Author: Lamar Austin

Welcome back to our study of the book of Hosea.  This is a tragic love story, with Hosea’s marriage to Gomer as the backdrop, but the real issue is the adulterous relationship between Yahweh and Israel.  Although they had been warned by Moses back in Deuteronomy of the sorry potential they had to forsake the true and living God for idols, and although God had sent them many prophets to force them to face the reality of what they had been doing and turn back to Yahweh, Israel persisted in worshipping the Baals, the gods of the Canaanites they had displaced.

Now exile was awaiting them.  In a few short years the Assyrian king Shalmanesar V would end the siege of Samaria and take captives from the northern kingdom and “seed” them throughout other conquered countries, while planting Gentiles in the northern kingdom.  The descendants of these transplants would come to be known as the “Samaritans” famous from the stories of Jesus.  Most of these Jews would never return to Israel.

Now we come to the final verses of Hosea 12.  Hosea has been encouraging Israel to look back and learn from their past.  Their ancestor Jacob had schemed and connived for the birthright and the blessing, but finally in his older age he wrestled with the angel of the Lord and was blessed.  His name was changed to Israel.  Now, Jacob didn’t always live up to this new name in his latter years, but he did sometimes.  It was an act of grace that God changed his name and redeemed his character.

Unfortunately, as Hosea had pointed out in vv. 2-6, Israel was not acting like Israel, the new man, but rather far too much like Jacob, the old, conniving man.  They tried to rule their own destiny by praying to the idols and making treaties with foreign nations.  All the while they should have been trusting God to provide for them and protect them.

Now, in the last 3 verses of Hosea 12, we read…

12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep. 13 By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded. 14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.

So Hosea returns to the story of Jacob to again cause Ephraim to reflect on their ways, and perchance repent.  Hosea has given Israel many reasons to repent and opportunities to repent.  It reminds me of Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 2, when Paul is instructing Timothy about dealing with false teachers.

24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

These Jews of Hosea’s day were just as captive to the devil as the false teachers of Timothy’s day.  But Hosea interacts with Israel in this same gentle, but firm way, so that “God may perhaps grant them repentance…”

So Hosea again reminds them of their humble origins in the person of Jacob.  Jacob was, in essence, a refugee who migrated to the land of Aram, modern day Syria.

This was surely to point out to them that they, too, would soon be refugees in lands away from their homeland.

While in Aram Jacob had to work for a wife.  Remember that this was an unfair arrangement that Laban had required of Jacob to have Rachel.  He had to work as a shepherd, a very humble occupation (cf. Deut. 26:5).  Jacob was even lower than a despised shepherd: he was the servant of his father-in-law.

With an experience like that in his great ancestor, Ephraim should have been willing to acknowledge the providence of God in his temporary prosperity.

Not only would the Israelites be exiled into a foreign country, like Jacob, but Yahweh, as we have observed several times, would reverse the exodus, putting them back under slave-masters.

However, Yahweh would be faithful to bring Jacob back to the land promised to his grandfather Abraham so that he could father the twelve tribes of Israel there.

Jacob and his descendants one day found themselves in Egypt.  After several centuries passed, the latter part of which was marked by hard labor for the Hebrews, Yahweh, the Good Shepherd, led His people out of Egypt by His under-shepherd Moses (Exod. 12:1-36; Deut. 26:5-8).  This is what verse 13 is referring to…

13 By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded.

John Calvin notes this connection between vv. 12 and 13.  First…

he shows what was the first origin of the people, that they were from Jacob; and then he shows what was their second origin; for God had again begotten them when he brought them out of Egypt. And they were there, as it is well known, very miserable, and they did not come out by their own valour, they did not attain for themselves their [own] liberty; but Moses alone extended his hand to them, having been sent for this end by God.  Since the case was so, it was strange that they now provoked God, as he says in the last verse, by their altars.

He goes on to say…

The Lord says, “Acknowledge what you owe to me; for I have chosen Jacob your father, and have not chosen him because he was eminent for his great dignity in the world; for he was a fugitive and a keeper of sheep, and served for his wife.  I afterwards redeemed you from the land of Egypt; and in that coming forth there was nothing that you did; there is no reason why you should boast that liberation was obtained by your valour; for Moses alone was my servant in that deliverance.  I did then beget you the second time, when I redeemed you.  How great is your ingratitude, when you do not own and worship me as your Redeemer?”

Notice that in both cases hard labor was experienced, and in both cases a “bride” was secured.  Jacob finally married Rachel after seven years of service, and Yahweh rescued his bride out of Egypt.  Remember that Israel as God’s bride is the chief metaphor of Hosea’s messages.

Although Hosea was considered, along with other prophets, but a “fool” and “madman,” like Moses they could have led the Israelites into greater blessing.  Instead, they would return to slavery in a foreign land.

Not only had Moses “brought them up” and “guarded” them, giving them victory over the very Canaanites that they were imitating both in their religious and in their social lives.

It is possible that Hosea does not name Moses as the prophet of the Exodus to stress the similarities between Israel at the time of the exodus and Israel in his day.  As Yahweh brought the nation from bondage in the days of Egypt through a prophet, accomplishing such a wonderful miracle, so now He has sent a prophet to them for their good, to save them from being enslaved again in a new Egypt—Assyria.

In spite of these mercies, the Israelites had provoked the Lord to bitter anger with their idolatry many times (cf. Deut. 4:25; 9:18; 31:29; 32:16, 21; Judg. 2:12; 1 Kings 14:9, 15).  Consequently, He would not remove the guilt of their sins by forgiving them, but would pay them back with punishment and shame.

Adam Clarke notes the connection between this verse, and verse 11, which spoke of Gilead:

Joshua succeeded Moses, and brought the Israelites into the promised land; and when they passed the Jordan at Gilgal, he received the covenant of circumcision; and yet this same place was now made by them the seat of idolatry!  How blind and how ungrateful!

Thus, Yahweh says…

14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.

James Coffman comments on Ephraim’s disobedience:

Nobody ever trusted any more completely in God’s promises than did Ephraim; but he made the mistake of supposing that they were unconditional….Ask Ephraim!  God had promised Ephraim that he would give the land of Canaan (Genesis 30:13-15) to them; and Ephraim, like the Pharisees long afterward, concluded that this promise on God’s part was theirs, no matter what they did, how they lived, or anything else!

“Bitter provocation” reminds me of how God felt during the years before the flood.

Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

You’ve probably felt this way as a parent—your children irritate you and exasperate you, they grieve you and break your heart.  Eventually you have to do something about it.  You have to discipline them.

This bitter provocation likely referred to their worship of Baal on the high places.

Ephraim had provoked God and it grieved him greatly.  As he had expressed back in Hosea 11:8, He deeply loved them.  But now He would have to judge them.  There was no other way.

By the way, notice that the word for Lord here is not “Yahweh,” but “Adonai.”  It was the word which means “master.”  Israel was about to learn in a hard way that the Lord was its real master, not Baal (a name that also can carry with it the idea of master or husband) and that they were accountable for how they had responded to His commands with disobedience and disdain.

The sad phrase “leave his bloodguilt on him” means that he would have to bear his own guilt.

Jesus speaks in a similar way in the gospel of John.  In John 3:36 Jesus says…

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

And Jesus said to the Pharisees after he healed the man born blind…

John 9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Aren’t we glad that our guilt can be passed on to Jesus Christ?  When we trust in His work that He did on the cross for us, we don’t have to pay for our sins, our guilt is placed upon Jesus Christ and He paid it in full.

The blood guilt may refer to murder or child sacrifice (i.e., to Molech).

But Israel would not turn to Yahweh, and therefore must bear the guilt of their own sins themselves.  In His justice Yahweh would “repay him for his disgraceful deeds.”

The people celebrate Jacob in their ceremonies and call themselves his descendants, but the God of Jacob will no longer guard Ephraim as he did their patriarch.  Instead, he will “repay” them.  The Hebrew term translated “repay” is shub, the same word that elsewhere carries the sense of “turn, return.”  Since Israel will not return (shub) to the Lord (v. 6), the Lord will return (shub) Israel’s reproach back onto the nation (v. 14).

Israel had come to the point of no return. Hopelessly apostate and thoroughly wicked as a nation, it was now time that the Lord must judge His people.  Israel demonstrated its contempt by rejecting Him and His standards, and by choosing to create its own religiosity and charting its own course of life.  Therefore, the rewards of such decisions and such conduct would soon earn their proper reward (cf. Prov. 22:8; 26:27; 28:10; Eccles. 10:8; Gal. 6:7).

It may be as Craigie suggests: “The final word of judgment is a word spoken in grief.  Though beyond the coming disaster words of grace would be heard once again, the judgmental word would soon be experienced in Israel in all its terrible reality” (Craigie, Twelve Prophets,1:78).

Or, in Calvin’s words:

They cannot, he says, escape the authority of God, though they have spurned his law; though they have become wanton in their superstitions, they shall yet know that they remain under the hand and power of God, they shall know that they effect nothing by this their petulance; though they thus wander after their abominations, yet the Lord will not lose his right, which he had obtained for himself by redeeming Israel.

What they receive is just and right.

The ESV Gospel Transformation Bible has this note:

In summary, the comparisons seem to work like this: Jacob was a sinner in the land (v. 3), met God in his flight from the land (v. 4), served another to gain a wife (v. 12) outside the land, and then was restored to the land knowing God (vv. 4b–5).

This also corresponds to the way the nation later went down to Egypt (through the events and legacy of Jacob’s son, Joseph), multiplied there, then met God at Sinai, and was shepherded through the wilderness by Moses (cf. vv. 9–10, 13).

This pattern is being repeated in Hosea’s day as, like Jacob, Ephraim (the largest tribe of Israel, used by Hosea to represent the nation) sins in the land (vv. 2–3, 7–8), will be driven into exile and sustained there by the Lord, and then, as at the exodus from Egypt, will meet God and return to the land to dwell there with him (cf. vv. 5, 11–14).

These patterns are fulfilled in Jesus. Not only did he have a sojourn in Egypt (see Matt. 2:13–15), he also became the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) in fulfillment of the exodus pattern to redeem his people (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23), provided a place of rest for them by making them the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and gives them a new law for a new and continuing relationship with God (1 Cor. 9:20; 2 John 5–6).  It is Christ himself who provides God’s people with spiritual food and drink for their sojourn through the wilderness (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1–13; 11:17–34), on the way to the new and better heavens and earth, the kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17), where righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13).

In a day which champions “God is love” and excuses every sin, we need to remember that God is infinitely merciful AND infinitely just.  Because of His simplicity—He cannot be divided up into various parts with various passions—He is a God of both infinite mercy and infinite justice. The Lord is not only “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” but He is also the One “who will by no means clear the guilty” (Ex. 34:6–7).

In fact, the only way we can escape God’s infinitely just punishment for sin is through the satisfaction of His justice.  And by means of satisfaction of justice, mercy is poured out on us.

Only one thing satisfies the justice of God against our sins—the perfect life and voluntary, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.  Eternity in hell is not long enough to satisfy God’s justice; only the death of His precious Son.

We do not contribute to that satisfaction at all.  God initiates and accomplishes it. Look at who is doing the action in 2 Corinthians 5.  In verse 14, we read of “the love of Christ” (emphasis added), that is, not merely Paul’s love for Christ but Christ’s own love for sinners.  In verse 18, Paul says “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (emphasis added), and then again in verse 19, “That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself . . . and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (emphasis added).  Verse 20 amazingly says that it is “God” who is “making his appeal through us.”

God’s only begotten Son was made to be sin and a curse for us, in our place, on the cross, in order that he might be satisfaction for us.  Someone has to be punished for sin.  Christ has offered to take our place and receive our punishment, but that only applies to us when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior from sin.

Is there any gospel promise more beautiful in all the Scriptures than 2 Corinthians 5:21?  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That means: “For our sake” the righteous God “made” His Son Jesus Christ “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in” Jesus Christ “we might become the righteousness of God.”  Paul says that God Himself has provided for us a vicarious sacrifice, a great exchange between His judgment on our sins and Christ’s righteousness to our benefit.

Last week we saw in Hosea 12 how Yahweh called Israel to imitate their ancestor Jacob.  Jacob, although in many ways a scoundrel, eventually began to trust God instead of his own schemes, and thus inherited the name Israel.  Unfortunately, Hosea’s Israel was acting too much like the old Jacob rather than the new Israel.  Thus, Yahweh calls them once again to repentance, in verse 6:

6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

But, alas, this was not to be.  Instead, Hosea paints a picture for us of the continued decadence and stubborn rebellion of the descendants of Jacob in his day…

7 A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress. 8 Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.” 9 I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast. 10 I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables. 11 If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field. 12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep. 13 By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded. 14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.

These first few verses speak of a false sense of security that replaced a reliance upon the LORD.  It is true that Israel lived at the height of affluence during the age of Jeroboam II and although they were living off the fumes of that, they still were living above average, refusing to acknowledge that any of this was a gift from the LORD.

Hosea designates Israel here as a “merchant,” engaging in fraud.  They were cutting corners to get ahead “in the worst traditions of Israelite merchant’s ancestor Jacob” (Duane Garret, Hosea-Amos, p. 241).  But Hosea indicates that Ephraim was even worse than that!

The actual Hebrew word there is kena’an, or Canaan.  Most versions translate it “merchant,” “trader” or “trafficker” due to the context, but the King James Version and Jerusalem Bible translates “Canaan.”  Of course, that speaks to their character in business dealings.  They were “infected by the spirit of commercialism characteristic of the people whom he has supplanted” (JB, Hosea 12:7).

Clarke says, “Ephraim is as corrupt as those heathenish traffickers were.”

When the children of Israel entered the promised land, they were specifically told to separate themselves from the practices of the Canaanites, the people whom they were to destroy (Exod. 33:2; Deut. 7:1; 20:17; Joshua 34:10; 17:18). Rebelling against God’s plan, the Israelites chose to imbibe the spirit of the Canaanites (Joshua 16:10; 17:12; Judges 1:29-33).

This term has special reference to the Phoenician coast.  The Phoenicians were famous for their trading empire, which stretched across the water of the Mediterranean Sea and even beyond (cf. Zeph. 1:11).

In a double entendre Canaan thus applies as well to the business class of Israelite society upon whose unscrupulous tactics the Northern Kingdom depended as a source of its wealth.  As Stuart observes, “‘Canaan’ would appear to be a derogatory double entendre for Ephraim … Hosea declares Ephraim to be a greedy merchant, and at the same time no better than the Canaanites whose immoral culture deserved extinction (cf. Gen 15:16)” (Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, p. 192).

Deceitful weights and measures were a continuous problem in commercial Israel, suggested by the numerous demands for “righteous weights” (cf. Amos 8:5-6; Deut. 25:13ff; Prov. 20:10).

It was a travesty of the times. “In an economy that did not have standardized weights and measures, traders were often tempted to cheat by falsifying the balances and measurements, often by using improper weights and false bottoms and other ways to alter the sizes of vessels” ((Walton, Matthews & Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, p. 759).

And through their deceitful practices, they oppressed people, taking their possessions, their land and eventually casting them into debtor’s prison.

Notice how Hosea emphasizes their heart attitude by saying that Ephraim “loves to oppress” (although Hubbard believes it should be translated “oppresses loved ones”).  It wasn’t happening accidentally, nor was it simply an unavoidable consequence of doing business.  This expression indicates that Ephraim did this intentionally and with delight.

Their riches were also a source of pride to them. Hosea rebukes them by saying…

8 Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”

Verse 8 sounds a lot like the condemnable words of the church of Laodicea:

17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

In both of these verses, the fact of riches is attributed not to the blessing of God, but to their own efforts.  Hosea says of Ephraim, “I have found wealth for myself” and John says of Laodicea “I have prospered.”  Neither of them attributed their riches to the gracious hand of God.

And, of course, what Hosea is saying is that what they did in “finding wealth” is that it came dishonestly.

Nevertheless, they trusted in their possessions and their success.  This led them to protest their own innocence: “in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”

In reality, they may be able to escape the judgment of the courts (usually by buying their way out), but they cannot escape the judgment of Yahweh.

In some ways this statement sounds like the prosperity theology of our day.  Wealth is believed to be something we deserve and whenever someone is wealthy we automatically think God is pleased with them and blessed them with wealth.

When things are good financially, it’s hard for people to believe that their society can be in deep trouble.  Or, as H. Ronald Vandermey says, “Unfortunately, monetary success has never been an accurate barometer of one’s status before God” (Psalm 37:16; Prov. 11:4; 23:4; Eccles. 8:11-14; Matt. 5:45), something which should be kept in mind today by those Christians who have achieved ‘the blessings of God’ through the same ruthless business practices used by their unbelieving fellow merchants” (Hosea-Amos, p. 69).

But to protest innocence in the face of all the evidence adduced by Hosea only compounds their guilt, adding atop their evil deeds a callousness that precludes a recognition of their guilt, making repentance highly unlikely.

I love the way the British commentator Derek Kidner says it:

“In cold print, his bland assurance that his extorted riches carry no guilt—or none to speak of—even put him above the law, is patently absurd.  Yet human attitudes, which venerate success and, at a safe distance, admire a clever rogue, still help to build up his cocksureness in the man who sells his soul to the present” (The Message of Hosea, p. 110).

Yahweh had told the generation which was about to enter the land how He had taken care of them, then warns them, in Deuteronomy 8:

6 So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Yahweh knew, and had warned them that a life of ease and affluence would be possible in the Promised Land, but it could very well cause them to think that they had done it by their own “power and might” (v. 17) and to forget the LORD and then go after other gods.  Because He knew they would do that very thing, he warned them that they would “surely perish.”

Yahweh then pronounces his response to their deluded reliance upon their own efforts and lack of recognition of Yahweh’s work on their behalf:

9 I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.

Once again Yahweh declares that He will undo the Exodus and return Israel to the status of no longer being a nation.

“The LORD your God” is the full covenant title of Israel’s God (Exodus 20:2), the one who delivered them from Egypt.  He had not changed, but they had.  Yahweh is asserting His sovereignty as the one who redeemed them, and thus has the right to stipulate the conditions of their relationship—obedience to His commands and loyal to Him alone.

Yahweh’s self-introduction is the logical response to Ephraim’s boast.  It reminds them (and us) who is truly in charge.

Yahweh reminded His people that He had been their God since before the Exodus.  The fact that He delivered them is the foundation of the stipulations He laid upon His people through what we call the “Ten Commandments.”  Of course, they were avidly breaking these commandments right and left.

He was able to make them revert to a humble wilderness lifestyle again, which their yearly Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) reminded them about (cf. Lev. 23:33-43).  Doing this would remind them once again how utterly dependent they had been upon God to provide even the basic necessities of food and water many times over, helping them to once again remember that Yahweh was the true source of every blessing.

Again, Derek Kidner so aptly says that these three verses have a double thrust:

First: “Was it for this that I redeemed you?  To make you a bunch of Canaanites?”  And secondly: “When you re-live the Exodus every year, camping out as your fathers did, is it only make-believe?  Or is it to relearn the lessons of those days, that man does not live by bread alone?” (This Message of Hosea, p. 111).

What they had been doing for one week out of a year (and likely begrudgingly at that) Yahweh now says they would have to do permanently.  They would become homeless as Assyria scattered them among the conquered nations.

This is clearly an allusion to the coming captivity of Israel.  The LORD will make Israel a homeless people in the future as once they were in the past.

As David Hubbard says…

“The crucial events of the exodus and its subsequent wanderings have to be replayed, so that Ephraim may learn how dependent he is on Yahweh and how grateful he must be for such dependence” (Hosea, p. 219)

The announcement of captivity should come as no surprise to a people who had resolutely misplaced their trust.  Not only were they rejecting a reliance upon God, they were also rejecting the revelation of God through His prophets.

Verse 10 says…

10 I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables.

God had done more than His part to keep Israel trusting and obeying Him.  He not only gave them His blessings, but had given them oral instruction through the prophets—through a variety of means—through instruction, visions and parables.  This indicates the certainty and clarity through which God had communicated to them.

The verb “I spoke” contains in it the noun “the word.”  But as a verb it suggests the creative power of God, like that which created the universe and all creation in Genesis 1.  It speaks of the power of God’s Word to accomplish what is spoken.  Isaiah speaks to this in Isaiah 55:10-13:

10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

When God speaks, things happen.  No word of His is empty and unproductive.

Notice how powerful God’s Word is.  Verse 13 indicates that it can even change the fundamental nature of something—a thorn bush will become a cypress and a stand of briers will become a myrtle.

Those of us who preach must believe that God’s Word is still powerful enough to change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone.

Of course, speaking to the prophets describes an event, a time in history when God spoke.  The prophets “met with” God and He spoke to them.  Now, these prophets were speaking to the people, reminding them of God’s past revelation and making present proclamations of Israel’s guilt and Yahweh’s necessity in bringing the covenant judgments upon them.

The prophets’ role is thus God-given and unassailable.  Ephraim ignores Hosea at their own peril.  If you remember, back in Hosea 9:7 the people were saying that the prophets were “fools” and crazy.  But the prophet’s visions and parables were “mere eccentricities” but the very word of God.

Nevertheless, in spite of so many exhortations to return to the Lord, the people had not responded.

Not only would they lose their homeless, but their once stately and tall idols would be leveled.

11 If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.

The gods they now trusted in to save them would prove their impotency by being broken down into stone heaps.  When God’s judgment comes, all those altars will be brought low, so the only altars will be the hills made by the furrows of the field.

We need to remember this—where are we putting our trust?  In ourselves—our own strength and abilities, our own intellect and schemes, our own resources and bank accounts?  If we misplace our trust, God will bring us up short in some way.

Are we listening to the revelation of God?  How often do we read and heed what God has said in His Word?  How frequently do we ignore it, or discount it?  It is being planted deeply into our hearts so that it bears fruit?

They say that truth is learned better through example than through lecture.  Certainly trust must be taught, but it must also be lived out.  As a parent, your children won’t follow your instruction as much as they will imitate your behavior.

In the 12^th chapter of Hosea, Jacob is brought up as an example for Israel.  Having called Israel by the name Jacob in verse 2, Hosea then says…

3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. 4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us–5 the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name: 6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

Jacob is one of my favorite characters in the Bible because he is so real, so fallible.  He stumbles along the path of discipleship.  He needs grace more than many others for anything good to come of his life.

Scholars debate whether Jacob is a negative example to avoid or a positive example to follow as he is presented here.  Certainly his life, like most of us, is a mixed bag of good choices and bad ones.  However, the exhortation in verse 6, which caps off this discussion of Jacob, seems to be encouraging them to act like Jacob and “return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”  Jacob certainly held fast and ultimately received the blessing.

Duane Garrett notes:

“Hosea here resumes the theme from 6:7-9 that Israel has inherited the worst traits of their ancestors without picking up any of the good qualities; in particular the people of Hosea’s generation are untouched by grace” (Hosea-Joel, p. 236).

He goes on to say…

“The portrayal of the life of Jacob here is not chronological but consists of passing allusions to details of the Genesis account that are thematically arranged in order to create a portrait of the patriarch as a desperate man transformed by God” (Hosea-Joel, p. 236).

Hosea first alludes to Jacob’s birth…

In the womb he took his brother by the heel

This refers back to Genesis 25:26…

Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob.

Thus, Jacob was the “grasper,” the one who had to take things by force.  A civil war erupted in  Rebekah’s womb, though Esau eventually won that battle and was born first.  Jacob, true to his name, ended up, in rather underhanded ways, to take away Esau’s birthright and blessing.

Thus, we read in Genesis 27:36

Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob?  For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.”

Jacob was a cheater and a taker.  As Derek Kidner reminds us: “Even Laban, that master of manoeuvre, found he had met his match in this man” (The Message of Hosea, p. 109).

Although it was God’s elective choice to bless Jacob over Esau, Jacob is presented here as one who felt like he had to help God out.

James Montgomery Boice explains:

“‘To grasp the heel’ also meant to go behind one’s back in order to deceive or trick him, and this became the dominant characteristic of the man.”

Not only did Jacob fight with Esau, but “in his manhood he strove with God.”  This describes Jacob’s wrestling with the angel at Penuel in Genesis 32.

24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

You see that God required him to admit the fact that he was a “striver,” a “grabber.”

28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”  But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?”  And there he blessed him.

Garrett points out that the comparative phrase “as a man” is a translation of the word awen, a word we’ve seen before as a description of the city of Bethel, Beth-Awen, or Aven.  There it described Bethel’s deceptive wickedness.  Although the end of that story in Genesis points to Jacob’s surrender and his renaming as Israel, thus God’s blessing, Hosea seems to indicate only the negative fact that Jacob wrestled with God.

Jacob’s attitude that he had a right for what was his and had to fight for it carried over into his relationship with God.  Thus, in Genesis 32:28, God said, “you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Scholars question how Hosea is relating the words “he wept and sought his favor” to the encounter at Penuel.  These words do not occur in the event of Genesis 32, but rather in the encounter between Jacob and Esau in Genesis 33.  It is used by Hosea to express the idea that Jacob ultimately sought mercy from God after years of ceaseless striving.

He finally understood the words, “cease striving and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

God then renamed Jacob “Israel,” “prince.”

Hosea then moves back to a former event in the Jacob story when he says, “He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with [him].”  This refers back to Jacob’s vision of the heavenly stairway while he was en route to Haran and to God’s second appearance to Jacob on his return to Bethel (Genesis 28:10-22; 35:6-15).  Bethel was the place that the true God met Jacob; unlike in Hosea’s day when Jacob’s descendants were seeking false gods at Beth Aven.

Jacob had originally received the promise of the covenant from God at Bethel (Genesis 28:13).  “Hosea places Bethel at the end of his retelling of the story to create a contrast between the grace Jacob received and his life of conniving, scheming, and struggling.  That is, Jacob’s machinations and battles for survival represented his old life, his life without grace, whereas his reception of the promises at Bethel represented his new life…” (Duane Garrett, Hosea-Joel, pp. 238-239).

Kidner reinforces that this change in Jacob was not in his own enterprise but was a “classic display of grace unexpected, unsought, and overwhelming” (The Message of Hosea, p. 109).

When Jacob returned to Bethel the second time, he worshiped there (Genesis 35:1-14).  It is ironic that the place where Jacob got right with God was Bethel, since Bethel was the place where the Israelites had gotten wrong with Him by worshipping idols. Jacob’s return to God at Bethel provided a good example for the Israelites to get right with Him, there, too.

The structure of the text, which is what is called a chiasmus, reinforces the message that Jacob met the true God at Bethel and was converted into Israel.

Hosea’s emphasis, however, is that although God met Jacob at Bethel and fellowshipped with him there, God was virtually excluded from present day Bethel by contemporary Jacob (i.e., God’s people in Hosea’s day).  For Bethel (house of God) had become Beth Aven (house of deception/iniquity).  It was there that the people courted Baal and indulged in his pagan rites.  There they acted like the old Jacob, the unredeemed Jacob.

I think it is significant to Hosea’s argument that he says at the end of v. 4, “and there God spoke with us…”  Notice the “us” instead of merely “him.”  To Hosea, God did not speak only to the past Jacob at Bethel, but now to the present Jacob at Bethel.

Verse 5 is a revelation of the name of God.  David Hubbard reminds us:

“The hymn which features Yahweh’s name in contrast to Elohim and El in vv. 3-4 are a reminder of the dangers of confusing Israel’s LORD and Savior with the gods of the land, even the high-god El” (Hosea, p. 217)

On the basis of his reading of Genesis, Hosea can proclaim, “the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name.”  Hosea is referring to the covenant name, Yahweh here, indicating that He is the “God of hosts,” the God of the “angel armies.”

“The use of the full title Yahweh God of hosts (i.e. armies of heaven and earth, [2 Sam. 5:10] found here only in Hosea) moves the focus away from any local sacred sites like Bethel and centres attention on the universal power and glory of the Lord” (D. Hubbard, Hosea, p. 217)

This name reminds us of the story of Elisha, when the king of Syria surrounded Dothan with “a great army” (2 Kings 6:14).  When Elisha’s servant went to the walls the next morning he was alarmed to find such a large army surrounding them and said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” (6:15).  Then we read…

16 He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Hosea did not get this name from the Genesis record, but Amos uses it frequently and Hosea may be borrowing it from him.  It describes the God of all the earth who holds all mankind accountable and calls them to repentance.

Yahweh is God’s “memorial name.” Names reveal and reflect character traits (e.g., Ps. 135:13).  The name YHWH, was revealed to Moses in Exod. 3:14.  Before this time the patriarchs addressed God as El Shaddai (cf. Exod. 6:2-3).

What is Hosea doing here, recalling the Jacob incidents?  He is reminding them that all their scheming and machinations and political alliances would not save them.  They are like Jacob in all their efforts to protect themselves and get God’s blessings for themselves.

But they needed to come to a point of desperation.  Unlike Jacob, they were not crying out to God in tears and repenting of their sins.  “The nation of Israel continues to live like Jacob the conniver, the man without grace.  Like old Jacob, they struggle for success and security not in God, but in wealth” not in trust but in scheming.

“Jacob’s ambitions put him out of phase with God’s character right at the start of his life (cf. v. 3).  His offspring, whether as individuals or collectively—the emphatic you is singular—had to be redirected from their ancestral pattern to return again” (D. Hubbard, Hosea, pp. 217-218).

Hosea calls for three things from his people: repentance, justice, and faith.  They had turned away from Yahweh to pursue the false gods of the nations, originally the gods of Egypt, then the gods of the Canaanites and now the gods of the nations they sought to ally themselves to.

Hosea thus calls for them to turn back to Yahweh, to turn their backs to the false gods and return to the true God.

Repentance, first a change of perspective, becomes then a change of behavior.  Knowing God as He really is (v. 5) and knowing ourselves as we really are (vv. 3-4) is the pre-requisite for repentance.  When we are faced with the holiness of God and our sinfulness, and when God’s Spirit brings conviction, then we will repent.

“Love and justice” (in v. 6) are shorthand for doing all that God requires while giving the greatest emphasis on the most important parts of the Torah.  Matthew 23:23 Jesus says…

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.  These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

Since Yahweh had brought a lawsuit against them (v. 2) for being unfaithful to the covenant stipulations, He now reminds them of their obligations that they had failed to fulfill.

Love and justice sum up our obligation to one another.  They are also the central aspects of Yahweh’s covenant character towards His people (cf. Hosea 2:19).

To these positive characteristics they were to “hold fast to.”  Just as Jacob had said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” so we are to be equally earnest to “hold fast” to God’s moral will and wait continually for His sovereign will to be fulfilled.

“Wait continually for your God” implies an attitude of faith that seeks security in God rather than in wealth or position or allies, that perseveres in that faith even when circumstances prove difficult.  On his deathbed, Israel was able still to give this testimony: “I wait for your salvation, O LORD” (Gen. 49:18).

“Jacob had snatched at his destiny time and again; so had Israel and Judah with land-grabs (5:8-10), rash treaties (10:4; 12:1), and pleas to Baal (7:14-16).  Their renewed style was to wait in full hope for the divine Redeemer to meet their needs” (D. Hubbard, Hosea, p. 218).

The lesson was that, like Jacob, the Israelites should return to their covenant God.  They should practice loyal love and justice in dealing with one another, rather than being like the old Jacob.  And they should commit to waiting in faith for God to act for them, rather than seizing control of the situation, as Jacob so often had done.

If Israel will repent, they will become like their ancestor Jacob in the best sense.

Just as Jacob was literally wrestled into submission by an angel of God, just as Jacob pleaded with tears for God’s blessing — just so must Israel return to the Lord.

Notice that Hosea’s exhortations are prefaced by the phrase “by the help of your God.”  The only way they could possibly repent, become loving and just and consistently trust in God’s help, is “by the help of God.”  We cannot become repentant on our own, but need God’s help; we cannot become loving and just in our own strength, but we need God’s help.  We depend upon God’s help even to trust Him consistently.  Without the help of God we can do nothing, as Jesus reminded His disciples, “without me you can do nothing.”

“The implication for Israel is clear: they are nothing without Yahweh, just as Jacob was nothing without Yahweh” (Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, p. 192).

Essentially, Hosea is telling them that repentance is expressed in—obeying and trusting.  Obey His moral will and trust His sovereign will to be worked out for your life.  Or, we could say that what God wants from us is to trust, to treasure and to trust.

The good news is that grace can come to and transform even the worst of us.  It changed Jacob into Israel.  Grace can transform a cheater and grabber into a prince with God.  Like Jacob, we must exchange our self-sufficiency for trusting God.

Futility—trying one thing after another, with no success.  Bryan Wilkerson, pastor of Grace Chapel, tells this story about futility…

Years ago, when our kids were young, we were out at a themed restaurant with TV’s all over walls, playing cartoons with no sound.  Our youngest son, who was about four at the time, had his eyes glued to the TV screen.  He was watching a continuous loop of Road Runner cartoons, watching as Wile E. Coyote strapped on rocket-propelled roller skates, or shot himself out of a cannon, or launched himself from a giant slingshot in pursuit of the elusive Road Runner.  After watching intently for a long time, he had an epiphany.  Without taking his eyes off the screen, he quietly announced to our family, “No matter what he does, he’s never going to get the chicken.”

“Chasing the wind” is the metaphor Hosea uses to express Ephraim’s futility.  All their misguided efforts to pursue the good life would end up sabotaging what good life they had.

Our passage this morning is Hosea 12, but we’re including the last verse of Hosea 11, because it fits better conceptually with this chapter.

This is the beginning of the final section of Hosea which contains further messages concerning prevailing conditions in the Northern Kingdom that necessitate Israel’s judgment.  The speeches contain both oracles of the prophet and divine speeches (e.g., 12:9-11; 13:4-16; 14:4-8).  While it begins with a condemnation, it ends on a high note of God’s consolation: granted Israel’s repentance, God’s people will be restored to His favor and blessings forevermore.

David Hubbard points out that…

Hosea might have ended his book at 11:11 with the powerful, almost humorous, picture of God, the Lion, calling home his quivering family of birds.  To that return the book has been driving relentlessly, reaching it once at 1:11, then at 3:5 and again at 11:11.  But the prophecy has yet more to unfold of the nature of Israel’s sin, the intensity of God’s passionate judgment, and the glory of the ultimate reconciliation.  So here, for the final time, it traces Israel’s march from punishment to restoration.

The glory of that future day will seem distant once again as their contemporary reality needed to be faced.

The northern kingdom is undoubtedly in its last decade as these words are preached to them.

12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One. 1 Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt. 2 The LORD has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds. 3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God. 4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us– 5 the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name: 6 “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” 7 A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress. 8 Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.” 9 I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast. 10 I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables. 11 If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field. 12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep. 13 By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded. 14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.

Yahweh once again brings charges against Ephraim, establishing their guilt and predicting their punishment.

Richard Patterson tells us…

As this section of the book of Hosea opens, the Lord is expressing his displeasure with His people of both kingdoms. He begins with the Northern Kingdom.  Israel has been a seedbed of treachery (v.1).

The charge of lying has been leveled previously when the Lord condemned the royal advisors for their false relations with the king (7:3).  Because of the deceptive practices that infected the Northern Kingdom at the highest levels, all Israel had become corrupt.

It even affected its worship experience, for in these God’s people lie to the lord with regard to their supposed devotion (7:13).  Through His prophet the Lord also had denounced Israel’s false dependence on its military strength rather than trusting in the lord (10:13).

In verse 12 of Hosea 11, Yahweh complained that Ephraim (Israel) had consistently lied and tried to deceive Him.

12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit

He described Himself as surrounded and under attack by His own people.  Wherever He looked, all He saw was cheaters.  Like their ancestor Jacob, they were deceivers.

Not only is Israel guilty of outright lies but also of deceit in all of its dealings, Israel has become a society where violence, which often leads to bloodshed, abounds (12:2,14), where dishonesty characterizes its business dealings (v.7), and in which lust for wealth accrued in whatever way it could be obtained was a way of life (vv. 8-9).  Israel’s deception and fraud included its false—even pagan—religious rites (v.11) and its failure to heed the prophets whom God sent to guide and correct His people (v.10).  It is small wonder, then, that Yahweh feels “surrounded” by Israel’s lies and deceit.  For wherever He looked, there was only wanton debauchery.

God as likening Himself to a besieged city.  He the holy city saw all around Him the siege machinery of lies, deceit, and total apostasy.  There remained nothing for Yahweh to do but to defend His holiness by striking out in judgment against His debased nation.

Hosea also mentions Judah and David Hubbard aptly reminds us that “sin needs no passport,” but is highly contagious.  The statement that Judah “walks with God” seems, on the surface, to be a positive statement.  However, some have taken it negatively, as an unruly walk.  This descriptive verb is somewhat rare (Heb. rud, wayward).  In Jeremiah 2:31 it portrays Judah’s wandering away from the Lord.

There is also the question of whether it is Judah that is faithful to “the Holy One” or “the Holy One” who is faithful to Judah.  It seems best to take this as saying that Judah remains faithful to Yahweh, and merely points out the inconsistency of their walk, which is sometimes wayward, sometimes faithful.

However, the description is actually “holy ones” plural and the term God is El.  Hubbard points out that the term El could stand for a foreign god, an idol and that “holy ones” quite possibly describes the Canaanite pantheon (Hosea, p. 211).

We know that Yahweh—the true God, however, always remains faithful to His covenant promises, even when we are inconsistent in our devotion and faithfulness.

Thus, in Hosea 12:1 Ephraim is described as “feeding on the wind.”

1 Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long

The prophet Hosea builds upon the Lord’s previous statement in Hosea 11:12 by once again comparing Israel’s vacillating and deceitful foreign policy to the futility of pursuing these matters in a wrong way (12:1).

Both verbs in this passage emphasize continuous, consistent action.  What is it they say about insanity?  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Like the earlier metaphor of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind in 8:15, so here it describes the utter futility and emptiness of their pursuit of foreign nations to help them.  The word “pursues” can be translated “shepherd, tend.”  It refers to a positive process, but here expresses ultimate futility.

A similar expression is used concerning man’s inability to discover abiding satisfaction through the multiplication of his possessions.  Having enumerated various attempts he had made to find fulfillment through the accumulation of possessions the Preacher of Ecclesiastes summed up his endeavors by saying, “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).  (For wind used as an image this way, cf. Job 6:26; 8:2; 15:2; Ps. 78:39; Eccles. 1:14; 2:11; Isa. 26:18; 41:16).

The reference to the east wind suggests the hot, desert wind, called sirocco, which burns and sears and brings famine.  Adam Clarke reminds us that the east wind: “They are not only empty, but dangerous and destructive. The east wind was, and still is, in all countries, a parching, wasting, injurious wind” (cf. Isaiah 27:8).  No one in their right mind would pursue this, but Ephraim does.

Israel does not realize that its policies are a lost cause.  For what Israel will find is only the emptiness and futility that the pursuit of wind implies.  Yet when we betray our God, we are no less foolish.

Hosea again points our their deceptiveness, at the end of verse 1 when he says…

they multiply falsehood and violence

which seems best explained by the next statement…

they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt.

In other words, they deal deceptively with their so-called allies, making agreements with Assyria on the one hand (cf. Hos. 5:13; 8:9) and at the same time making overtures to Egypt (cf. 2 Kings 17:3-4; Hos. 7:11).  Of course, they made these treaties with foreign nations rather than trusting in Yahweh.  Making a treaty with another nation for protection implicitly involved trusting those foreign gods for protection over the protection offered by your own god.

Courting two enemies at the same time was not only an act of political madness destined to bring the wrath of both nations against them, but above all was an act of disloyalty to Yahweh.

Instead of trusting in the LORD, Israel trusted in deals and payoffs to the surrounding superpowers. It was foolish for them to think that Assyria or Egypt was more powerful or dependable than the LORD was.

Keil notes

“This actually took place during the reign of Hoshea, who endeavored to liberate himself from the oppression of Assyria by means of a treaty with Egypt (2 Kings xvii. 4).”

Or, as H. Ronald Vandermey describes more explicitly…

Assyria, like the blast from the sirocco, is not Ephraim’s friend, but an uncontrollable power that will mercilessly consume all that stands before its fiery rage.  Whereas it was hazardous to make a covenant with the east wind (2 Kings 17:3), an even greater danger was created when that covenant was broken (2 Kings 17:4-6).  Ephraim had deceived the wicked sirocco, a deception that would spell disaster as the enraged east wind swept over the land (Hosea-Amos, p. 68)

The whole of Israel’s actions throughout this chapter is well characterized as trying to “herd the wind.”  Their futile attempts to save themselves, their failure to follow Jacob’s example, their false sense of security, forsaking God’s revelation to them through the prophets—each of these separate actions was foolish in itself, as foolish as trying to herd the wind.

By the way, that word “multiply” in verse 2, “multiply falsehood and violence,” is found several times throughout Hosea’s sermons

1. lavished (multiplied) silver and gold, 2:8
2. multiplied altars for sin, 8:11
3. multiplied fortified cities, 8:14
4. more (multiplied) altars, 10:1
5. multiplied lies and violence, 12:1
6. multiplied visions, 12:10

Again, the more Yahweh lavished his gifts upon Israel, the more Israel multiplied their sins.

As Stuart remarks, “In internal matters, the nations multiple immorality was well documented: it can be no surprise therefore that in external matters of diplomacy, their pattern of treachery continued true to form” (Hosea-Jonah, p. 190)

Although it is Ephraim/Israel that is singled out here for rebuke, the force of the context tends to suggest that although Israel is the primary focus, there is culpability in both Israel and Judah.  As Andersen and Freedman point out, “Both countries are guilty of entering non-Yahwistic covenants… . The north and south tried to curry favor with Assyria at each other’s expense. There is also indication that they played Egypt off against Assyria” (Hosea, p. 605).

Judah and the northern tribes (Ephraim) both suffered lapses in fidelity to the Lord, but Judah, unlike Ephraim, had some good kings (in particular, Hezekiah).  One of the highest points in Judah’s history was the victory over the Assyrians when Hezekiah was king (see 2 Kings 18–19, which was 20 years after Samaria fell) (ESV Study Bible)

You know, it might be appropriate today for us to ask ourselves: Am I feeding on wind?

Maybe you have invested your life in things that really don’t matter, that won’t matter 100 years from now.  Maybe you have sought to mask your pain doing things which only cause you more sorrow.  That is exactly what an idol does—it asks us to sacrifice for it and gives us nothing in return.

Oh, of course sin is a pleasure for a season.  Sin would have no seductive power at all if it didn’t provide some pleasure.  But the payoff is small and the enjoyment of it is short.

Never before has there been such an attractive array of wind food around for the Christian.  And it’s not just the “junk foods” available through most movies and television.  There are all kinds of wind salesmen around with appealing programs to “get into.”  Getting heavily involved in secular clubs and associations rather than Christian fellowship, or becoming experts in a hobby at the expense of our spiritual health are examples of wind programs.

Even our studies and careers, which can consume enormous amounts of our time and energy, may become a feeding on wind if God is left out of the picture.  We may feel fulfilled and satisfied now, but what about later?

We must have a steady diet of the solid food of the Word of God now if we are to avoid the stunted growth, starvation and emptiness that are associated with feeding on wind.  Remember that “man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).  Let’s be careful of what we munch on and not lose our appetites for the Word of God.

John Piper, in his book on fasting entitled Hunger for God, gets down to the reality of this when he says…

“If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied.  It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world.  Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.”

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.  It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world.  It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.”

Israel had lost their hunger for God, satiating themselves on the supposed material blessings that came from worshiping Baal, from their under-handed business practices, from creating alliances with foreign nations for protection.  They thought they were gaining, but they were losing.

So the cry of my heart is that we would let nothing quench our appetite for God Himself.

God’s love never fails.  His mercies are new every morning.  That is the nature of God.  But His love is a holy love and no matter how much He may want to save us from the consequences of our sins, like any good parent Yahweh disciplines us that we may learn and change our ways.  Unfortunately, Israel was not learning and not changing.  Instead, they were bent on rebellion.

As we pick up Hosea 11 this morning…

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?  My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. 10 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD. 12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.

We can see from this passage that although God has compassion for Ephraim, they were filled with lies, while Judah “still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.”  Therefore, Israel would soon go into captivity to Assyria, in 722 B.C., while Judah, the southern kingdom, would last another 150 years to the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C., although they would experience other conflicts with the Babylonians prior to that.

Yahweh’s compassions are expressed so passionately in vv. 8…

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?  My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.

These four rhetorical questions show just how hard it was for Yahweh to give them up to the ultimate punishment that God had warned them about in Deuteronomy 30.  They are strong expressions of divine emotion, specifically, love, for His chosen people.  He did not want to give them up or hand them over.

In highly anthropomorphic terms, the Lord pours out his irrepressible love; Isa. 49:15 and Jer. 31:20 express the same sentiment.  The relationship between God and his chosen must not be viewed as a formality.  These emotional outpourings demonstrate that the Lord is a person, filled with compassion—unlike the lifeless Baals.  His affection weighs heavier than Israel’s ingratitude, and he cannot bring himself to renounce his people, even though they renounce him. (ESV Study Bible)

He did not want to treat them as He had Admah and Zeboiim.  “Admah” and “Zeboiim” were cities that God annihilated along with Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Gen. 10:19; 14:2,8; Deut. 29:23).  Why Hosea mentions them instead of Sodom and Gomorrah is unknown.  God could not bring Himself to deal with the cities of Israel as He had with those towns.  He would not totally and finally destroy them.

His heart of judgment (which was entirely appropriate) was turned upside down into a heart of compassion.  Thus Wolff says…

“Israel will not be completely ‘overturned’ as the cities mentioned here; rather, there will be an ‘overturning,’ that is, a change, in Yahweh’s heart.”

Yahweh could not give them up because his heart recoiled within Him and his compassions were stirred up like a raging fire.  Because of who He is, He could not press ultimate judgment and destruction upon them.

Though their sin deserved it, God will not wipe out Israel.  He will leave a remnant, and will ultimately restore the nation.  The love that the Lord has for his children restrains him from obliterating them. He will preserve Israel through a remnant (cf. Rom. 11:5).

Again, Yahweh roots this surprising response in His own character: “for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”

His sentence against His people was thus a matter of the necessary carrying out of the requirements against a wayward child (cf. Deut. 19-23) and not a matter of human vengeance.  Indeed, Yahweh is a holy God—One who desires to see that holiness resident and active in His people (v. 9).  And not seeing it, He must punish, but will not ultimately destroy them.

The mention of God as the Holy One is in accordance with His special relation to Israel as His covenant people.  Isaiah speaks of the Lord as “the Holy One of Israel” more than a score of times.

These verses, more clearly than anything except the example of Jesus Himself, show that God’s love is holy and His holiness is loving.  You cannot separate the two.  God will always act in loving holiness and holy love towards His chosen.

Jesus met the demands of God’s holiness and expressed God’s love at the cross, where sin was punished but we were forgiven.

James Smith, in an 1860 sermon entitled “Rills from the Rock of Ages,” emphasizes this difference between God and us…

Let us meditate on this declaration of our God for a few moments.

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I am infinitely patient, and not soon moved to take vengeance upon My sinful and rebellious creatures!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I am ready to forgive, and receive back the returning prodigal to My heart and home!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I receive great sinners, taking to My heart, and putting among My children — such despicable ones as no one else would notice or regard!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I pardon again and again, not only first offences — but repeated transgressions, forgiving and forgetting them forever!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore bear with such numerous affronts, such gross ingratitude, such inexcusable conduct — in My own people!

“I am God, and not man,” and therefore I invite, entreat, and beseech such base backsliders to return unto Me, and prove the power and freeness of My forgiving love!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I save freely, fully, and forever — such degraded, depraved, and desperate sinners, to the praise of the glory of My grace!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I remain faithful to My promises and covenant engagements, amidst all the changes and faithlessness of My fickle people!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I give such rich, costly, priceless gifts — to the poor, destitute, and unworthy sinners!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I hear, accept, and answer, such poor, imperfect, and worthless prayers — which, no one else could tolerate, much less approve!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore I work such wonders — wonders in providence, and wonders in grace; wonders in the world, and wonders in the heart!

“I am God — and not man,” and therefore, I have prepared such mansions, and will confer such a glorious kingdom — on sinners who have no claim upon Me, nor the least reason to expect any good thing from Me!

Yes, because He is Jehovah, and changes not — therefore we poor, sinning, changeable creatures are not consumed!

Believer, to you the Lord says, “I am God — and not man!” Therefore expect from Him as God — and act toward Him as God!  He can do exceedingly and abundantly, above all that you can ask or think!  Do not measure His heart by yours — but remember that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His thoughts higher than your thoughts, and His ways than your ways!

Charles Spurgeon also observed that there are many differences between God and man in the matter of forgiveness.

• Man cannot hold back his anger very long.
• Man cannot bear with others when he is tired, stressed, or annoyed.
• Man will not reconcile if the person who offended him is a person of bad character.
• Man is often only willing to be reconciled if the offending party craves forgiveness and makes the first move.
• Man is often only willing to be reconciled if the offending party will never again do the wrong.
• Man, when he does reconcile, does not lift the former offender to place of high status and partnership.
• Man, when he is wronged, does not bear all the penalty for the wrong done.
• Man, when he attempts reconciliation, will not continue if he is rejected.
• Man will not restore an offender without a period of probation.
• Man will not love, adopt, honor, and associate with one who has wronged him.
• Man will not trust someone who has formerly wronged them.

What passes for forgiveness among men is nothing like the amazing forgiveness of God.  “Suppose that someone had grievously offended any one of you, and that he asked your forgiveness, do you not think that you would probably say to him, ‘Well, yes, I forgive you; but I – I – I – cannot forget it’?  Ah! dear friends, that is a sort of forgiveness with one leg chopped off, it is a lame forgiveness, and is not worth much” (Spurgeon).

God’s forgiveness is always so much more!

So, we’ve seen in vv. 1-7 Yahweh’s past dealings with Israel, how he found them in Egypt and raised them up so tenderly through the wilderness wanderings.  However, despite His lovingkindnesses towards them, they turned their backs on him.

In vv. 8-9 his present turmoil is recorded for us, so that Israel could see that Yahweh loved them despite their rebellion and judgment is not due to a vengeful attitude, but rather to the reality of His holy nature.  Sin must be punished; but Yahweh still loves the sinner.

Verses 10-11 record the future, Israel’s future.  Verse 12 really goes with chapter 12, so we will save if for next week.

10 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

Notice the contrast with verse 7.  Now Israel turned their backs on Yahweh, despite his tender kindnesses, but then, in the future, they “shall go after the LORD.”  That return is in response to Yahweh roaring “like a lion.”  This zoomorphism has been used before, where God has been presented as a lion (cf. 5:14; 13:7; Amos 1:2; 3:8).  However, this time it would not be as a lion about to devour them as its prey, but as a lion leading its cubs to safety.  The Israelites would follow Him, “trembling from the west” (cf. 3:5; Exod. 19:16).

Such vivid imagery!  Such contrast!  God as a roaring lion, his people as trembling sparrows and fluttering doves, once flitting between the nations trying to find an ally, will now return home.

There will be a new exodus of the people from all of the lands of their exile (v. 11).  Then God’s people will return to their homeland and settle down.  It will be even as Garrett remarks: “Hosea’s point here is that there is to be a new exodus in which God will again play the part of the lion and deliver his people from their enemies and into a new Promised Land” (Hosea-Joel, p. 229).

All of this was prefigured in the relation between Hosea and Gomer (2:14-23).  As Hosea was instructed to seek after Gomer in love and tenderness (2:14), so the Lord will call for His people to come back to Him.  As that response symbolized Israel’s putting away of Baal and the rites associated with him (2:16-17), so Israel’s fascination with false gods and idolatry will be over.

As Gomer/Israel would respond in renewed fidelity to her husband (Hosea/Yahweh; 2:19-20), so the future Israelites will come in reverential trust and love to the Lord.  As Gomer/Israel would experience renewed blessings based upon fidelity and a lasting relationship with Hosea/Yahweh, so God’s people will experience the long missing covenant blessings in the Promised Land.

As Stuart observes, “The faithful will ‘fly’ back not merely to the land as sojourners or the like, but to their ‘homes,’ an indication of true resettling in possession of original inheritances.  Throughout Israel’s history, residence in the land was a central blessing of their covenant with Yahweh (cf. 2:18[16], 20[18]).  Now would be fulfilled the promise of 2:25[23]” (Hosea-Jonah, p. 183).

Certainly Israel’s hope for the near future lay with the return from exile in lands such as Assyria and Egypt (cf. Ezra 2).  Yet the prophets also often speak of a distant future when God’s people will come and find the Promised Land as an everlasting place of residence and blessing (see e.g., Isa. 40:1-11; 60:1-22; 65:17-25; Jer. 23:5-8; 32:36-44; 33:15-16; Zeph. 3:14-20; etc.).

Thomas Constable notes:

Since Assyria lay to Israel’s east, it seems that this reference to regathering from the west does not refer to return from Assyrian captivity.  Apparently it refers to return from another worldwide dispersion.  Presently the Israelites live dispersed all over the world.

This verse then probably alludes to a still future restoration from our perspective in history.  It may refer to the restoration that Antichrist will encourage (Dan. 9:27), but it probably refers to the streaming of Israel back into the land following Jesus Christ’s return to the earth (cf. Isa. 11:11-12).

In many prophetic texts God’s near and distant future appear to blend together as a single hope (e.g., Isa. 52:4-13; 61:1-3; Jer. 16:14-15), which nonetheless does not negate a two-stage fulfillment.  Many prophecies appear to find a specific fulfillment yet without exhausting fully the details in the prophecy.  R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament (London: Tyndale House, 1971), 160-163 calls such cases “fulfillment without consummation.”

Accordingly, Hosea’s seemingly near future perspective may well veil a further, more final exodus.  Thus Wood suggests, “Egypt and Assyria typify the many nations from which God’s people will return in the future day.  Then he will settle them ‘in their homes’—an assurance of their permanent residence in their land (cf. 2:19)” (“Hosea,” 7:214).

Thus, Yahweh’s love will win out.  It is a holy love that requires Him to discipline Israel right now, but ultimately it will effect their salvation.  His faithfulness is not negated by their unfaithfulness.

And we can be thankful of that as well.  Paul tells us that nothing, absolutely nothing, can sever us from God’s love that is in Christ Jesus.  In Romans 8:38-39 we hear their glorious words:

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Last week we started Hosea 11, noting how grandly this chapter presents Yahweh’s love for Israel.  We noted that in verse 1 we have that nostalgic look back at Israel’s beginning and that seemingly bright future.  God, in His elective love, had chosen Israel out from among all the nations, not for anything good in themselves, but simply because He wanted to.

They, however, no matter how good God had been to them, spurned His goodness and His love and turned to other gods.  Those gods were less demanding, although they never delivered on their worshippers expectations.

This was represented in vv. 1-2, which we talked about last week:

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

Today we will pick up at verse 3, but let me again read the whole chapter, verses 3-11…

3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. 5 They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. 6 The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. 7 My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all. 8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?  My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. 10 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

So Hosea continues the father-son metaphor into verse 3.  Just as a human father would give loving attention to a son trying to learn to walk, so Yahweh had taught them by supporting them and then healing them when they scraped their knees.

3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.

As Roy Honeycutt says…

“There are fewer pictures which more graphically portray a parent’s loving care and a child’s complete dependence” (Hosea and His Message, p. 74).

H. Ronald Vandermey writes:

“Note how the words of this verse parallel Moses’ statement regarding Israel’s being carried through the wilderness as a father carries his son (Deut. 1:31-32; 32:10-11)” (Hosea-Amos, p. 65).

Israel in the wilderness was like an infant son.  Yahweh lovingly taught Ephraim to walk.  Just as we teach our children to walk, one of the first steps of independence in their lives, so Yahweh taught Ephraim to walk, with the hope that they would grow to maturity.

C. S. Lewis, in the chapter called The Law of Undulation in The Screwtape Letters, an imaginary tutelage between Screwtape, a senior demon, and Wormwood, his protégé. Screwtape is explaining to Wormwood how God treats his favorites, by taking away his presence just like a parent eventually stops holding their child, in order for him to learn to walk on his own. Here is what Lewis, through Screwtape’s devious, but accurate understanding, claims:

“He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.  Do not be deceived Wormwood.  Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Not only was Yahweh there teaching Ephraim, but He was also nearby training them, being “present” so that He could, at times, hold them up and keep them from falling.  I don’t imagine Israel was aware of how often Yahweh had kept them from falling to temptation, just as we are not.

He keeps us from falling, guiding us in paths of righteousness, for His name’s sake (Psalm 23:2).  But He also heals us when we do fall.  Or, as David says in Psalm 25:11, he forgives our iniquity, “though it is great,” again, for His name’s sake.

The VERB “healed” (BDB 950, KB 1272, Qal PERFECT) is often used for God forgiving sin, as seen in Hosea 5:13, 6:1; 7:1; Exod. 15:26; the parallelism of Ps. 103:3; and Isa. 1:5-6, examples of national sin described in terms of a physical disease (also note Isa. 53:5 and I Pet. 2:24-25).

The sad reality is that we, like Israel, tend to forget how much God has helped us along the way.  Ephraim “did not know,” or, more accurately, “did not acknowledge,” or “did not call to mind” God’s help all along the way—teaching, holding, healing; instructing, training, forgiving.

Despite this dynamic expression of love and identification, “They did not know that I healed them” (v. 3).  How insensitive each of us can become to the Lord’s grace.  This theme appeared earlier in Hosea’s indictment of Israel for receiving the gifts of God but ascribing them to Baal (cf. 2:8).

The line “did not know that I healed them” (v. 3b) alludes to the story of the Exodus.  In particular it looks back to Exodus 15:22-26, the story of the bitter water at Marah, which Moses miraculously purified after praying to Yahweh.  God then commented on this incident

26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

Hosea’s allusion to this incident implies how the Israelites quickly forgot both how the Egyptians were afflicted and how God repeatedly restored health to Israel in the wilderness (e.g., Numbers 21:6-10).

Hosea is drawing a strong contrast here between Yahweh and Baal.  Although they now had affections for Baal, it was not Baal who had taken them out of slavery in Egypt and took care of them every step of the way to the Promised Land.  Baal had done nothing for them; Yahweh had done it all.

Although some believe that Hosea continues the image of a father and son in verse 4, it is likely that he is communicating the same underlying concepts through a different image, that of a master and his ox.  The image of a loving herdsman taking care of his animal is in view here.

The description here is in harmony with the figurative language built upon the agrarian imagery of Hosea 10:11-13 and also provides a literary hook between the two chapters.

It is instructive that the Scriptures teach us to be compassionate towards our animals, to not abuse them but to take good care of them.  Here Hosea continues the complaint of Yahweh against them…

4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.

Notice that unlike verse 3, which ended by showing how Ephraim failed to acknowledge all the good that Yahweh had done for them, here the emphasis is totally upon what Yahweh had done.  Verse 5 will pick up Ephraim’s failure.

Instead of driving Ephraim, he led them.  He led them “with cords of kindness, with the bands of love.”  Unlike Egypt, who had bound them with a heavy yoke and showed no compassion upon them, Yahweh leads them gently.

Of course, this should remind us of the great invitation of Jesus Christ, to those burdened down by Pharisaic legalism, bent under the weight of the stipulations and accretions to the law of Moses, Jesus said…

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Here Yahweh says that he loosens the yoke, enabling them to eat as they plow.  Leon Wood notes, “Often a cattleman would lift the yoke from an ox’s shoulders, so that when it bent over to eat, the yoke would not slide down over its face and impede its feeding” (Hosea, 212-213).

We are saved because we are drawn by the Father’s love, the Son’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s call.  In John 6:44 Jesus speaks of the impossibility of us coming to salvation apart from the Father drawing us…

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Not many, not some, but no one can come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ unless the father draws him.

Of course, in another of John’s writings, in the book of Revelation, near the end John is told to write:

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:17)

But even here, where our desires are involved, there is also the calling of the Spirit and the church (gospel preachers) that awakens the desire in the heart of those who have developed a spiritual thirst for Jesus Christ and eternal life.

So Spurgeon explains…

“Understand, then, it is true that no man comes to God except he is drawn; but it is equally true that God draweth no man contrary to the constitution of man, but his methods of drawing are in strict accordance with ordinary mental operations. He finds the human mind what it is, and he acts upon it, not as upon matter, but as upon mind. The compulsions, the constraints, the cords that he uses, are ‘cords of a man.’ The bands he employs are ‘bands of love.’” (Spurgeon)

We are also sanctified because of the drawing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, placing within us God-honoring, righteousness-loving desires, and then giving us the enabling to do that.  This is what Paul is saying in Philippians 2:12-13.  Beginning in the last part of verse 12…

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

We don’t work for our salvation.  It is a free gift, according to Ephesians 2:8-9.  But we do work out our salvation, we live in the power of our salvation in every sphere of life day by day.  But, we can only do this because God works in us (v. 13).  He is always working in us “both to will” (giving us new and holy desires) “and to work” (giving us the power to say “no” to temptations and yes to Jesus).

Any time we have a desire to do what is right and good and true, it comes from God, not from ourselves.  Whenever we actually follow through and do what is right and good and true, that is not because we had the willpower and the strength to accomplish it, but because God provided that power.  It was working within us.

Yahweh was doing something similar for Ephraim.  He brought them out of slavery to Egypt, giving them freedom (within the boundaries of the law).  He loosened their restraints and “bent down and fed them.”

Almighty Yahweh, before whom we should always bow, stooped down to feed them.  This reminds me, and probably you as well, of that wonderful passage of Paul in Philippians 2, where he shows the servant attitude of Jesus Christ…

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Christ came down; He bent down; He served and died on the cross.  Yet He was and is and forever will be the King of kings and Lord of lords!

The point in these two verses is that just as any good father or animal owner would act and compassionately toward his child or animal, so the Lord has dealt tenderly—even most affectionately—with Israel.

Derek Kidner, in his characteristic way of driving the point home, says:

“Every detail of this pampering drives home the extraordinary graciousness that Israel has experienced, far beyond anything that she had any right to expect, or any prospect of receiving at the hands of their new masters.  The next paragraph will make the last point brutally clear” (The Message of Hosea, p. 102).

Referring to verses 1 through 4, and verse 8, G. Campbell Morgan wrote:

“… do you know of any passage in the Old Testament or the New, more wonderful in its revelation of the love of God than that?” (The Unfolding Message of the Bible, p. 202).

Having described His deliverance, and loving care and guidance for Israel (vv. 1, 3-4), the Lord now declares that judgment now must come to His people (vv. 5-6). This is because of their longstanding and abiding sinfulness (vv. 2, 7).

5 They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.

Although it is against His deepest desires (cf. vv. 8-9), Yahweh will “give them over” like we read He does to any civilization (cf. Romans 1:24, 26, 28) which turns their back on Him.

“Ever since chapter 7, with its picture of Ephraim flitting between Egypt and Assyria like a flustered bird (7:11), every chapter has named one or both of these great powers as her obsession and her downfall” (Derek Kidner, The Message of Hosea, p. 103).

God’s sentence for the near future remains the same as that delivered previously: in accordance with the covenantal stipulations Israel will return to Egypt (cf. 7:16; 8:13; 9:3-6). By “Egypt” is meant primarily Israel’s fall to the Assyrian forces and deportation to their lands.  Even though some of Israel’s exiles might escape to Egypt, theirs would not be a pleasant experience there.

Thus, what Hosea is saying is that Israel’s judgment will be like a reversal, back to the slavery they experienced in Egypt.  However, the actual physical location of this exile would be Assyria.  Having rejected Yahweh as King, they would henceforth have Assyria as their king.

The key issue is their failure, in fact their refusal, to repent.  Because Israel refused to “return” (Heb. shub) to Yahweh after so many appeals by His prophets (v. 2), He would “return” (Heb. shub) the nation to captivity.

This refusal to repent is ultimately what sent Israel into captivity.  It was not their sins, in particular, which deserved this judgment, but their refusal to turn back to God when they had the chance.

Likewise, no one is in hell because they have sinned, but because they refuse to repent of their sin and turn in faith to Jesus Christ for salvation.  This is what John is referring to in John 3:19-21.

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

When sinners love their sin they will not come to the light, they love their sin and don’t want to be forgiven.

This condemnation of their refusal to repent is described further in v. 7…

7 My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.

Their inclination (their “bent,” a word that means “impaled, addicted to, hung upon”) is not to draw near to Yahweh, but to turn their backs on Him.  Truly, the nation was hooked on, addicted to, their sin and none was willing to turn back to Yahweh.  As a result, He would turn from them.  Apparently in the dire distress of those days, they would “call out to the Most High,” but it would be too late.  He would not hear them and would not deliver them “at all.”

David Hubbard notes that that the word “call” ties us back to vv. 1-2 which “play on the contrast between Yahweh’s call and the seductive calls of the Baals” (Hosea, p. 203.)

Their military defeat is pictured in v. 6

6 The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels.

False prophets would counsel them to depend upon their fortified cities when their former allies turned against them.  Enemy soldiers would swarm around Israel’s cities and break down the gate bars that secured them against foreign attack.  All places of refuge will fail when the day of reckoning arrives.

They would consume the Israelites because of the decisions the Israelites had made to depart from the Lord (cf. Mic. 6:16).  These were the result, in part, of false prophets’ advice.

Yahweh had fed His people (v. 4), but now the sword would feed on them (cf. Isa. 1:19-20).

Israel has put its trust in fortresses (v. 6; cf. 8:13-14; 10:14) and other gods (i.e., especially Baal, v. 7; cf. 9:10; 10:1), but none of these would be able to save them when the invader came.

In another listing of threes Israel’s cities are depicted as witnessing the flashing, swirling, cutting swords of the enemy, the fall of the city gates and their supposedly strong fortresses turned into graveyards.  For the dead shall lie everywhere within their precincts (v. 6).

It was all so needless. If only they had trusted Yahweh who alone could protect them rather than their supposedly impregnable fortresses.  Moreover, only the Lord could really promote the welfare, which no foreign power or supposed god could provide.  But to the contrary, they called to a “higher power” which could do neither (v. 7).

Even in the midst of this determined rejection, Yahweh goes on to cry out…

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?  My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

But we will have to wait until next week to answer the questions that these verses bring up.

Until next week, soak yourself in the amazing grace of Jesus Christ.

Over the last few months we’ve been examining Yahweh’s judgments that He would bring upon Israel for their sin.  Yet, in spite of all their sins, Yahweh still loved them.  He couldn’t stop.  He had covenanted Himself to them at Sinai.  Actually, God’s faithfulness to faithless Israel goes back even further to the Abrahamic Covenant.  That covenant was unconditional and Yahweh will keep His promises to Abraham.

However, the Mosaic covenant was conditional.  To enjoy blessings within their homeland required obedience to the law and faithfulness to worship Yahweh alone.  Because they had rejected Yahweh in favor of pagan gods and had kept breaking the law, God must discipline them.  Yet, like a loving father or mother today, while disciplining their heart is breaking and they still love their child.

Hosea 11 contains the most poignant yet touching words in all of Hosea. It features a sharp contrast between God’s tender reminiscences of His early relationship with Israel and yet His sorrow at their rejection of Him for Baal despite all that He had done for them (vv. 1-4).  His people had taken for granted His love and care for them, and the Lord was concerned for their constant lack of fidelity, which now necessitated their coming judgment (vv. 5-7).

In a second display of His compassion the Lord reveals that His abiding love for Israel would mean that His judgment could not and would not spell the end for His people (vv. 8-9).  For in a future day Israel would respond to His call and they would return to their homes and His blessings (vv. 10-11). (Richard Patterson)

H. Ronald Vandermey also notices that Hosea delves into the past, present and future of redemption. Verses 1-4 show how the past love of God for Israel was met with ingratitude, then vv. 5-7 show the inevitability of punishment in the present, while vv. 8-11 reveal how Yahweh’s continued compassion spells hope of future restoration for Israel.

Hubbard believes that this chapter, through v. 11, “draws to a close the second major division of the book which began at 4:1.  Its final words of hope (vv. 10-11) recall the promise of 3:5

5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

And anticipates Israel’s penitent return predicted in Hosea 14:3

3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands.  In you the orphan finds mercy.”

Listen to how Hosea puts this now in Hosea 11…

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. 3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. 5 They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. 6 The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. 7 My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all. 8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?  My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. 10 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD. 12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, better known as How Do I Love Thee goes like this:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

How does Yahweh love thee, O Israel?  Hosea says, “let me count the ways.”

• He loved you when he called you to sonship, though there was nothing remarkable about you (vv. 1-2; Deuteronomy 7:7-8)
• He loved you when you failed to acknowledge His gifts and rejected His love (vv. 3-4).
• When you abandoned Him, He still loved you and loves you still (vv. 5-7)
• He loves you with a compassionate agony that would not give you up (vv. 8-9)
• He loves you with a persistence that will ultimately draw you back into a relationship of love with Him (vv. 10-11).

The theme of love is found in varied degrees throughout the book of Hosea.  From the love of the prophet, which was the basis of his purchase of Gomer, to Yahweh’s love for Israel, as reflected in one divine expression after another, the theme occurs.  Chapter 11 is the high-water mark of this emphasis.

Derek Kidner says…

This chapter is one of the boldest in the Old Testament—indeed in the whole Bible—in exposing to us the mind and heart of God in human terms.  We are always in danger of thinking of divine majesty in terms which we have learnt from earthly potentates [Kidner, by the way, is British]….Even when we speak of God as Father we may hesitate in case we read too much into the word.  But our chief danger is in reading too little from it, drawing our ideas either from an earthly father’s indulgence, caring too little for his children’s training, or from his self-indulgence, taking the convenient path of a domestic tyrant.

Here, by contrast we are made to see this tile in terms of accepted cost and anguish.  God as a father is rebuffed, torn between agonizing alternatives, may seem too human altogether; but this is the price of bringing home to us the fact that divine love is more, not less, ardent and vulnerable than ours….Once more, as in chapter 3, it is He, not we, who sets the pace and who stays the course against every discouragement and provocation that ingratitude can offer. (Kidner, Hosea, p. 100).

Hosea begins…

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

Notice that Yahweh uses both nouns (child, son) and verbs (loved and called) to shout out His amazing love for Israel.

Hosea again goes back to Israel’s beginning, when Yahweh delivered them from Egypt and brought them into the wilderness and cared for them.  More than once we’ve been reminded of the bright promise of Israel’s early days, only to rapidly fade (cf. 6:4; 9:10; 10:1, 11; 13:1, 4-6).

The word “child” indicates immaturity and helplessness, but the word “son” indicates a person who now has full rights and will be the heir.  The covenant Yahweh made with Israel was like an adoption, sealed at the Exodus and at Sinai (cf. Hosea 12:9; 13:4).

Love is the theme of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel, just as it is with you and me.  Just as “in love he predestined us to adoption” (Ephesians 1:4), so in elective love God called Israel “my son.”

Here, by the way, notice that Hosea has shifted away from the husband-wife language so prevalent in chapters 1-3.  But if there is any love that is a near rival, it is the love between a parent and child, a father and son in this case.

What man among us has not longed for a close relationship with his father?

John Stevenson touches on this nerve when he writes:

That touches a nerve because there is something within all of us that hungers for the love of a father.  Perhaps you are one who hungered for that which was not given.  That is very often the case.  Or perhaps you had the love of your earthly father but still hungered for a greater expression of that love and acceptance than which you perceived.  I can still hear the words of my younger brother as we wrapped our arms around one another at the funeral of our father as he said, “Why didn’t he ever talk to me?” (http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/hosea11-01.html)

It reminds me of this story…

No one could really say why he ran away. Or perhaps he didn’t, but was kicked out of his home by his father for something foolish that he said or did. Either way, Paco found himself wandering the streets of Madrid, Spain, with hopes of entering into a profession that would most likely get him killed – bullfighting. Those who train under a mentor have a good chance of surviving this profession, but Paco’s memory of his mistakes and guilt over what happened blindly drove him to this one way street to suicide.

But that was the last thing his father wanted, which is why he tried something desperate which he desperately hoped would work. There was little to no chance that he would be able to find Paco by wandering the streets of Madrid, so instead he put an advertisement in the local newspaper El Liberal. The advertisement read, “Paco, meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday. All is forgiven! Love, Papa.”

Paco is such a common name in Spain that when the father went to the Hotel Montana the next day at noon there were 800 young men named Paco waiting for their fathers … and waiting for the forgiveness they never thought was possible!

So in v. 1 the Lord first reminded His people that when Israel was in its early days as a nation, like a youth, He loved the nation (cf. Exod. 4:22-23).  As often is the case, loving refers to choosing (cf. Gen. 12:2-3; et al.).  God chose Israel for special blessing among the world’s nations and in this sense loved him.

Nothing in Israel (or us) merits God’s love.  It is freely and graciously given.  It was not because of Israel’s religious activities, nor her strength or numbers or potential, it was simply because Yahweh chose to love them.  Deuteronomy 7:7-8 reminded a new generation of Israelites…

7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The reference to the “oath that he swore to your fathers” in v. 8 is a reference back to the promise Yahweh had made with Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14

13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

It was this quality of unmerited love that called Israel into existence at the time of the Exodus.  When God met Moses at the burning bush, commissioning him to go deliver Israel from Egypt, he told him he should say to Pharaoh,

Exodus 4:23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'”

Just as it was God’s undeserved, unearned love that redeemed Israel, so it is that same undeserved, unearned love that redeemed us out of slavery to sin and Satan.  We are now part of God’s family—His sons and daughters.

This verse, Hosea 11:1, will be quoted by Matthew.  After the wise men had returned home, refusing to tell King Herod where the Christ child was, Matthew records…

13 Now when they [this is, magi] had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Scholars debate over whether Matthew is taking this verse out of its context, or whether he gives us license to do the same.  One of the things we must remember is how often Matthew compared the experiences of Israel with that of Jesus.  In Matthew 3 Jesus is baptized, just like Israel was “baptized” by going through the Reed Sea.  In Matthew 4 Jesus triumphs over temptation after 40 days in the desert, unlike Israel which fell to temptation in their 40 years in the desert.  So it is not necessarily surprising that Matthew intentionally compares Israel and Jesus here.

Just like Yahweh called Israel, His Son, out of Egypt, so God will call Jesus, His greater Son, out of Egypt.  Kiel makes the comparison:

“Just as Israel grew into a nation in Egypt, where it was out of the reach of Canaanitish ways, so was the child Jesus hidden in Egypt from the hostility of Herod.”

Matthew did not mean that Hosea had Jesus Christ in mind or was predicting His exodus from Egypt when he wrote, but that Jesus’ experience corresponded to what Hosea had written about Israel.  He saw the experience of Jesus as analogous to that of Israel. (Thomas Constable)

The Scofield Bible also has this note:

“This is a reference not only to the exodus of Israel from Egypt but also to the fact that all of God’s dealings with Israel were based upon the love that He would show in calling His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, back from the comparative safety of Egypt in order that He might suffer and die to accomplish His great redemptive work.”

If Yahweh’s love is a constant theme in Israel’s history, so Israel’s stubbornness is persistent.  Verse 2 tells us…

2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

This “the more I…” “they more they…” has been a repeated emphasis of Hosea, found also in 4:7 and 10:1.  No matter how much good God did for them, they turned their backs on Him!

God’s calling of Israel was not just a one-time event.  Through the prophets He had called to them time and time again, calling them back to righteousness and covenant loyalty.  But the more the prophets appealed to the people to follow the Lord, the more the people turned aside from following Him.

This must be immensely frustrating to God, to abundantly pour out His blessings, to give His children chance after chance to repent so that they can really enjoy those blessing, and to see them turn away from Him to other gods.  Somehow, the empty calls of the idols had more drawing power than Yahweh’s goodness to them.

Kidner says that “Israel’s sin, so far from springing from ignorance or hardship, was their reply to heaven’s kindness and concern” (Kidner, Hosea, p. 101).

They even went so far as to embrace Baal and to burn incense to images.  Both were in clear violation of the standards in God’s law (cf. Exod. 20:3-4; Deut. 5:7-8).

Although this was the present reality—Baal worship—in Israel, it is likely Hosea is again showing how this was a persistent problem in Israel by pointing back to the Exodus and the incident at Baal-Peor, where Israelites got their first taste of worshipping a Canaanite god.

A number of texts expand the historical perspective of the exodus account by recording the redeemed people’s whining ingratitude … (cf. Exod. 14:11; 15:14; 16:3; 17:2, 3; 32:1; Num. 11:1, 18-20; 14:2-4; 20:5; 21:5; Deut. 1:2-6).”

No matter how much Yahweh had done for them, it was never enough, never good enough.  Satan always deceives us into thinking that ultimately God is not being good to us, that He is withholding something from us that we need.  So, through sensuality or religion, he offers us something to relieve our pain or restore our pleasure.  But it is a lie.  It is an illusion.  It may bring “pleasure for a season” (Heb. 11:25) but it cannot deeply satisfy.

For several chapters now, from Hosea 8 to Hosea 10, Hosea has been showing Israel how they were reaping, and would be reaping, what they had sown.  The controlling metaphor throughout this section of Hosea comes from Hosea 8:7 “they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”  This is a basic principle of life, repeated by Paul in the New Testament when he tells us we “reap what we sow.”

As in agricultural life, we reap in like kind as we sow (wind and whirlwind; worshipping fertility gods, being childless; relying on other nations for protection and being destroyed by them).  We never reap at the same time we sow, which sometimes gives us the illusion that we can get away with it.  And we always reap more than we sow.

In Hosea 10 we’ve seen Hosea picture Israel as a vine, planted by God, but yielding bad fruit, in vv. 1-8.  Hosea changes metaphors in the last part of this chapter, calling Israel a stubborn calf, in vv. 9-15.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get to verse 8 last week, so although it goes with the previous section, we will deal with it today.  Hosea has been talking about the destruction of the nation—losing their homeland, their political leaders and their idols.  Then, continuing the devastation of their false religion he says…

8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.”

Aven is Bethel, the place where Jeroboam I set up one of the golden calves. The other was in Dan.  The Assyrians would also destroy the sites of the idolatrous shrines at “Aven” (wickedness, i.e., Bethel [or Beth-aven, cf. v. 5]), where the Israelites had sinned.  Ironically, when the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, the Lord had commanded them to destroy such places (Num. 33:52; Deut. 12:2-3).

Because they failed to obey, God would now use the Assyrians to destroy these idolatrous shrines.  The result, due to the exiling of the people of Israel, is that “thorn and thistle” would cover these altars, showing their disuse over a long period of time.  Not only would the land be devastated, but idolatry would become extinct in those places.  Once busy pagan altars would be “closed for business.”

Interestingly, the first time “thorn and thistle” occur together in the Scriptures is in the original curse upon Adam in Genesis 3:18, “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”

It is also found in Hebrews 6:8

But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

That is speaking of unbelievers and how their lives will be fruitless and ultimately judged.

The fierce destructive force of the Assyrian army would lead the Israelites to ask for the mountain to “cover us” and the hills to “fall on us.”  If you think you’ve heard that before, it is the exact words out of the mouths of unbelievers during the tribulation period, when they begin to experience the judgments of the wrath of the Lamb are poured out in the breaking of the seven seals.

12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Cf. also Luke 23:30)

Thus, both “thorns and thistles” and the desire for mountains to fall upon oneself only occur in judgment of sinners.

Thus, the Israelites end up preferring death to life.  Instead of rescue, instead of calling out upon Yahweh to save them, they call to “Mother Nature” to kill them.

Now, in vv. 9-15 Hosea focuses upon Israel’s impending war with Assyria.

This section also opens with a reference to an event in Israel’s past history (cf. 9:10; 10:1; 11:1).  Announcements of war punishment (vv. 9-10, 14-15) bracket Yahweh’s indictment of His people for their sins (vv. 11-13).  Notice also how Hosea once again looks back historically and geographically, locating their continued sin patterns in Gibeah (v. 9) and Bethel (v. 15).

9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued. Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity. 11 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

Hosea, in v. 9, again (as in 9:9) recalls the horrific sin that happened in Gibeah recorded in Judges 19.  It was such a despicable sin, so appalling, yet it typified the continued crimes of Israel against one another.  Notice how Hosea speaks of past sins “you have sinned” as continuing into the present.

Did Israel consider itself a scene of progressive grandeur?  Such is not the case, for current Israelite society is as vile as in those early days in the incident at Gibeah.  For immorality, violence, and injustice are rampant throughout the land.

I think Hosea intends to shock Israel.  He wants them to face the fact that indeed, they are “that bad.”  He doesn’t want them to justify themselves, or minimize what they have done, but to see it as the bald-faced atrocity that it is.

The Lord’s rhetorical question in verse 9 emphasizes the fact that war accompanied the evil acts of that time (cf. Judg. 20).  It would do so again.  The tribes had gathered together against Gibeah in that earlier episode: this time foreign nations will march against Israel and overwhelm it.

The Israelites had sinned consistently since the days of the atrocity at Gibeah (Judg. 19—20; cf. 9:9; Isa. 1:10).   Hosea seems to be calling the Israelites to take up arms, as the tribes had done against Benjamin back in Judges 19-20, to right the wrong that had been done.  Hosea asks…

Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah?

Since there was no one to rise up, like Phineas at Baal-Peor, or the Israelites against Benjamin in Judges 20, Yahweh himself would bring another nation to discipline them.

10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity.

All that happens is by God’s pleasure.  Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”  Ephesians 1:11 says that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will…”

The juxtaposition of God’s pleasure and the nations actions indicate that Yahweh is ultimately in control and the nations do as He desires.  God will use Assyria as His instrument of judgment upon Israel.  OT prophets frequently linked the first cause (the Lord) with secondary causes (here, the nations).

At the Lord’s chosen time, He would chasten (punish, discipline, cf. 5:2) His people by binding them as prisoners, harnessing them to their sins (cf. v. 11).

What is meant by Israel’s “double iniquity”?

It is possible that it refers to “their original guilt because of their sin at Gibeah and their present guilt because of their sin at Bethel” (Wolff, p. 184).  Another view is that it refers to the sin of forsaking God and the sin of forsaking His appointed Davidic kings (Keil, 1:133; Pfeiffer, p. 813).  It is also a play off the name Ephraim, which means “doubly fruitful.”

Hosea goes on to say…

11 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies.

Vv. 11-13 is punctuated with agrarian images, again alluding to the issue of fertility.  “Ephraim was a trained calf” is another allusion to Israel’s beginnings.  The Lord had spared Israel the yoke; she loved to thresh in his field (cf. Deut. 25:4).  But that freedom has been abused.  Instead of justice and righteousness, Israel “plowed iniquity” (v. 13).  And again, they would reap what they had sown, reaping “injustice.”

Derek Kidner notes…

“Threshing was a comparatively light task, made pleasant by the fact that the creature was unmuzzled and free to eat … as it pulled the threshing sledge over the gathered corn” (Hosea, pp. 97-98).

Ephraim had abandoned this comparatively light service in preference for becoming yoked to sin (v. 10). As punishment, Yahweh would yoke the people of both Northern (Ephraim/Jacob) and Southern (Judah) Kingdoms to an enemy who would greatly restrict their movements and force them to do hard work.

Ephraim’s freedom had been misused, so now they would be brought under the yoke of slavery.

Unfortunately, Israel has abused her status with God by its sin and self-indulgence.  As McComiskey points out, “She was like a playful, unbridled heifer that enjoyed its freedom from the drudgery of hauling heavy loads.  Like the heifer in Hosea’s analogy she had not experienced the strictures of divine law; [but] the nation exulted in the unrestrained liberty of the nature cult.”

In the midst of the judgment in vv. 11 and 13 is another call to repentance.  They should cultivate righteousness with a view to reaping the Lord’s covenant loyalty (chesed).  The act of “breaking up fallow ground” is what a farmer does when he plows land that has remained untouched for a long time, even forever (cf. Jer. 4:3).

Their hearts had become hardened and needed to be broken.  Jesus spoke of seed that fell upon the path and upon the rocky soil.  In either case it could not take root because either on the surface or just beneath the surface, the soil was hard and the seed was unable to penetrate there and germinate.

This is a figure for confessing sins and exposing them to God when they have remained unconfessed under the surface of life for a long time.

They were to do this because “now” it was time to “seek the Lord.”  They should not wait another moment.  Just as Paul says “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2), so here the act of confession and repentance must be both deep and immediate.  They must not wait or it would soon be too late.  Not only should their repentance begin now, but it should continue “until’ that time that Yahweh responds to them.

Were they to truly confess and repent, forsaking their sins, God would rain righteousness upon them, delivering them from their enemies.

David Guzik reminds us…

God use of the figures of sowing and reaping remind us that harvest is sometimes a season away.  Sometimes people expect to sow sin for years, but to immediately reap in mercy after sowing righteousness for one day.  Stick with sowing in righteousness, you will reap in mercy in due time.

Seeking YHWH is sinful Israel’s only hope of avoiding destruction (cf. 10:12; Isa. 55:6-7; Amos 5:4,6).  Fortunately, Judah did respond to Yahweh with repentance and would have another 150 years before they were taken into captivity.

However, Hosea points out that Ephraim was not sowing righteousness, but rather “plowing iniquity.”  As a result, she was reaping “injustice.”

The last half of verse 13 goes with vv. 14-15, indicating why God would bring the Assyrian army against them.

Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil.  At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

Trusting in one’s own strength, one’s own self, is always a losing proposition.  Despite the “multitude of warriors” “all your fortresses shall be destroyed.”  They would experience total devastation.

The identity of “Shalman” in v. 14 is undetermined.  “Shalman” may refer to King Shalmaneser III, an Assyrian who conducted campaigns in the West in the ninth century B.C.   Another identification of “Shalman” is King Salamanu, a Moabite ruler who was a contemporary of King Hoshea of Israel, whose name appears in a list of kings who paid tribute to the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III.  A third possibility is the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V, who prepared the way for Israel’s captivity by invading the land (cf. 2 Kings 17:3-6).

The location is also undetermined.  “Beth-arbel” could refer to the town of “Arbela,” about 18 miles southeast of the Sea of Chinnereth (Galilee), or to “Mt. Arbel,” two miles west of that sea.

In either case, the battle had been a bloody one that the Israelites of Hosea’s day remembered vividly.  The enemy had slaughtered mothers and their children without mercy.

This was a gruesome aspect of Assyrian exile.  The army killed all of the very old and very young who could not travel into exile.  This, of course, included pregnant women.  This was done to shock and traumatize the population (cf. 13:16).

Hosea closes this oracle with a strong warning that a similar fate awaits God’s people in the Northern Kingdom (v. 15).  For their spiritual wickedness, which began and yet continues in the cult religion at Bethel, has become so degraded that Israel must be annihilated.  When that day of reckoning would come, cult centers like that of Bethel would be destroyed and Israel would no longer have a king. It was a sober warning, which could be ignored only with deadly consequences.

Leon Wood points out…

“Since her destruction would occur ‘when that day dawns’ (meaning the very beginning of the day of battle), it is noteworthy that Israel’s final king, Hoshea, was taken captive by the Assyrian conqueror Shalmaneser V before the actual siege of Samaria began.” (“Hosea.” In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. p. 211)

Trusting in oneself is the essence of sin.  It leads to the pride which keeps us from admitting our need for God’s help or Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  Under the New Covenant we have to understand that we cannot trust in our own efforts to gain eternal life or even to free ourselves from our sin patterns.  The essence of the Christian life is taking our confidence off of ourselves and put in totally on Jesus Christ alone.

Thank you for joining me today is our study of the book of Hosea.  Because of Israel’s idolatries and their unwillingness to trust in Yahweh—instead turning to political alliances for protection—Israel is about to experience the final judgments that God had warned them about in the Palestinian covenant back in Deuteronomy 28-30.  The controlling metaphor since chapter 8 has been…”they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7) and time after time Hosea is showing them that they are getting exactly what they deserve, that their judgment is the same in kind as their sin.

So let’s pick up our study in Hosea 10:3-7 this morning…

3 For now they will say: “We have no king, for we do not fear the LORD; and a king–what could he do for us?” 4 They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests– those who rejoiced over it and over its glory– for it has departed from them. 6 The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. 7 Samaria’s king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters. 8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.” 9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued. Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity. 11 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

Verse 3 follows the progression of vv. 1-2.  Although Israel had been planted as a vine designed to give Yahweh good fruit, their luxurious growth (in this case, material prosperity) had only given them opportunity to bestow their gratitude and worship and petition upon other gods instead of Yahweh.

And because they were “biting the hand that fed them” Yahweh would destroy all their places of worship.  These gods would do them no good at all in the foreign lands to which they would be exiled.

Since v. 2 references the Assyrian invasion it is likely that Hoshea is in view here, that he is now (soon to be) dead and gone.

Verse 3 speaks of a time when there was no longer any king over Israel.

3 For now they will say: “We have no king, for we do not fear the LORD; and a king–what could he do for us?”

It is true that in Israel’s final years they would have a quick succession of kings, none of whom were fitting the role or very effective as leaders.  Thus, it would be true to say that they “had no king” during these years.  None like David or Solomon, or even Jeroboam II had been on the scene for 30 years now.  And that can seem like a long stretch of political nightmares.

Those kings were Zechariah (753 B.C.), Shallum (752 B.C.), Menahem (752-742 B.C.), Pekah (752-732 B.C.), Pekahiah (742-740 B.C.), and Hoshea (732-723 B.C.).  If you remember, in Hosea’s opening he mentioned four Judean kings and only one Israelite king.  Since Hosea was ministering to the Israelites this must signify his relative insignificance in comparison.

One of the reasons that they had no effective kings is that they—and the men who led them—did not fear the Lord.  Unlike Solomon, who charged his son, his protégé, to fear the Lord, they did not.

In other words, not only did they lose any respect or hope in human political leaders, but declared themselves free of any rule, human or divine.

Duane Garrett notes…

In connection with the vineyard metaphor [cf. vv. 1, 4], this line constitutes the people’s rejection of Yahweh’s claim to their “fruit” and is analogous to the conspiracy of the workers in the vineyard in Jesus’ parable (Matthew 21:33-46) (Hosea-Joel, p. 208)

I don’t think that the fear of the Lord primarily means that we are terrified of God, that we are afraid of being in His presence.  While it is true that our sin should cause us concern, knowing that God knows it and will judge it, I think it is more accurate to think of the fear of Yahweh as that attitude which always holds Him high and wants to please Him.

Fearing the LORD means that we believe that He exists, believe that He sees, and believe that we will be held accountable for every sin, whether public of private.

Psalm 147:10-11 says…

10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,11 but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.

So it seems to be a more positive thing, than walking on eggshells afraid we’re going to experience His wrath.  It is compared here to one who hopes in Yahweh’s steadfast love.

Stephen Altrogge says…

The “fear of God” that brings God pleasure is not our being afraid of him, but our having a high and exalted, reverential view of him.

And…

To fear God means to dwell upon his beautiful, glorious holiness which is the very opposite of sin and evil, and to revere God and know that he loves us so much that he desires us to hate and turn away from sin.

 R.C. Sproul, speaking of Martin Luther, said this:

Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves, not because he’s afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he’s afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child’s world, the source of security and love.

The late Jerry Bridges wrote:

We cannot separate trust in God from fear of God.  We trust Him only to the extent that we genuinely stand in awe of Him (The Joy of Fearing God).

Thomas Watson, in his book The Great Gain of Godliness, noting that the fear of God is mixed with love for Him in Psalm 145:19-20, says…

The chaste spouse fears to displease her husband because she loves him.  There is a necessity that fear and love be in conjunction.  Love is as the sails to make swift the soul’s motion and fear is as the ballast to keep it steady in true religion.  Love will be apt to grow wanton unless it is counterbalanced with fear (accessed through Google Books, pp. 14-15).

Regardless of how we may define it, the Israelites did not possess it at this time.  And when you don’t submit to divine authority, you have little respect for human authorities.

Derek Kidner summarizes:

We might well wonder whether arrogance or apathy is the greater of two evils for a nation.  For Israel, the mood had swung between the two, marked by their changing attitudes towards the throne: at one moment pinning all their hopes to kingship (“, 13:10), at another cheapening it with debauchery and tearing it apart with assassinations (7:3-7); finally, here in verse 3, shrugging it off as meaningless, along with everything else, from the Lord downwards.  Only their superstition, their talisman the golden calf, will awaken any sense of loss by its removal.

It sounds much like our own political aspirations today, blowing in the wind, pinning our hopes on one politician and wanting to assassinate him or the rivals.

So, not only did they reject their own human king, but effectively rejected Yahweh as divine king as well.  “It was because they did not believe that Yahweh could cure them that they sent to the Great King (5:13), the king of Assyria.  Israel’s cry was “He will save us.”  Hosea 14:4 shows that Assyria was now cast in this role.

There would be no new king, for God’s help would only come to those who fear Him.  Without Yahweh’s backing, human kings are no help at all.

Roy Honeycutt believes that Hosea is introducing a glimmer of hope here—that when the people realize that all their hopes in human kings and government has failed them, that they will then turn again to Yahweh as their only hope.

Verse 4 possibly speaks to the intrigue and assassinations throughout their last 30-year political history.

4 They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

The “false heart” from back in verse 2 is here described as evidence of the absence of the fear of Yahweh in the hearts of the Israelites.  Any pretense to loyalty either to Yahweh or the king is hollow talk—they swear to be faithful to the covenant and the king with fingers crossed.

I like what Derek Kidner says here:

When heaven is considered empty (‘we fear not the Lord’, 3) words and promises soon follow suit, and justice, so-called, becomes a parody of its true self–no longer towering impartially above the strong and the weak, but earthbound and tortuous, spring from the thoughts and policies of the moment; no longer a force for good and the nation’s health, but a source of poison (Hosea, p. 93).

Hubbard contends that the covenant is not with Yahweh, but either with their kings or with the foreign nations they sought to ally to themselves.  But, of course, those covenants with their kings would compromise Yahweh’s role in their theocracy and covenants with foreign kings betrayed their lack of trust in Yahweh as well as the temptation to trust in the gods of those pagan nations.

Garrett takes a different approach, saying that their hollow words illustrate their disloyalty to Yahweh…

They go through the liturgical declarations of fealty to Yahweh, but these mean nothing to them.  They do not fear him (Hosea-Joel, p. 208).

In this context, justice (which is a better translation that judgment) sprouts up as poison.  It kills rather than gives life.  As they had been a vine that God had made luxuriant (v. 1) yet had failed to produce good fruit for Yahweh, now justice would turn into injustice.  Again, they would reap what they had sown.

The “furrows of the field” were places that should produce good fruit.  Hosea 12:11 emphasizes that Israel’s idolatries appeared there, as well as on the high places.

If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.

H. Ronald Vandermey notes that…

While America has In God We Trust on her coins, she has likewise deemed it expedient to make covenants with treacherous nations who despise the Lord (Hosea-Amos, p. 61)

This “poisonous plant” is mentioned in Deuteronomy 32:32 as “the vine of Sodom with “grapes of poison.”  Israel is thus a destructive, deceptive vine, serving only itself and yielding the false fruit of impiety, hypocrisy, and paganism.

Finally Hosea gets to the thing they would miss the most, and pine for, in captivity…

5 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven.  Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests– those who rejoiced over it and over its glory– for it has departed from them. 6 The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king.  Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol.

Duane Garrett notes the parallels between vv. 1-4 and 5-8…

Both begin with a general statement of the sin of the nation; first it is the vine analogy, but here it is the bull-idol.  Both then describe the pagan worship of Israel and the punishment that shall come.  Furthermore, both assert that the cunning of the Israelites will be exposed (vv. 2, 6b).  Also, whereas in the vine text the people declare they have no king (v. 3), v. 7 similarly presents them as a nation under a weak king.  In addition, both texts describe what the people are saying: first it is cynicism and hypocrisy (vv. 3-4), and second, it is panic and despair (v. 8b).  Finally, the desolation of the pagan altars in v. 8a, when they are covered with weeds and thistles, appropriately looks back to the metaphor of vv. 1-4: Israel had been a well-plowed, carefully managed field, but it yielded only the poisonous fruit of paganism.  As a result, God would allow the field to be overrun with weeds that would consume the destructive vine of the fertility cult (Hosea-Joel, p. 209).

They would mourn the loss of their precious idol—the idol that had done nothing for them, that had betrayed them in their moment of need, that had cast them into captivity.

When God destroyed Israel’s altars (v. 2), specifically the golden calf at Beth-aven (i.e., Bethel, cf. v. 8; 4:15; 5:8), –which Jeroboam I had erected (cf. 4:15; 5:8; I Kgs. 16:28-29) the Israelites who lived in Samaria, Israel’s capital, would fear.  Notice that they would not fear God (v. 3), but they feared the loss of their idols.

Anderson and Freedman note that “calf” is actually feminine plural, “heifers,” perhaps referring to a female counterpart (Hosea, p. 555).

Notice the word play.  The name “Bethel” means “house of God,” but Yahweh changes its name to match its character, for “Beth-aven” means “house of wickedness.”

“Beth-aven” may stand not merely for Bethel, but also for the entire official, semi-pagan religious set-up in Israel.

The people would frantically mourn, and the idolatrous priests (Heb. kemarim; cf. 2 Kings 23:5; Zeph. 1:4) who served there would bewail the demise of this altar, since its glory had departed from the land.  That word “glory” again points back to Yahweh as the truly glorious One, but here it is used sarcastically to point out the failure of the pagan gods to act gloriously and bring victory.

The word “mourn” is a word used back in 9:1 to refer to the ecstatic, frenzied worship of the Baalim.  Now these same wild emotions would overcome them as their pagan gods are carried away.

Both altars (vv. 1, 8) and idols (vv. 6, 7) would be eliminated.

The Assyrians would carry their golden calf to their land in honor of their king (cf. 8:10).  In the eyes of the ancient near eastern people they defeat of a nation meant the defeat of their god, showing how weak they are in comparison to the gods of the conquering empire.  The fact that it had to be “carried” away is another expression of its weakness, a common prophetic dig at the impotency of their man-made idols to help (Isaiah 45:20; 46:1, 7; Jeremiah 10:5).

Isaiah 45:20

Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.

Isaiah 46:1, 7

1 Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.

6 Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship!7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.

Jeremiah 10:5, speaking of the religious tendencies of the nations…

5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

So Hubbard concludes

As Hosea has more than once reminded them, the calf-god has no value beyond the material wealth of which it was fabricated (2:8; 8:5-6; 9:6).  In fact, its gold overlay has come to mean nothing to Israel, since they have to give that away, and Hosea rightly brands the calf a “wooden” idol (Hosea, p. 185).

The god they trusted to save them would be handed over to the king of Assyria as booty.  The king of Assyria (“Great king,” cf. 5:13) would be identified as Shalmaneser V at the time of the assault on Samaria and as Sargon II at the time of the ultimate collapse (2 Kings 17:3-6) in 722/721 B.C.

Israel would then feel great shame because the Israelites had decided to trust in a foreign alliance with the Assyrians for their security (cf. 5:13; 7:8-9, 11; 8:9-10).

You see, alliances in the ancient near east were not just political promise devoid of spiritual implications.

Pritchard and Ellison explains that…

“…in those days the secular state did not exist, and so in practice it was impossible to distinguish between a state and its gods. In an extant treaty of peace between Rameses II of Egypt and Hattusilis the Hittite king it is a thousand of their gods on either side who are the witnesses to and guarantors of it (Footnote 1: James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, pp. 200-201).

So even a treaty on equal terms with a neighbouring country would have involved for Israel a recognition of the other country’s deities as having reality and equality with Jehovah.  To turn to Assyria or Egypt for help implied of necessity that their gods were more effective than the God of Israel” (H. L. Ellison, The Prophets of Israel: From Ahijah to Hosea, p. 131)

So now they would reap what they had sown—their trusts in these gods where were no-gods, would result in them reaping the utter shame of having trusted them and been let down.

Richard Patterson explains…

This will be like adding insult to injury. God’s people will suffer the disgrace of witnessing that their national treasure, which they revered, will not only be unable to watch over them, but the god whose worship was entailed in the idol could not even protect himself.  Israel will be doubly shamed for its reliance on a mere “wooden idol” (https://bible.org/seriespage/3-further-charges-against-unfaithful-israel-hosea-101-1015).

Finally

The Great King, whose favor Israel sought, will also carry off the king of Israel (v. 7).

7 Samaria’s king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters.

Israel’s titular head will be as helpless as a chip of wood floating “on the surface of the waters.” The simile employed here speaks of the helpless state of Israel’s powerless king.

No longer a strong, massive oak, the king would be a twig upon the river waters, pushed along without any semblance of control.

As Garrett remarks, “Such a king is like a stick on water in that he can exercise no control over events.  A nation with such leadership is doomed” (Hosea-Joel, p. 212).  In all practicality, they had “no king” (v. 3) because he was powerless to do anything to help the nation.  Neither political rulers nor religious gods would save them from destruction.

Anderson and Freedman take a different approach, suggesting that there was no king in Samaria and that since Israel had rejected Yahweh, it was a pagan god (as a piece of wood) that is being referred to in v. 7 (Hosea, p. 558).

Charles Dickens begins his novel The Tale of Two Cities with the line

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

There were many characteristics of Hosea’s generation to suggest that it truly was the “best of times” in Israel.  It was a time of financial prosperity, religious zeal and the rise of the first generation of Israel’s prophets—Amos and Hosea.

But it was also the worst of times.  Both Amos and Hosea were written off as “fools” and “madmen” (Hosea 9:7) and Amos was banished to Judah (Amos 7:12).  Their wealth had often been gained at the expense of the poor and their worship was at best mere external formality and at worst devotion to false gods.

We find many of the same conditions in our nation today.

Thus, it was really a time to “seek the Lord” (Hosea 10:12).

Thank you for joining me today in our study of the book of Hosea—a tragic love story between Yahweh and Israel, mirrored by the tumultuous relationship between faithful Hosea and Hosea, who prostituted herself among lovers just like Israel did with false gods and untrustworthy allies.

Back in Hosea 8 Hosea had used a metaphor that went like this…

“they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind…” (8:7)

Like Paul in Galatians 6:6, you reap what you sow.  You reap in like kind as you sow; you don’t reap in the same season than you sow; and you tend to reap even more than you’ve sown.

And since then we have seen Hosea employ the reality of this spiritual principle over and over again.  In the very areas that they sinned, they will reap judgment.  They worshiped fertility gods, their crops and their children will be taken from them.  They allied themselves with foreign nations for protection and those very nations will ravage them.

Today, as we begin Hosea 10, that metaphor is continued.  The frightful predictions recorded in the 10^th chapter bring to a close the section of Hosea that etches in the mind of his readers the justice of Almighty God.

Let me read the whole chapter.

1 Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. 2 Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. 3 For now they will say: “We have no king, for we do not fear the LORD; and a king–what could he do for us?” 4 They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests– those who rejoiced over it and over its glory– for it has departed from them. 6 The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. 7 Samaria’s king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters. 8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.  Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.” 9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued.  Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity. 11 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies.  Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

In some ways Hosea will seem like a broken record, picking up themes he has presented before.  The overall point is that judgment is certain and it is imminent.  One last time Hosea appeals to them “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” (10:12) but it would not happen.  The people would not listen.

Again, Hosea will point out two geographical sites—Bethel (called Beth-aven or Aven, cf. on 4:15) and Gibeah (cf. on 9:9) just as the prior section, 9:10-17, turned on the events at Baal-Peor (9:10) and Gilgal (9:15).

David Hubbard notes:

Hosea is keen on naming time and place in his documentation of Israel’s history of sin.  His conviction seems to be that Israel will understand neither the genesis of their rebellion nor its gravity unless they will see themselves as extensions of their past. (Hosea, p. 181).

Thomas Constable summarizes:

The allusion that opens this series of messages is similar to the ones in 9:10, 10:9, and 11:1, in that it refers to Israel’s early history.  A mood of loss of confidence and protection marks this section.  As so often occurs in Hosea, evidences of covenant unfaithfulness begin the section followed by announcements of punishment for unfaithfulness.  In this one: announcement of the fate of the nation’s cultic symbols (altars, idols, sacred standing stones, and high places) gives way to announcement of judgment on Israel’s political symbol (the king).

The two primary themes from Hosea’s concern in this chapter are (1) broken altars (10:1-8) and (2) a broken nation (10:9-15).

As in 9:10, Israel is initially presented as a surprise and delight.  9:10 pictured Israel as “grapes in the wilderness” and “first fruit on the fig tree in its first season.”  Here in 10:1 Israel is pictured as a “luxuriant vine that yields its fruit.”

The grapevine was a common figure for Israel.  Yahweh had planted Israel in Canaan as a vine and had blessed it with fruitful prosperity (cf. Ps. 80:8-10; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 19:10-11).  This example suits Hosea’s repeated pattern that Israel got off to a good start but then went wrong.

Isaiah, too, would describe Judah as a vine.

1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Jeremiah, a later prophet, used the same figure of speech, as he described the nation as a “ degenerate vine.”  Ezekiel, on four or five occasions, used the symbol of the vine, and that in most remarkable ways.  Describing Israel as a “luxuriant vine” would at first seem quite flattering to Israel, but sarcasm dripped from Hosea’s mouth.

Israel and Judah (together in the exodus account) should be before Yahweh as a nation alive and vibrant and growing, that would produce the good fruit of righteousness and devotion to Yahweh.  Instead, Israel and Judah both produced bad fruit—wild grapes, poisonous fruit.  Israel produced fruit for himself, not for the Lord.

Duane Garrett explains:

“A vinter does not look for a vine to yield fruit for the benefit of the vine but for the benefit of the harvest he will receive.  A vine that yields fruit “for itself” is only taking up space that should be used by productive plants, as Jesus’ parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:7.  Thus Israel is a destructive vine in that it takes up valuable soil, crowds out productive plants, and gives benefit only to itself and not to its owner” (Hosea-Joel, p. 206).

The emphasis of verse 1 in chapter 10 seems to be that God blessed Israel to produce fruit in the sense of material prosperity and that prosperity caused them to multiply and improve “altars.”  The prosperity of this age is reflected not only in the prophetic literature of Amos and Hosea, but also in the historical narratives of 2 Kings and in archaeological discoveries.

But these altars were not locations of true, genuine worship of Yahweh, but rather places where they would devote their worship and their wealth to the Baals.  These altars to false gods proliferated and took people’s hearts away from worshiping the only true God, Yahweh.

Here, as in most sin, Yahweh and Israel are at cross-purposes—Yahweh’s abundant grace is squandered and misused to sin.

Hubbard translates verse 1b

As God multiplied Israel’s fruits

Israel multiplied (cf. 8:11) [their pillars] at their altars.

As Yahweh multiplied good to His land.

Israel made the pillars better.

While Yahweh outdid Himself in working for the betterment of the land, all that excess bounty was poured by Israel into the adornment and decoration of the pillars whose purpose in Hosea’s time had become largely pagan (cf. on 3:4).

Judgment is anticipated in Hosea’s play upon the Hebrew participle translated here as “luxuriant.”  It would appear that the prophet is employing a double entendre here, for the more normal understanding of the Hebrew word carries with it meanings such as “barrenness” or “emptiness.”  Accordingly, Hosea emphasizes the fact that although Yahweh blessed His people abundantly, they have consumed His benefits on selfish ends.  Worse, they have attributed their successes and prosperity to Baal.  Therefore, their commitment toward these ends has violated the covenant with the Lord again and again, and they can expect His judgment.  They have been “abundantly blessed” but will now be made “barren” due to God’s judgment (vv. 1). (Richard Patterson, Hosea 10 at bible.org)

Thus, Yahweh swears to tear down those altars…

2 Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their pillars.

Like the Philistine god Dagon falling down before the Ark of the Covenant, so the altars and pillars dedicated to the worship of Baal will be torn down and desecrated.

Although Israel’s prosperity had abounded, it had also been abused.  Their hearts were false, so their worship turned in the wrong direction—to Baal rather than Yahweh.  Through the law, Israel had received a sense of what was right, but that sense was met by an overwhelming love for doing what was wrong.

Israel’s altars had become places of sinning (Hosea 8:11) so that Amos would indicate Yahweh saying, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21).

The heart is the control center of our life.  It is the place, biblically speaking, where our thoughts, affections and decisions take place.

Hosea describes their hearts as “false.”  This is a word that can mean “divided” or “slippery” in the sense of deceptive.  David, in Psalm 86:11, cries out for an “undivided heart.”  He asks God to “unite my heart to fear your name.”

Jeremiah said,

17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Hubbard notes:

The false heart, whose working will be amplifies in verse 4, underscores the depths of the sin—not accidental but premeditated.

Anderson and Freeman note that “Hosea, unlike Elijah, does not find in Israel indecision, a ‘limping between two different opinions’ (1 Kings 18:21).  The people had quite made up their minds, as vv. 3 and 4 show.  They had formally renounced Yahweh, and given allegiance to another god” (Hosea, p. 552).

This is not to say that the Israelites deliberately set out to misuse and abuse worship, but their hearts were “slippery” and “smooth,” and their religious activities became warped and twisted.

J.Vernon McGee applied this to our worship today when he said:

“My friend, you cannot go to church on Sunday and sing, ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow,’ then walk out, and on Monday morning go to your work and take His name in vain—lose your temper and use His precious name to damn everything that irritates you.  That kind of divided living is exactly the same kind of divided heart that brought judgment upon Israel.”

Honeycutt explains…

Doubtless, worshipers of Hosea’s generation saw nothing wrong with combining features of Baalism with the worship of the Lord; no more than contemporary persons deliberately set out to compromise and adulterate contemporary religious life.  But thoroughly sincere persons may be thoroughly wrong. (Hosea and His Message, p. 68).

Hear that last sentence again, for it bears repeating: “Thoroughly sincere persons may be thoroughly wrong.”

That is just as true with religious experiences today.  They must be tested against the authority of the Word of God instead of against the whims of experience.  Anything can “feel good,” at least for a moment, but true worship is defined by the Scriptures.

As Solomon reminds us:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.  (Prov. 14:12)

It was just as Moses had warned in Deuteronomy 8:11-14

11 Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statues, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…

A theme of Hosea is that Israel had forgotten Yahweh, they did not think of Him.  The paid Him no attention.  When it came to their blessings, they thought Baal had given them.  The more blessings Yahweh gave them, the more they worshiped Baal.

Abundance is risky; God’s people could not handle it.  That is why Agur wisely prayed (cf. Prov. 30:7–9)…

7 Two things I ask of you; deny them not to be before I die: 8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying [the kind of hearts that Israel presently had]; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me [my daily bread], 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

Paul warns against the same sin in Galatians 5:13: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

Sometimes as Christians we take the liberty and blessing God gives and use them in ungodly ways.

Israel had this divided, insincere heart and expressed it on the altars of idolatry.  Now, He will break down their altars.

“Now GOD will do in judgment what they should have done in contrition, ‘break down their altars, and spoil their images’” (Adam Clarke)

Israel will “bear their guilt” and pay for their sins.  How thankful we should be that we do not have to bear our guilt, for Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24) and “became a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13) so that all our sins could be forever forgiven.

And let’s carry the image of chapters 9 and 10 further into our lives today.  Are we bearing fruit, good fruit, for Jesus Christ?  He is the Vine and we are the branches.  We only bear fruit as we stay attached to Him, as we consistently trust His promises and obey His commands.  We stay connected to the Vine by fellowship with Him in the Word and prayer and then allow Him to live His obedient life through us by faith.

Galatians 2:20 says…

I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Trust Jesus to live His life through you as you offer your body to Him and renew Your mind in His Word (Romans 12:1-2).