Hosea 8-14

 Hosea 8

Hosea 8:1-6 Judgment is announced. Israel claims the covenant with the Lord, but their actions betray the reality of their heart. Breaking the covenant by rebellion against His laws. Not just disobedience, but rebellion - rejecting them. Kings who gain power through assassination and idol worship. This goes all the way back to Jeroboam erecting two golden calves, in Bethel and Dan, so that the Israelites would not return to Jerusalem to worship. (1 Kings 12:28-30) He broke spiritual laws for political gain. The Lord will ultimately judge and destroy those idols. 

Hosea 8:7-10 An often quoted verse. “They sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind.”  The principle of sowing and reaping is mentioned many times in Scripture.

• Sowing trouble and reaping likewise. (Job 4:8; Proverbs 22:8)
• Sowing with tears and reaping joy (Psalm 126:5)
• Sowing righteousness and reaping rewards. (Proverbs 11:18)
• Reaping whatever seed we sow (Galatians 6:7-8)

But Hosea goes on to offer hope, lest they waste away under the foreign king they sold themselves to. No one wants a used-up prostitute, except God.

Hosea 8:11-14 Although Moses recorded many of the Lord’s rules to help them live happily and flourish, they rejected His revelation and worshipped at foreign altars. This goes beyond the foolishness of eating junk food and expecting to be healthy. It is mistaking the very source of existence for a chimera of earthly things like palaces and fortifications. The immovable mover, the uncreated creator, the God who simply is that He is, will send fire to show them the flimsiness of their reliance on perishable physical protection.

Hosea 9

Hosea 9:1-5 Other nations celebrate worldly success but Israel has unique festivals appointed by the Lord for feasting. Since Israel has been unfaithful to Him, they can’t celebrate those festivals; they can’t bring unclean food into the temple. They themselves are unclean because of their pagan worship. Religious celebrations are meaningless, or worse, deceitful, when we don’t live out what God has told us. We deceive ourselves, because He knows what is going on.

Hosea 9:6-9 The day of God’s punishment is coming. The people are so far into sin that those watchmen who warn them are deemed fools. God will remember.

Hosea 9:10-13 At first, Ephraim seemed like grapes in the desert. There was glory in Joseph’s lineage. But God reminds them that their rejection of Him and His ways started early and continued. (9:10, 10:5) When they came to Moab and committed sexual sin with the women, they engaged in idolatry and became vile. (Numbers 25:1-5) The initial glory was gone. They went the path that led to child sacrifice. 

Hosea 9:14-17 Their punishment will include barrenness, both spiritual and physical - childlessness. Since they were going to use children as sacrifices to other gods, He will prevent that. In addition, He will send them to other nations to experience how they really live. How does this relate to our culture today, which glorifies sex and believes that killing unborn children that are unwanted is part of the process. What is abortion really worship of? Can and does God vindictively keep those who do so from having children later? Or is doing so simply allowing them to have what they want - sex without children? What are the other consequences?

Hosea 10

Hosea 10:1-4 A description of the consequences of going the idolatry road. They must bear the guilt of their deceit and idolatry, and recognize that a king could not rescue them. They make false contracts and then end up in court.

Hosea 10:5-8 Beth-aven is near Beth-el, where Jeroboam set up the golden calf. (1 Kings 12:28-29) Beth-aven means house of wickedness or house of vanity or house of nothingness, and used as a derogatory term for Bethel (House of God). The high places will be destroyed. The people will call on the mountains and hills to fall on and cover them, very similar to what people will do in the days of the sixth seal of judgment. (Luke 23:30, Revelation 6:16) The golden calves won’t do anything for them in either case.

Hosea 10:9-10 Gibeah is mentioned in Judges 19-21 as the location where some wicked men men raped and murdered a man’s concubine. The reaction to this was for the man whose concubine was killed to incite the tribes of Israel to attack and kill all the men of Benjamin, which they almost succeeded, leaving only 600 alive after killing over 25,000. They eventually arranged for the tribe to not be totally wiped out, but the legacy of violent over-reaction was entrenched sin. War will overtake evildoers. One sin leads to more, unless justice is administered as God directed Moses. 

Hosea 10:11-13 Farming metaphors re-emphasize the principle of reaping what we sow. (Galatians 6:7) Breaking up fallow ground is hard work - as Judah will find in turning from Israel’s ways to avoid reaping the same fruit.

Hosea 10:14-15 Bethel will face disaster and the king of Israel (who inherited the golden calf Jeroboam placed there and worshipped along with many other idols) will be completely destroyed. Since there were many kings, being king of the Northern kingdom obviously was a position that carried a curse on whoever occupied it.

Hosea 11

Hosea 11:1-4 God recalls Israel’s origins, like a child, when they left Egypt. He carried them through the wilderness, taught them, protected them, with love as a parent does with a child. Even when they did naughty things like idolatry, He loved them.

Hosea 11:5-7 The unfortunate fruit of rejecting discipleship and turning away from God is walking in the way of the world. They claim Him as their God, but not in their hearts or actions, only their lips.

Hosea 11:8-11 Like the parent of a young adult, He still loves them as His own. He will not fully punish them as outsiders, and has a vision for their return to Him. When that happens, He will again bless them. He is heartbroken over their rebellion. (Maybe He sees them more as adolescents than young adults.)

Hosea 11:12 Bridge to the next chapter, a further reminiscence of Israel growing up.

Hosea 12

Hosea 12:1-2 Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom, makes deals with earthly powers, thinking to secure the country by worldly politics. That is all like trying to get nourishment by eating wind? But Judah, the Southern Kingdom, has their own baggage, going back to the forefather, Jacob.

Hosea 12:3-6 A brief recap of Jacob’s issues growing up.

• He grabbed Esau’s heel at the moment of birth, his initial foray into claiming the birthright of the firstborn. (Genesis 25:26)
• He wrestled with God. He wanted control, and God was forced to wound him to show Him the supernatural reality of divine authority. (Genesis 32:24-39)
• He returned to Bethel and worshipped God (long before the golden calf) and they talked. (Genesis 35:6-13) God revealed to Jacob His Name, the Name that carries His authority (Genesis 35:11). In like manner, Judah must return to God as He had revealed Himself to them.

Hosea 12:7-8 In Hosea’s day, fraud was loved. They worshipped wealth, a common enough practice throughout the ages, but also a foreboding of the  Laodicean church. (Revelation 3:17) Their key error was thinking that worldly wealth would protect them from the consequences of sin. Worldly riches and materialism is a very false god.

Hosea 12:9-11 Contrasting God’s ways with idolatry. He fed them and protected them for forty years of living in tents in the desert during the Exodus, which He reminded them of annually in the Feast of Tabernacles (booths). He sends them prophets to speak His words to them. All of the idolatry of Israel is just sacrificing animals on piles of stone that take up space in otherwise fertile farm fields.

Hosea 12:12-14 When Jacob left his parents to flee to Rebecca’s family, he worked hard to get Rachel as his wife. (Genesis 29:20)  He served faithfully but manipulated the animals that he tended to his own advantage, was poorly treated in the end, but God protected him.  (Genesis 31) Hundreds of years later, God sent Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt to which they had fled because of famine. They also had tended flocks and were poorly treated in the end. But once in the promised land, Ephraim (named for one of Joseph’s sons) turned to false gods, and the one true God, who had faithfully cared for their ancestors, said, “Enough!”

The lesson we should take from this is that although God is infinitely loving and merciful, and will forgive and protect us, He will not allow us to persist indefinitely in life choices that are self-destructive. He warns us, and we have opportunities to repent and turn to Him. He turns up the heat to get our attention when needed. If we ignore His warnings in all of the different ways that He speaks to us, then He will bring complete destruction to that lifestyle, so that we will have to experience the bitter fruit of sin. 

Sowing and reaping is built into both nature and the supernatural realm. Divine intervention goes beyond natural law because God has purpose and design in His dealings with us. He is a person, not just a life-force. His character and His heart are so perfectly loving and holy that what happens to us will reflect His every effort to get us to become like Him.

Hosea 13

Hosea 13:1-3 Although Ephraim began history exalted as Joseph’s son, when his tribe turned to idolatry of various types (Baal-worship, offering human sacrifices to calf-idols), they became spiritually like dew, chaff, or smoke - something that dissipates in the wind and is gone.

Hosea 13:4-9 Recalling God’s providential care for Israel for forty years in the desert, all He asks was that they acknowledge Him. They refused, and so He will devour them like a lion or bear.

Hosea 13:10-11 Recalling Israel’s initial request for a king (1 Samuel 8:5), He now tells Israel to look at what kings can and can’t do for you. Especially since they keep getting assassinated. 

Hosea 13:12-16 God keeps records. They will bear their guilt. The people have only themselves to blame. 

Hosea 14

Hosea 14:1-3 Hosea offers words of repentance that Israel should say in order to return to God. But they must be genuine words, enough so that their actions will demonstrate that they renounce their sin. This standard is not because God doesn’t love and forgive, but because sin will continue to destroy them. This starts with confession.

Hosea 14:4-8 The Lord speaks of how He will restore and bless Israel on the day when they make that decision. Everyone, both in Israel and outside Israel, will recognize that their fruitfulness comes from Him. Is this true in our day? Israel is restored as a nation and prospers materially, but does it have spiritual blessing? Do the nations of the world recognize God’s handiwork in the Balfour Declaration? Do the people of Israel?

Hosea 14:9 Hosea’s closing observation, like the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. Reality is that rejecting God for selfishness or for other gods cannot bring long-term happiness, only pain and destruction. True wisdom and discernment recognize The Lord as the source of all blessing and that we partake of those blessings to the extent that we walk in His ways.  Both worldly and spiritual flourishing are ultimately gifts of the Holy Spirit.  (James 3:13)