Hosea 1:1-2:1

7 July 2002

“How Can I Give You Up?”

            During the month of July, I’ll be deviating from the Old Testament lectionary readings in order to do a brief series on four of the twelve so-called Minor Prophets.  I’ll invite us to look at Hosea, Jonah, Zephaniah, and Malachi, each of which has a very different message.

            By the way, the description isn’t “minor profits,” as in, merchants who are barely able to pay the bills!  Nor does it refer to messengers of God who just don’t have very much to say!  The term “Minor Prophets,” also called the Book of the Twelve, simply means that the written records we have of them are considerably shorter than those of the so-called Greater Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

            Let me start by posing some questions.  Have you ever betrayed someone?  Have you ever repeatedly betrayed someone?  Has someone ever betrayed you, even repeatedly betrayed you?  How about this:  has someone ever given you advice about a romantic relationship that you’d call…questionable?  I wonder, is there anyone here (besides the kids) who, being completely honest, can fail to answer each of those questions with a “yes”?  Anyway, those are some things to ponder as we go on.

            With Hosea, the first of the Twelve, we find a rarity among prophets.  We find one about whom is reported some rather intimate details of his life.  The first chapter of the book sets the stage for the whole thing; it serves as a summary for the teachings of the entire book.  As you might guess, readers and interpreters have had all kinds of problems with chapter one!

            “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea,” it was…to commission him as prophet?  No?  Okay, it was to command him to call the people to repentance.  No?  All right, strange as it seems, God begins by giving Hosea marital advice!  The marriage of Hosea is presented as a model—or as an enactment—for his message to his fellow Israelites.  And what a marriage it is!

            The word from God is, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” (v. 2).  Very quickly, what happens is this:  Hosea marries Gomer, and they have three kids with weird names.  Chapter 2 presents Israel as an unfaithful wife who is punished and then restored.  Then chapter 3 apparently has Hosea taking Gomer back after a period of infidelity.  It’s only at chapter 4 that we get the line so popular with prophets:  “Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel” (v. 1).

            A question many people have asked is, “How could God require Hosea to marry such a woman?”  Thinking about Banu’s sermon last week, many people have asked, “How could God require Abraham to kill his son?”

            Reflecting a sense of horror at the idea of God’s asking the prophet to marry a loose woman, many have said that Hosea’s marriage is purely symbolic.  Gomer isn’t a flesh and blood woman.  Another level of horror is expressed at chapter 3’s indication that Hosea takes his wife back after she has defiled herself with other men.  The suggestion there is that chapter 3 is talking about a different woman.

            The truth is, we don’t know enough about the prophet’s life to make any final statement on the matter.  Whatever the biographical details, we still need to deal with the meaning of Hosea.  It might help to know that the reference to Gomer’s “whoredom” wouldn’t necessarily mean that she’s a prostitute in the way we understand the word.  Many ancient religions included visits to temple prostitutes as a means of appeasing the fertility gods and goddesses—Baal, who appears in the book of Hosea, being an example of a fertility god.

It’s been said, “We tend to think of prostitutes as part of the seamier side of life, associated with dark corners, drugs, and organized crime, a profession or way of earning money that works at the lowest levels of human existence.  However, in the environment of Ba’al worship, ritualized prostitution was a form of worship practiced in the Ba’al temples and shrines, and perhaps elsewhere.  It was a part of ‘respectable’ society, since it supposedly insured the fertility of the land, livestock, and people.  It was not so much a profession as it was a way of viewing life.”[1]

Whether Hosea’s wife was an actual temple prostitute or simply a promiscuous woman, the marriage would be intended as a lesson about the unfaithfulness of Israel.  Gomer would be a commentary on the false worship that has led the people into all kinds of corruption.

            And as for the children’s strange names, starting with the older son:  Jezreel is the place where, a century earlier, Jehu had gone ballistic and slaughtered all the priests of Baal.  Literally meaning “God sows” or “God plants seed,” it would be a way of saying that it’s Israel’s God, Yahweh—not Baal—who is the real fertility god.  It’s the Lord who gives sun and rain, who gives growth to crop and livestock alike.

            The names of the younger kids are even worse.  The daughter is given the attractive name of Lo-ruhamah, which means “no pity” or “no compassion.”  The statement that the Lord “will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them” shows what happens when people disregard God (v. 6).  The Lord remains faithful, but a relationship requires both parties to make an effort.

            The younger son has the most shocking name of all.  His name, Lo-ammi, “not my people,” strikes at the heart of the Israelite self-identity.  It’s been noted:  “It is not that God has decided they will no longer be his people, it is they who have decided he will no longer be their God!…This is not a threat of future punishment; it is simply a statement of what is already a fact.”[2]

            Be that as it may, the people will be punished.  Hosea is living in the final days of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Following the long reign of Jeroboam II, there’s been a series of kings with brief reigns, ended by one assassination after another.  Israelite society is rotting from within.  And the storm building in the east, in the form of the Assyrian Empire, will make sure that the tottering house of Israel gets blown into a thousand pieces.

            Hosea is concerned about the corruption of his people, the injustice of his nation.  But he takes a different starting point than does his older contemporary, Amos.  For Amos, the people’s worship is meaningless because of the unjust things they do.  However for Hosea, the people’s worship—their false and insincere worship—is the cause of the social injustices of their day.

            The people, in the cavalier way they’ve approached God, have not only betrayed the Lord, but they’ve betrayed each other—and they’ve betrayed themselves.  They’ve betrayed the best within them.  More than any other prophet, it seems to me that Hosea is the prophet of love—and love betrayed.

            Consumed with violence, the nation is on the brink of destruction.  Hosea realizes that “[t]here is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land.  Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed.  Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing” (4:1-3).

            It seems like the Israelites will destroy themselves, even without help from the Assyrians.  It seems like they’re just itching to get whacked by God.  It seems like Hosea’s final word should be one of divine judgment, like something I recently heard:  “He will strike down with vengeance and furious anger.”  I’m sorry—that wasn’t about God; that was from a wrestling commercial about Stone Cold Steve Austin!

            I mentioned earlier that chapter 1 summarizes the entire book.  After the doom pronounced by the actions and names of Hosea’s family, we get this at the end of chapter 1 and the start of chapter 2:  “great shall be the day of Jezreel,” with the command, “Say to your brother, Ammi, and to your sister, Ruhamah” (1:11-2:1).  After reprimand comes restoration.  You are still my people, and I will show compassion.

            This reflects Hosea’s whole message.  God has had to show tough love, but anger gives way to anguish.  Using the nation’s nickname, the Lord cries, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?…My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (11:8).

            This shouldn’t be unusual language for us.  As Christians, we understand ourselves to be the bride of Christ.  Well, the church didn’t invent that idea.  We see it here, modeled in Hosea.  This really comes into focus in 2:16.  “On that day, says the Lord [the day of restoration and redemption], you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal.’”  The word “Baal” can mean “lord” or “master.”

            We too often see God as one who must be slavishly and mindlessly obeyed.  Such an image of God causes many to reject the Christian life altogether, as well it should.  Such an image is unworthy; it is un-worshipful.  John Piper, a Baptist minister from Minnesota, has reflected on this.  To those “who tend to keep God at arm's distance from [their] emotions,” he says, “According to Hosea 2:16, God does not want you to return…and say, ‘Yes, Sir’ and set about your duties.”[3]

            God wants so much more.  We’re not called to the anemic faith that the world rightly disdains and ignores.  We’re called to a passionate faith that meets the deepest desires of our hearts—a faith that sees in our Lord one who loves us with an intensity greater than that of any lovers.  Friends, this is adult Christianity!

            The message of Hosea is about a love that would scare us to death if we really opened ourselves to it—we with our hearts of stone!  It’s a love that will set us on fire, and it will consume the petty squabbles we have with each other.  Such a love will transform us—transform Westminster—and nothing will be the same again.

            “And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.  I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord” (2:19-20).

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