Hosea 3
Hosea 3 is a really small chapter, so it’s hard to say too much about it. It’s pretty self explanatory too.
1 The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
I like this verse. It really portrays the 1 Corinthians 13 agape love that God posesses. He loves Isreal inspite of her adultery in the same way that he loves us inspite of our idolatry and sin.
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels [a] of silver and about a homer and a lethek [b] of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with [c] me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with [d] you.”
I’m not sure what exactly to take out of these two verses, but since there are only 5 verses in this chapter I feel like they must be important and I probably shouldn’t skip over them. So, what exactly is Hosea doing here? He’s literally buying his wife back. Maybe this can be used as an image of Christ. After all, we rejected God, ran away from him, and pursued our own adulterous desires. A price had to be paid. In our situation, the price was death. Jesus paid that price to bring back his adulterous wife, us…the church. All he asks of us in return is to leave our adulterous ways.
4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
So, what can we get from these last two verses…hmm…good question. Here God is giving Hosea an image of Isreal’s future. Before they return to the Lord in the last days, they go through a dry period where they have no leader…no direction…and they have no religion, neither idols or sacrafices. I’m not sure if we can take any personal truths from this or not. If so, I must be missing it. Tell me if you see anything.
I wonder if this prophecy about Isreal having neither a king or sacrafice is about present day Isreal…
It’s a thought.
Hosea 2
Hosea 2 is not much different than the first chapter. Here the Lord once again is speaking out against Israel. Notice that he refers to Israel as an adulteress wife. The adultery that he speaks of is idolatry. The nation of Israel had turned their back on God and were worshipping the images of Baal.
2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
Notice that before he says anything else here, he immediated tells her that she can come clean now and everything will be fine. The punishment will only come with the refusal to repent and change. Notice in verse 5 the reason that Israel is cheating on God to begin with:
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’
She is cheating on God, her husband, because there are things that she desires that her lovers have.
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
Apparently, she feels as though God has not been amply supplying her needs. Instead, she has used the things that God has given her for idol worship. Have you ever done the same? Have you ever used God’s gifts to bring yourself farther away from him?
Notice two things that the Lord does here. Even though she is running away from him and looking to satisfy her needs through another, he is not letting her:
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’
She can search all that she wants but she will never find in them the things that she had in God. Notice though, that at this point, he still punishes her disobedience:
9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her nakedness.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
She disrespected everything that God had given her and so he takes it all away and exposes her shame. There are more verses revealing her punishment and they all continue to be very shameful. In essence, she loses everything she ever had.
After all of this, though, the Lord still loves her enough to win her back himself.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor [a] a door of hope.
There she will sing [b] as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
Notice also how there relationship has changed:
16 “In that day,” declares the LORD,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master. [c] ‘
See how much closer the Lord’s relationship with Israel is now than it was even before. How incredible a God we have to bring us back into his house even after we have left him for our “idols.”
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one. [g] ‘
I will say to those called ‘Not my people, [h] ‘ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ “
What things in your life have you put above God? How do you think that he feels about these idols? I’ll tell you the truth, keeping God first is never an easy thing to do, and it is something that I have failed in oh so many times. Be careful though. The Lord is a jealous God, and he will punish unfaithfulness. Still, know that he loves you and will always long to bring you back to him. If you choose to put God first in your life, you can achieve that relationship with him where he will be more than your master. He can be your husband. Think of what a blessing that would be.
Hosea 1
I’ve decided that I’m going to read through the book of Hosea. I don’t know if I’ve ever read the book before, but if I have, it’s been awhile. So, chapter one is interesting. God tells the prophet Hosea to “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.”
The Lord has him marry an adulterous woman and raise children that were conceived by other men. Why? As an object lesson. I tell you, the life of a prophet is never glorious. They were the closest to God but they always seemed to get the bad end of every deal. The thing is though, they never argued it. They understood and respected God enough to obey what he commanded even when it was unpleasant to do so. I envy their ability but not their position.
In this chapter, three children are born. The first is named after a town where Isreal committed a great sin that God is going to punish them for. The next child is given a name which means “not loved” to show that God is no longer going to show his love to Isreal. Lastly, the third child is given a name meaning “not my people” to show that the Lord has disowned all of Isreal. As he says, “You are not my people, and I am not your God.”
This is really harsh imagery. It seems entirely unforgiving. The judgement would seem to be final. But then the Lord shows us hope.
10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ’sons of the living God.’
It’s amazing to think that even when God seems his cruelist, he still gives us opportunity for forgiveness and hope of a brighter future.
Bless his name.
