- Jehovah promises judgment on the unfaithful Israel, but inexplicably still promises an immeasurable salvation of the children of Israel, to include the Gentiles, and salvation through/from death as St. Paul the Apostle would later preach.
- Though Israel spurned Jehovah and took his name and his covenant and his blessings in vain, Jehovah still pursued her in love. “Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness (back to the threshold, the honeymoon door, the inaugural ground), and speak tenderly to her… and in that day, declares Jehovah, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.” (Hosea 2:14,16-17)
- Jehovah sues the tenants of the land in chapter 4: “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. 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 4:1b-3)
- The people repent and seek Jehovah, counting on his covenant faithfulness (“his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3)
- Jehovah calls them out on Israel’s habitual (emphasis on bitch) unfaithfulness, and calls for discipline. He states plainly that their sins surround them and are before his face, and though he would redeem them, they speak lies against him. They return, but not to the Most High. They repent only for grain and wine, and do not cry out to Jehovah from the heart. Jehovah says they try to play him, though he was the one who established them and loved them and provided for them.
- Jehovah gives them the picture of the vineyard (as seen in parables by Isaiah and Jesus), that he planted Israel in the wilderness. Jehovah found Abraham, Isaac, and Israel as first fruits on the fig tree in its first season, but the faithful (?) extra virgin fruits would not produce fruit in every season.
- Jehovah’s discipline will be exile and barrenness. Hosea 9
- BUT! Hosea 10 is a flashback now to the original blessed and fruitful status Israel enjoyed in the radiance of the salvation of Jehovah. But the more they produced fruit, the more adulterous they became! They used their wealth to have affairs rather than tend to their own garden, their fruitful children and the kingdom of Jehovah.
- Now the people of Israel grow more bold in their sin–now they disavow a need for a king, much less Jehovah who installs his Christ on his holy hill. Now they even take their idols’ names in vain (Hosea 10:3-4, cf Exodus 20:7), and just as the presence of Jehovah was taken away by the Philistines (Ichabod! 1 Samuel!), now their graven calves will be carted on calves to Assyria, where the idol-worshipping nations would soon follow.
- Jehovah now turns the parable from vineyard to trained calf–for the people of Israel and Judah now resemble their idol–but even in the picture of a beast of burden, Jehovah points to his generous and steadfast covenant love: “Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck” (Hosea 10:11), and even the discipline and admonition he proposes is righteous and fair: “but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself.” Both brothers are yoked to sin, and Jacob once again must strive with the angel of Jehovah. But can he expect the same blessing if he is not faithful in the striving? (cf Luke 13:24)
- Jehovah gives the children of Israel homework: “Sow for yourself righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek Jehovah, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” His people had left the ground fallow not as an act of worship (keeping the Sabbath), but rather out of idolatry the land had laid dormant. Spiritually speaking, the Israelites had committed the sin of Onan, and were robbing Jehovah of his fruit.
- But… the Israelites did not follow the commands of Jehovah. Instead, Jehovah indicts them thus: “You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies.”
- Jehovah recounts Israel’s childhood, and speaks of his tender care for the fledgling people. Jehovah is intent on the discipline his people well deserve, but he promises not to destroy the people. Instead, he promises to “roar like a lion; and when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes” (Hosea 11:10-11).
- Jehovah indicts Judah and Jacob, and rehearses the history that he has, of wrestling with the angel of Jehovah at Bethel. He is given a reminder of the “memorial name” of Jehovah: “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” Jehovah warns again that he is the Lord of the living, and has seen Ephraim and Judah through thick and thin, through richer or poorer, through health and sickness.
- Jehovah reminds Ephraim that he (Jehovah) loves to oppress a merchant who uses false balances, and Ephraim would do well to understand that Jehovah is referring to him as the unjust merchant. His sin will be found out, and his riches are perishable. Jehovah reminds him of his poor beginnings (dwelling in tents in the wilderness), when he was faithful to Jehovah’s appointed feasts, and he reminds Ephraim that Jehovah has spoken to the prophets and will judge his people whether they are guilty of idolatry.
- Jehovah enters into his final decree of judgment in chapter 13. He accuses Israel of idol-worship, to the gross extreme that those of Israel who had so far calloused their hearts towards Jehovah and his good law that they had even conflated human sacrifice with kissing a calf! Because of this, all these horrors of Jehovah’s wrath are declared for them. They are declared to be chaff that flies away (cf Psalm 1). Israel sets himself against his helper, Jehovah, and forgets his maker, redeemer, healer, and friend. Jehovah likens Ephraim to a breeched son, who is stubbornly working against Jehovah his mother, even in the womb.
- Because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, Jehovah pledges to destroy them. Because they exchanged the glory of the living God for images of beasts, Jehovah promises judgment in the likeness of beasts (Hosea 13:4-9). Even their children, the preeminent direction of the covenants of Jehovah pointing to the birth of Jesus, will be subjected to judgment, because Israel was unfaithful, and bore children out of sexual immorality (Hosea 13:16, cf. John 8:41)
- Hosea 13:14 will merit its own study in the future.
- Jehovah issues a final call to repentance with a promise: “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily…” (Hosea 14:4-5) Note that Jehovah emphasizes the truth of the claims Israel had made previously, that He is the Lord and giver of life, though previously they had “drawn near with their mouths, but their hearts were far from [him]”.
- Jesus brings finality to this letter in his words to his disciples: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.” Jehovah states this just as plainly: “I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.” Jesus is almighty Jehovah, who woos his bride with steadfast love, and even provides the means of grace through which we may potentially be fruitful. He is the blessing and the blessed, and in him we will bear fruit in keeping with repentance that are pleasing, acceptable, and our reasonable form of worship.
So, dear reader, will you repent? Will you bring words and come before Jehovah? Will you give up your dependency on your idols, which cannot save or satisfy you? Will you give Jehovah your sins as he hangs on the cross? The day of salvation is today; in Jehovah the orphan finds mercy. He will heal you and love you freely, if only you hide yourself in Jesus, for Jehovah has made a secret path through the Red Sea for you to escape certain judgment. He turned his angry face away from the King of Israel, and Jesus has blossomed from the grave like the lily of the valley, more beautiful than Solomon in all his splendor. Because of the power of his indestructible life, Jesus is the blessed man who is planted by streams of living water, who is forever fruitful in all seasons, whose fruit is for the healing of all peoples. Will you be found in him? His roots break through fallow ground in the sinful hearts of all kinds of people, and they spread out to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Will you be reconciled to him and dwell beneath the shadow of his wings? Will you enjoy his beauty, his fragrance, and the fruit of his communion, the blood of the new covenant, as famous and fruitful as the wine of Lebanon?
“The ways of Jehovah are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”
Where streams of living water flow... 