Day 261 Hosea 5-9

Hosea is the first of what we call the "minor prophets." It is not easy to say what distinguishes them from the "major prophets"—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel—beyond the length of their writings. What marks an Old Testament prophet—major or minor-- is an unquestioning belief that God is speaking through him to a particular situation in a moment in the history of Israel. For the major prophets, that historical moment is longer and their message of judgment and hope more complex. For the minor prophets the situation is more discrete and more limited. But the same passion for truth and righteousness is shared by all, together with a sense of outrage at the betrayal of God's covenant. And all of them reserve their most violent language for the elites of Israelite society—kings, officials, and priests.
This is certainly true of Hosea. He fumes at the "house of the king," comparing the king and his court to hunters who have snared, spread nets, and dug deep pits to capture the bodies and souls of ordinary people, trapping them like prey. The princes have become dishonest and morally crooked—"like those who remove a landmark" (5:10). The total corruption of Israelite society has filtered down from them. They are without conscience or shame. Their vile deeds have totally estranged them from the Lord and "will not permit them to return to their God" (5:4). "They do not know the LORD"—by which he means they have no trust in him; and as a result God "has withdrawn from them" (5:6). They have "played the whore, pursuing other gods," and "borne illegitimate children" to their lovers (5:7), the offspring of their cultic orgies. Now the new moon festival, where they celebrated their pagan rites by having intercourse in the fields
to insure their fertility, will be not a sacred holiday, but a day of destruction for them "along with their fields."
The northern kingdom of Israel is by far the more highly schooled in depravity—the southern kingdom of Judah is only a willing student, according to Hosea. But both Israel--sometimes called Ephraim in our text--and Judah are corrupted and diseased. However, when they realize that they are sick and wounded, they apply "to the great king"—the ruler of Assyria—for help and security, not to the LORD. They make a mortal man their god and fear him. The king of Assyria is helpless to cure their infirmity (5:13)—he will only make it worse. It is the LORD who represents the greatest danger to their existence. He will be "like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah" the prophet says. He "will tear and go away"; he will "carry off, and no one shall rescue" (5:14) from his grasp. He will go away and not return until the peoples of both kingdoms "acknowledge their guilt and seek [his] face" (5:15).
Chapter 6 begins with a penitential psalm in which the voice of the prophet—speaking for the faithful--expresses a desire to "return to the LORD" for healing after a period of punishment. The words of verse two--"on the third day he will raise us up"--was interpreted by early Christians to refer to the resurrection of Jesus, but originally it expressed confidence that if the people repent God will soon restore what he "has torn." Hosea calls then to turn from idolatry and to "know the LORD"—respond to God with the trust and confidence a wife has to a loving husband. "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD," he exhorts the people. He alone is the source of security, healing, and hope. "His appearance is like the dawn" after a long dark night, the prophet says, and like "spring rains" after the drought of winter (6:3).
But it is only through obedience that we draw near him. In Old Testament Judaism sacrifice was considered central, necessary to the worship of the LORD, expressing the devotion and dependence of the creature upon the Creator. The prophets did not repudiate sacrifice entirely, but they did place it firmly in an inferior position. Like Jesus of Nazareth, who in so many ways stood within their tradition, they consistently say that it is an attitude of reverence and a life marked by concrete acts of mercy and justice that pleases him, not sacrifices. He seeks constancy in us—"your love is like a morning cloud," he complains of Israel. He know us as we really are; "his judgment goes forth as the light" (6:5)--it penetrates everywhere and everyone. He sees the attitude behind the gift, and he says to his people—"I desire love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (6:6).
And burnt offerings cannot disguise the smell of the monstrous crimes—the "whoredom"-- of which Israel is guilty—"Israel is defiled" (6:10), the prophet says. But Judah's sins will not be ignored—"For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed" (6:11). The weight of the judgment falls upon Israel and its rulers, who applaud the sins of their people--"by their wickedness they make the king glad, and the officials by their treachery" (7:3). Their lusts, drunken revelry, and violent anger are compared to "a heated oven" (7:4)—"all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire" (7:6). Ephraim—the northern kingdom—is a "cake not turned"—burned on one side, raw on the other. Prematurely old, its national strength is sapped by it alliances with foreigners (7:9), yet Israel does "not return to the LORD their God, or seek him, for all this" (7:10).
These shifting alliances with foreigners--Egypt and Assyria during Hosea's time-- reveal the basic lack of trust in God in both kingdoms—"Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me" (7:13), he says. Entanglements are a sign of death--the vulture that circles over "the house of the LORD" is Assyria (8:1). It has been summoned by the stench of death; the nation is dying because it has broken covenant with God. Its people "make kings"—but not with God's guidance—they make idols of silver and gold "for their own destruction" (8:4) and worship Baal in the form of a golden bull. (The bull-calf was a symbol of fertility throughout the ancient world and often the representation of the Semitic storm god Baal. Apparently, under royal patronage, a Baal-calf has been erected in Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, arousing divine jealousy and fury.) "It is from Israel, an artisan made it; it is not God," the LORD
says through his prophet. And because it is not God and the LORD is, "the calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces" (8:6).
And the nation will be broken and scattered with it. "For they sow the wind"—the nothingness of idol worship--and they shall reap the whirlwind" (6:7)—a terrible and now gathering storm. The people of Israel, once a holy nation, are no different from everyone else—"now they are among the nations as a useless vessel" (8:8)—begging to be smashed. Their alliances with Assyria and other nations will prove useless and hopelessly burdensome—"they shall soon writhe under the burden of kings and princes" (8:10). The altars they have constructed to "expiate sin" have become "altars for sinning" (8:11). They have proved unworthy of his forgiveness. Now the great acts God did in the exodus are about to be undone—Israel "shall return to Egypt" (8:13). Because they have "played the whore" they will lose the land that God has given and go into exile—"they shall not remain in the land of the LORD; but Ephraim shall return
to Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food" (9:3). As aliens, they shall not only be deprived of the Promised Land, with it they shall be robbed of the opportunity of keeping God's law. They shall make offerings to the LORD, "but their sacrifices shall not please him" (9:4). Their "appointed festivals" shall be neglected and forgotten (9:5). Having lost the laws and traditions of their people, they will lose their identity and become no different from anyone else. "Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them" (9:6).
But when the prophets try to warn them of the terrible peril in which they stand they ridicule God's messengers—"The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!" (9:7). When the prophet is "a sentinel" for Israel, he is despised and "a fowler's snare is on all his ways" (9:8). But Israel was different once: they were not always hard and cold. They were like "grapes in the wilderness" and "like the first fruit on the fig tree" when God first saw and loved their ancestors—they were innocent as a tender plant (9:10). "But they came to Baal-peor"—the story is found in Numbers 25:1-5—"and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame"—the god Baal in bull form—"and became like the thing they loved" (9:10). (People always come to resemble the thing they love most.) And now the people of Israel shall be left barren and sterile—"no birth, no pregnancy, no conception" (9:11). They will be bereaved "until
no one is left" (9:12). They prayed to their idols for fertility, and what will they receive?—"a miscarrying womb and dry breasts" (9:14).
From the time when they entered the Land of Promise at Gilgal, Israel has done nothing but grieve the Lord, and now he is determined that he "will love them no more"; the people are strayed into idolatry, and "all their officials are rebels" (9:15). The whole country is "stricken with barrenness"; now even if they do succeed in giving birth, the LORD threatens to "kill their cherished offspring" (9:16). And they are destined to lose the land and "become wanderers among the nations" (9:17).