common in the prophets. Seeds of and promises of hope and are there, and the reader can contemplate their eventual blooming even as they read the most difficult texts about their past sinful deeds. These deeds reflect who they are since they identify with the Israel of the book. The motif of a future reunification of Israel and Judah appears in Ezekiel 37:15-28. It was never fulfilled.
Let us be honest about sin. It can be so difficult to imagine how serious sin is. We may even find it difficult to name the sins close to us. We are so good at lying to ourselves. How about trying the following images: Whore. Harlot. Hooker. We cringe even at the words. Yet, in the decades before Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom, Hosea gave that image to the relationship between God and Israel. We must not avoid, sanitize, or airbrush it away. The beauty of the story of Hosea is that the prophet redeems the “wife of whoredom.” The lesson of Hosea is that God does not give up, regardless of how faithless we might be.
Gothic tales of vampires and other monsters appeal to a major portion of our culture. I have my own attraction to them. I like a good horror movie. Yet, they contain a danger. They present a simple, monochromatic vision. Real life evil is far harder to detect. The bloodthirsty binge of vampire is easier to figure out than the carnage brought by terrorism or a dictator. The mad slasher movie, such as Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Halloween, is a person who is “made,” and slashing other people. Simple and direct answer to why people are dying. Yet, real life evil is far harder to face. If we are not careful, fascination with horror movies could become an escape from facing the horrors all around us. They could also encourage us to face the horrors of life in a simple, monochromatic way. Horror movies present us with a safe, voyeuristic waywardness. We can be safe in our fascination with naughtiness. We can also be safe and simplistic in our inwardness as we look for easy answers to the horrors we must face in real life. We have an easy transcendence in accepting simple answers from outside self. In a sense, horror movies become homeopathic in their temptation toward easy answers to complex problems. Our fascination with angels becomes an effortless way to flirt with goodness while not making a true commitment to it. We never engage the genuinely good or the truly evil that we find in real life.[14]
One might try viewing the book of Hosea as a Hebrew Gothic with a twist. It resists the effortless way out. His real-life opponents, those who worship Baal, represent the easy represent both the easy terror of the Gothic and the easy transcendence of finding an easy answer from outside self in this tale. They are the ones who take the easy route to waywardness and inwardness. Hosea and his family instead represent the genuine alternative available to God's faithful people. Instead of fictitious waywardness and false inwardness -- Hosea found the path of joyful obedience. Hosea takes Gomer the prostitute as his wife. However, Hosea does not slither down the slippery slope of syncretism with her. Hosea uses this troubled relationship to reveal God's own presence and pain in Israel's life. The prophet refused to take the effortless way out. He did not wallow around in the Gothic tragedy of his personal life. However, neither did he take temporary refuge in an otherworldly spirituality to distance himself from the real sins and failures present in his marriage and in his country. Hosea found that through a separate way, a way of personal obedience and communal integrity -- he could speak a genuine word of God to the people. By taking this out-of-the-ordinary path, Hosea could find meaning and redemption in his own struggle to remain a faithful husband and a faithful prophet of the Lord.
Easy waywardness as well as easy inwardness appeals to us because anybody can do it -- and so everybody is doing it. We have coated over both with a thick, sugary layer of ordinariness. The prophet Hosea invites us to refuse to take the uncomplicated way out. Do not embrace our reigning cultural schemes of waywardness or inwardness -- schemes to help us feel good about ourselves. The house that Jesus wants us to build and live in is not wayward or inward. It is outward and upward. The way of following Jesus is not easy or ordinary. As Hosea discovered, and as we may well discover in our time, the Way, the Truth, and the Life can be a little bit weird. Are we ready to get a bit weird? Are we willing to find out how Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If so, we are then ready to enter a covenant relationship with him ... and say these words:
To have
To hold
From this day forward
For better, for worse
For richer, for poorer
In sickness and in health
Till death do us part.
I know it is weird. Nevertheless, it is also how to stay in faithful relationship to God.
How are we giving ourselves away to the world around us? It may well be that the greatest temptation is to be like everyone else. Our temptation is to be ordinary. If others are lazy on the job, then I will be. The temptation is to go through life just barely getting through it.[15] How are we idolatrous? Do we dare consider the idolatry we reveal in our spending? How idolatrous has the concern for our image become? How faithless have we become in what we allow into our minds? Do we show idolatry in too much concern for our careers? Do we show idolatry in constantly comparing our stuff with the stuff of others? We will never fully appreciate the faithfulness of God to us without recognizing our own unfaithfulness to God. Frankly, we might find it difficult to place our sin and idolatry in its relational context … as a marital violation of the covenant to be faithful to only One. Do we even dare to admit it?
I would like to suggest the image of the mug shot. The mug shot is an interesting shot. It catches a person at their worst moment. The mug shot is a moment in time. If you are interested, the internet has pictures of the mug shots of celebrities. Beautiful people do not look so good in such a setting. No airbrushing of the picture. It simply renders the truth of that moment.
Mug Shot One: Hosea. God commands Hosea to marry a “wife of whoredom” (v. 2). Although times have changed, they have not changed that much. Like clergy today, this would not be a good thing for a prophet in Israel. Of course, the marriage of Hosea is not simply a matter of husband and wife. It becomes an enacted parable of the fidelity of God, the husband, to Israel, the prostitute. God is the patient mate for life, who endures with grace all manner of infidelity.
Then again, Hosea is also an example for the people of God as well – an example of simple obedience. In response to the command of God, verse 3 does not suggest that Hosea deliberated about it or complained about it. What conditions do we place upon our obedience? Will we lay down future dreams for the kingdom? Will we move to any country to serve God? Will we give more than feels comfortable? Will we purchase based on needs rather than wants? Will we seek relationship with hard-to-love people?
Mug Shot Two: Gomer. This mug shot is convicting. Gomer has spent her life sleeping around — always seeking comfort and fulfillment in relationships with men. Now married to Hosea, she continues her unfaithful ways (3:1). She goes outside of a relationship of commitment, love and acceptance, and seeks fulfillment through false promises of false satisfaction. Gomer is a picture of Israel — guilty of idolatry by allowing anything else in life to come before worship of God as first priority (v. 2).
This mug shot of Gomer is an invitation for us to look at – us. We are to see ourselves in her. Whore. Harlot. Hooker. We cringe even at the words. We must not avoid, sanitize, or airbrush it away. How are we giving ourselves away to the world around us? How are we idolatrous? In our spending? In our priority on our image? In what we allow into our minds? In too many hours given to our careers? In striving to keep up with the Joneses? We will never understand the faithfulness of God to us without recognizing our own unfaithfulness to God. Frankly, we might find it difficult to place our sin and idolatry in its relational context … as a marital violation of the covenant to be faithful to only One.
Mug Shot Three: Jezreel. The story now identifies the children of this union as warnings of impending judgment. Jezreel means “God sows” or “scatters.” The name points back to the murders by former king Jehu in the valley of Jezreel. This son is a warning to the kings and rulers of Israel that God will bring an end to their reign and power because of the violence committed. For us today, the picture is a sobering reminder that God does not forget sin and that sin can carry painful consequences and repercussions. We cannot think that our irresponsible actions and behavior are something we can get away with or that they do not have profound consequences.
Mug Shot Four: Lo-ruhamah. Lo-ruhamah is the daughter and her name means “Not Pitied.” Imagine the reminder every time parents called this girl by name — God will be merciful toward Judah in the south but will not show pity toward Israel in the north. God is angry enough that, in this moment of time, God refuses to extend mercy to these people. We may call this the justice of God, if we want. Does love ever cause you to become angry with the one you love? If the one you love does something wrong, so self-destructive, and so hurtful of another, do you become angry? In fact, if you did not become angry in such situations, would you have genuine love for them?
Mug Shot Five: Lo-ammi. Lo-ammi is the second son born and means “Not My People.” The image of this child shows a God with limits. God calls the chosen people “not my people” and says He is not their God (v. 9). God gives up. If God had hands, God would throw them up in despair. God will not force anyone to love God or be in a covenant relationship with God. God honors our choice to ignore God.
Paul Shepherd, in his novel More Like Not Running Away includes a citation from Isaiah 54 at the immediate beginning of the book: “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid my face from you, for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you” says the LORD, your redeemer” (54:7-8). God forsook them and turned away from them. God was, to use a human expression, angry.
Yet the story does not end with these sad, sorry pictures of mug shots. The Isaiah text hints at reconciliation: “With great mercies I will gather you.” And “With everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you.” It is God’s nature to turn toward us, to extend a hand in mercy. The New Testament confirms this. I Peter refers to this passage in Hosea. The writer says that we are a “royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9). The writer then reaches into his hip pocket to produce the mug shots of Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi. However, the shots look different. They have not been photoshopped, but they have been grace-shopped. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). Once you were Lo-ruhamah, now you are ruhamah. Once you were Lo-ammi, not you are ammi.
U2’s song “Grace” echoes the sentiments of this passage: “What once was hurt, what once was friction, what left a mark, no longer stings. Because grace makes beauty out of ugly things.”
Princess Carraboo is a 1994 movie. Not many people saw it. It tells the story of a young woman who uses her imagination to convince everyone in a small English village in 1812 that she was a princess. However, she was an orphan, poor, and uneducated. She was nobody. She wanted to be somebody in the eyes of another. Her story worked for a while. Eventually, someone discovered the truth. Toward the end of the movie, as she makes her escape from the village with help from some friends, the butler wishes her every success and happiness as she goes to America. Mr. Gutch, her romantic interest, took her to the boat that would take her away to America. He says, “In a way that I had never expected, this girl had held out her hand to me and now, I was letting her go.” You see, he realized that he, too, was lost, in search of belonging. As he watches her depart in a boat, Mr. Gutch reflects, “What are the chances for love in a man’s life? Very few. Maybe one. And I had not had the courage to declare myself. Instead, the coward in me had taken refuge in this safe, dull life. … This was my reality. I was a printer, newspaper publisher, and a man of supposed responsibility. Or was I?” In the next scene, Mr. Gutch joins her on the ship. He says to her, in Irish, “There you are. Here I am.” The love they had deep inside reached out and embraced each other. They became somebody, in the eyes of each other. A voice tells what happens to them, and concludes by saying, “It’s a very good story. Is it true, do you think?”
The Bible has a wonderful story of our confession of sin and hopeful clinging to the one who calls children of God, as in I Peter 2:10. Yes, God does some altering of the image, but not just some airbrushing to make celebrities look better than they are. God alters the image to conform us to the image of the Son. For this, we thank God for grace and patience.
Facing the Giants is a 2006 movie made by a church in Georgia. It tells the story of Coach Grant Taylor, of his turning his life and team over to God, and of the ensuing revival of individual and team life. In one scene (55:55 to 59:12), we have an account of revival. Coach Grant Taylor receives word of a revival breaking out on campus. Mitch has brought his Bible Study class outside. Matt Prater, a formerly bitter player, stood up and accepted Christ as his Lord. He started confessing things from his life and he started asking his friends for forgiveness. Bob Duke stands up and does the same thing. Kids break up into groups. They pray for each other. They ask forgiveness for sins they have committed. A song plays in the background that has the refrain, “You never give up on me.” Matt comes to coach, hugs him, and then asks the coach to take him to his dad. His dad is at work, in a meeting with another man. “Dad, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I got right with God today and I just needed to say that from now on I’ll respect your authority. Whatever you say goes.” After Matt leaves the office, the other executive says to Matt’s father, “For what it’s worth, I’d give my right arm to hear my son say that to me.”
I like the way Max Lucado puts it. God, I have a question.[16] Why do you love your children? We have brought you so much pain. Why do you tolerate us? You give us every breath we breathe, but do we thank you. You give us bodies beyond duplication. Do we praise you? Instead, we complain about the weather. We bicker about our toys. We argue over who gets which continent and who has the best gender. Not a second passes when someone, somewhere, does not use your name to curse a hammered thumb or a bad call by the umpire, as if such events were your fault. You fill the world with food. We blame you for hunger. You give blue skies. We demand rain. You give rain. We demand sun. All this, as if we knew what was best for the world. We give more applause to someone who can pitch, hit, throw touchdowns, run the ball, shoot the ball through the basket, than we do to the God who made us. In comparison to the vast galaxy, we are so small, hardly noticeable. Yet, when we pray, it is for a convenient parking spot. If you do not give us what we ask in prayer, we say you do not exist. We pollute the world you loan us. We mistreat the bodies you gave us. We ignore the Word you sent us. We killed your Son. We are spoiled babies who take, kick, pout, and blaspheme. You have every reason to abandon us. I sure would. If I were in charge, I would start over.
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[10] A plural abstract noun of intensification, from the Hebrew root zanah, which is related to an Akkadian root that means to provide provisions for deities. (Another, identical Akkadian root meaning “to rain” is probably not the source of the word that comes into biblical Hebrew.) The Hebrew word can mean simply to engage in literal prostitution (e.g., Genesis 38:24), but this is its less common use (and even in this instance, the distinctly cultic term qadeshah, “temple prostitute,” parallels zonah, suggesting an ambiguous relationship between the terms).
[11] (See Gary Hall, "Origin of the Marriage Metaphor," Hebrew Studies, July 26, 1992, 169-171.)
[12] The Hebrew word for both "womb" and "mercy" is "rechem." What Hosea might portray here is God as a Mother undoing the parent-child relationship God once had with Israel. Although the verse is corrupt, further support to the idea that God as Mother is speaking here is the third person reference to Yahweh in verse 7, "I will save them by the LORD their God." Hosea seems to be acknowledging that there is more than one aspect of the divine personality. He seems to be portraying a merciful Mother God promising to SEND or appear as the mighty warrior Yahweh, the agent of Judah's salvation.
[13] In what may be an addition,
[14] Inspired by Mark Edmundson, who wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on the rise of "angels, sadomasochism and the culture of the Gothic" which he calls Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism and the Culture of the Gothic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).
[15] (Brad Ronnell Braxton, "The Greatest Temptation," The African-American Pulpit, 1 [Winter 1997-'98], 31-39).
[16] Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder, 1995, p. 45-48.
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