Reading: Hosea 11-14, Psalm 124

Hosea is a rough book. God speaks through the prophet with some of the most loving and caring words ever ascribed to him, then in the next breath proclaims terrible judgment and wrath with some of the most brutal language God ever uses. Hosea himself must have been somewhat shell shocked by his own prophecies, to say nothing of his life with Gomer. He closes the book with a postscript in 14:9 that almost reads like an apology. Only the wise and discerning can understand what he has written, but despite the confusion the ways of the Lord are right, keeping those who obey upright, and tripping up the wicked.

The last third of the book of Hosea presents both mercy and judgment in plenty. We open chapter 11 with God speaking of Israel as a son, who he called out of Egypt (another retroactively messianic bit which was not in the least messianic to Hosea). Through the rest of the book we see God recounting his actions for Jacob/Israel, both personally, as in 12:2-6, and as a nation. Interwoven with this is the unfaithfulness of the people, specifically Ephraim, which as we saw earlier is just another name for the northern kingdom. Ephraim’s belief that he have found wealth for myself is answered by God’s repetition of his name: I am Yahweh your God to remind us of God’s identity. God, the self-sufficient one and the source of life, provides. Ephraim’s belief that they provide for themselves is their excuse for all their actions, including human sacrifice and prostitution as worship. Still, God says he will preserve Israel, as his heart recoils at the idea of losing them entirely. But no matter how much he does for them, they continually betray him. What is God to do?

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Hosea has been called the “prophet of love” since before the time of Christ. This is because of the repeated theme of God’s love overcoming the sin of Israel, and the predicted sins of Judah. However, Hosea also contains brutal judgment, which is never recanted by God. It is not the case in Hosea, or anywhere in the story of the Bible, that God relents from punishment for the guilty. We might ask ourselves if we would want an ultimate judge of the universe who does nothing about people who practice human sacrifice and ritual prostitution that amounted to sexual slavery. I would not. The wrath of God against unrepentant terrible abuse carried out by humanity is apparent in Hosea, and I would not have it any other way. By invoking the image of Ephraim/Israel and Judah as the sons of an unfaithful wife who have been repeatedly disobedient, God puts them all under the sentence of death by stoning. And then he carries out the sentence.

It is tempting to skip that last part, and look at God’s promise of restoration. But we have read Kings. The unfaithful wife is torn apart after the reign of Solomon. The sons fare no better. The northern kingdom is utterly destroyed by Assyria. The southern kingdom is eradicated by Babylon. Only the most tattered remnants of the nation remain. God does not refuse to carry out judgment on the guilty. It is afterward that mercy and restoration come. I have heard it said that in Hosea the covenant love of God overcomes the covenant law of God. I don’t think so. God’s love for his people is not in spite of his law. His wrath is not overcome by his love. God’s wrath is as complete as it is because of his love. Their restoration will follow only the removal of all the things they depended upon besides God. Declarations of Independence are almost always followed by wars. When the human race declared independence from God, it declared war on him. God will win that war. He will remove the independence of his people, and then he will restore them.

This is the story of Hosea and Gomer. It was only when Gomer had fallen so far that she had become an underpriced slave at the city gate that Hosea buys her back. It was only when nothing was left that she recovered. People in addiction recovery will often talk about “hitting bottom.” They understand that it is only when everything is taken away that we can see the source of everything we have is not ourselves and surrender our lives to a higher power. God repeatedly tells his people that everything they have comes from him, but they refuse to believe it, instead saying that they made it themselves. This is the story of Hosea and Gomer. Gomer loses it all. Then Hosea recovers her. After God destroys the independence of his people, he will ransom them from the power of Sheol, he shall redeem them from death. The wrath of God will continue right through to the point of death. But then God will do something really extraordinary.

Unlike Isaiah, Hosea is not given even a murky picture of how this will happen. Hosea does not get to see the Servant of God. I think his postscript marks his own confusion of how this can all be true at the same time. But he believes that God is always right, and is faithful in obedience. Hosea doesn’t know the whole story, but he knows the story will somehow be better than it appears to be.