Complete notes on Hosea

Complete notes on Hosea can now be found in Dundee Believer.

Hosea 14:7-9 - The ways of the Lord are right

14:7

Israel was increasingly becoming an object of scorn, and this would only increase in the years to come, but this process would be reversed. Instead, people would “dwell in her shade”, they would have a high regard for Israel and would flourish because of her. Israel would be sought after. We have seen this to some extent with the church. Societies with a strong Christian influence have respected the church and greatly benefited from its influence. Of course, this was highly imperfect, but it was true nevertheless. Now the West is quickly seeking to divest itself of all Christian influence. Israel is scorned by most nations, but one day this will change. She will return to God, and then she will be exalted among the nations.

14:8

Ephraim was currently heavily into idol worship, but God has nothing to do with idols. God alone is the one who answers our prayers, He alone is the source of our fruitfulness. And we need to remember that many of the “gods” were fertility gods, both in terms of harvest fruitfulness, and in fruitfulness in terms of having children. We should look nowhere else for fruitfulness.

14:9

Israel was facing a critical situation, one in which she would make the wrong choices. We need to learn from her mistakes and be sure to make wise choices. The wise man is the one who looks to the Lord alone. This is true wisdom. In our age today much of the church seems to think it is a good idea to turn to the world for wisdom, nothing could be more foolish. Such churches will stumble in God’s ways because they reject them, for the ways of the Lord are right.

Hosea 14:4-6 - I will heal their apostasy

14:4

Now we see a complete transformation in the attitude of God towards Israel. Paul often talks about the mystery being revealed in Christ. Two of the key themes in the Old Testament are (i) Israel’s persistent sin and rebellion, along with God’s righteous anger against this sin; the other is (ii) God’s great promises and love for Israel. The mystery is how the two can be reconciled. The gospel reveals how this happens. We should a number of things though, for much of the “church” has a deeply mistaken view of God’s salvation. First is that God “will heal their waywardness”. God accepts sinners, but He does not leave us as we were, an essential part of His salvation is that He works in our lives to change us, to heal us of waywardness. If we do not want to be changed, then the gospel has nothing to offer us, except judgement. Second is “my anger has been turned away”. This is the propitiatory nature of the cross, it turns away God’s wrath. There are many who deny that Christ took our punishment, our judgement, upon Himself. Such people are fools. We are guilty and something needs to be done about that guilt, and that happens through Christ’s death on the cross.

14:5,6

Dew brought early morning refreshment to the land. God will bring refreshment to a people in the wilderness. Acts speaks of times of refreshing (Acts 3:19,20). Without Christ decay is the thing that characterises our lives, as individuals and as societies. We see decay in our bodies, we see decline in society. When the gospel comes in life comes in, we become strong. This does not happen all at once,  but it is the “direction of travel”. We become people who give off a pleasant fragrance.

Hosea 14:1-3 - Return to the Lord your God

14:1

At last we move on to some cheerier parts of the prophecy! And we are almost at the end. This is the pattern in  Amos as well. So why do we have all this judgement first? It is because we need to realise the nature, seriousness and depth of our sin before we can understand the nature, seriousness and depth of God’s love and salvation. Israel’s sin is her downfall. If she had not sinned she would not be suffering the things she had suffered and would suffer. Her major problem is not that Assyria is against her, but that God is against her! Yet this is not a counsel of despair, it does not mean that all is lost, it means that she should return to the Lord.

14:2,3

She needed to acknowledge her sins and to repent. She needed to seek forgiveness. She needed to acknowledge that Assyria could not save her. it is our human nature to turn to anything as a source of salvation, anything except God. We need to admit the futility of this. She also needed to admit the futility of worshipping idols, all the things she had turned to as a source of salvation, and to renounce them completely.

Hosea 13:12-16 - They shall fall by the sword!

13:12,13

Ephraim is full of sin. At the time that he should be born he is not. He would be full of sorrow that a woman experiences when she is pregnant but fails to give birth to a living child. What does all this mean? Many years earlier God had taken Israel to the border of the Promised Land, the time to go in was ready, but Israel failed to enter into the Promised Land and so wandered in the desert for forty years. There are times in our lives when we are meant to enter into God’s promise. This will inevitable mean trusting Him to a new way, this will mean denying ourselves, not relying just on ourselves, but relying on Him. If we do so, then we will enter a new level of life. If we don’t, then we will suffer pain.

13:14

This verse is very difficult to interpret. Taken on its own its meaning is clearly that God will ransom them from death, which is what Christ has achieved for us, and this verse reminds us of Paul’s words in 1 Cor 15:55, “where o death is your victory, where is your sting”. However, in the light of the previous verse and the two verses immediately following this makes no sense. The ESV has in the margin “Shall I redeem them from death?”  RSV has “Shall I redeem them ...” The end of the verse “Pity is hidden from my eyes” would seem to imply that RSV and ESV margin are nearer the mark. Death and destruction were coming from the Lord.

13:15,16

Ephraim may have seemed to be doing well among Israel as a whole, but destruction that he could not withstand would come from the Lord. Ephraim would be stripped of all her wealth and strength. In Hosea, Ephraim in particular is the focus of God’s judgement, among the tribes of Israel. Judgement would come upon Israel, and even the women and children would suffer greatly. We find this sort of thing hard to take, hard to comprehend in the light of a God of love. One thing we should note is that this sort of thing has happened in the past, and does happen today. So to dismiss it out of hand is almost certainly not the answer.

Hosea 13:10,11 - Where is your king?

13:10

In the days of Samuel Israel demanded a king. At the time this angered and upset Samuel, but God told him to grant their request, and said that they were rejecting God not Samuel. (1 sam 8:6-10). She had kings and princes but they did not save her, they provided no protection. We can make a similar mistake. We think there is something we desperately need in order to make us happy, or to save us from some danger or other. The urge to have this thing in our lives is so strong, but we need to know that it will not save us. Only the Lord will save us, true rest and peace is found in Him alone.

13:11

“I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath.” The Lord let Israel have a king as judgement upon them. Israel thought having a king would help them, but it did not. For the root of sin was within their hearts, and the root of sin produced its inevitable fruit, and so the nation came under God’s wrath.

Hosea 13:5-9 - I am to them like a lion

13:5-8

God cared for them in the wilderness. It was a desolate place, but He provided food and water. But as soon as they were satisfied they forgot the Lord. This is a very human trait. Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go after various plagues, but as soon as the plague was lifted he changed his mind. People will turn to God when in trouble, but when the danger is past they quickly forget about the Lord. So sever judgement would fall upon Israel from the Lord, and there would be no messing about with this judgement.

13:9

“You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper”. The judgement upon Israel seems unremitting, but the next chapter will bring some relief! However, any attitude towards Israel that essentially thinks that because she is God’s nation she can do no wrong and everything is bound to go OK is deeply flawed, and even more deeply unbiblical. Israel will be saved, but only when she truly recognises her need, and the nature of that need, and that Christ is her only saviour, her only helper. We can all make similar mistakes on an individual level. Israel's’ need was real, her need today is real. There are many nations that are full of hatred towards her, and she is indeed God’s nation. But if she thinks “because others are treating me unjustly, and because God loves me He will save me”, then she is missing a vital ingredient. That ingredient is a recognition of her own sinfulness, and of God’s right to be totally against her. And this same reasoning applies to all of us as well.

Hosea 13:1-4 - They shall be like the morning mist

13:1

We are still focused on the judgement of Israel! This verse sums up the rise and fall of Ephraim. At first he spoke with trembling, ie he was humble before God. When he did this he was exalted in Israel. But then he became proud, he started worshipping Baals, and then he died. As soon as we start making or worshipping idols we die.

13:2,3

So now Ephraim sins more and more. They make their own idols, everything about them is focused on what their own hands have made, Likewise, much of the church in the West is focused on its own ideas. It saw ideas in secular society and started to worship them as idols, then it started to make its own godless ideas, to make its own idols. “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves”, and so some demand that we worship the idol of LGBTQ. But if anyone chooses to follow this route they are a fool, for those who do will become “like a morning cloud”, they will disappear into nothing. Only the word of the Lord stands forever, so we should build our lives on no other foundation.

13:4

We see here some more insight into the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, or human freewill. The Lord is God, that is not a matter of opinion or choice, it is a matter of fact, it is the truth. He had been the God of Israel since they came out of Egypt. So the end result will be that they “acknowledge no God but me, no Saviour except me”.

Hosea 12:9-14 - He will repay him for his disgraceful deeds

12:9,10

The Lord then introduces Himself, reminding them that He brought them out of Egypt. “I will make you live in tents again”, this is a reminder to them of the time in the wilderness and the Feast of Booths (Lev 23:43). This time the wilderness would be the exile the nation would endure. The Hebrews wandered through the wilderness because they had failed to enter the Promised Land when they should have done. They had again failed to “enter the Promised Land”. Although they lived in geographic Israel, they did not live by the Laws of God. Living in the Promised Land is not just a matter of geographic location, but a matter of knowing God and walking with Him. The same applies to us today. We must never view the gospel as just about “things”, it is about knowing God.

12:11

NIV and ESV translate the first part of this quite differently, NIV says:  “Is Gilead wicked? Its people are worthless!”, whereas ESV has “If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing:” Whatever the correct translation, the key point is the link between wickedness and futility. Going against God’s ways never produces anything good in the end. Maybe Gilgal was a place great activity, with many altars, and bulls being sacrificed there, but this would prove equally worthless. Man’s efforts in godless activities may look superficially impressive, but they ultimately amount to nothing at all.

12:12-14

God now reminds them of Israel’s history. Jacob served for two periods of seven years in order to get a wife (he actually ended up with two, but didn’t really want the first). Jacob worked to gain his wife. God likens this to how He rescued Israel from Egypt. He used a prophet (Moses) to bring her up out of Egypt, and to care for her. The caring for her was the giving of the Law, instructing her on how to live. But Ephraim had rejected all this, and do would experience the Lord’s anger and suffer her due punishment.

Hosea 12:1-8 - He loves to oppress

12:1

The words about feeding on and chasing the wind refers to futile actions. Israel was a rudderless nation, she variously pursued treaties and agreements with Assyria and Egypt. We only have steadfastness when our trust is totally in the Lord. Israel’s attempt to forge relations with Egypt eventually drew the anger of Assyria and led to the Assyrian invasion.

12:2-6

While the northern kingdom of Israel is the prime target in Hosea, Judah does get periodic mentions, as here. Hosea then refers back to the origins of the nation and to incidents in Jacob’s life, including in the womb where he grabbed the heel of Esau, and then to his wrestling with God. Israel is being judged for her sin, for her deeds. Jacob was definitely no saint, yet in his duplicity he sought God and wrestled with the angel. So it seems that Hosea is urging Israel to seek God earnestly and continually, rather than running to this idol or that idol, and seeking help from this nation or that nation. Only the Lord could rescue her.

12:7,8

The use of dishonest scales is frowned upon in Proverbs as well as here. Carrying out business on an honest basis is very important, but some people will always seek to bend or break the rules in order to make some more money. They then think that they will not be discovered, that their sin will not be found out. Sin is very deceitful, deceiving us into thinking we will not be found out.

Hosea 11:10-12 - He will roar like a lion

11:10,11

We see in these two verses the result of the Lord having mercy upon them. “They shall walk after the Lord”. In Genesis we read of God walking in the garden with Adam and Eve (Gen 3:8). We were meant to walk in fellowship with the Lord, that is what we were created for, but sin broke that relationship. In Christ the relationship is restored. The Lord will roar like a lion. His working to return Israel is not something done in secret, but is something declared in the heavens. Note that Israel has been scattered, but she will return from the various lands to which she was dispersed. Then they will dwell securely.

This is talking primarily about the northern kingdom, but similar things were said about Judah in relation to Babylon. They did indeed return from Babylon, at least some of them did, but the nation knew that that was not the complete fulfilment of God’s plans. Many Jews still considered themselves to be in exile in some sense. Likewise, the Jews were given the land of Israel in 1948, yet it is clear that this is not the complete fulfilment, there is much more to come. For the fulfilment of God’s plans for His people involves perfect peace and involves them walking with Him.

11:12

Now we get back to current sinfulness of Ephraim. They are full of lies and deceit. What we see in Hosea are the various things going on. There is the past and present sinfulness of Ephraim. There is God’s love for Israel and His future plans of restoration for them. God is eternal and in some sense sees everything at once. We are time bound, moving one step at a time through history.

Hosea 11:5-9 - How can I give you up?

11:5-7

Despite God’s care for Israel they would not listen to Him. So the consequence would be that they would indeed return to Egypt and be ruled over by Assyria. Violence would come to their cities and all their plans would be put to an end. The people claimed to call on the Lord, they used His name, but in reality they continually turned away from God. In the history of Israel we see a picture of the willfulness of Israel, the stiff-necked nature of the nation. It is a tragic tale, and it is seen in the whole of humanity. Our own society is determined to go against God’s ways. Israel had many plans, and might superficially have seemed to know what they were doing, but these plans would come to an end. Likewise, politicians and other leaders may seem to have plans, to have some idea where they are going, but in reality they know nothing. Israel truly called on the name of the Lord in vain, for He would not exalt them.

11:8,9

Now we get another sudden change. All that was said in the previous few verses was true, Israel was a most perverse nation. Yet God loved (and still loves) Israel, so although judgement and rejection were what they fully deserved, God was stirred by compassion. Now we need to be careful in how we interpret this. See that it says in v9:

I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again.

The key word here is “again”. Assyria did conquer and disperse Ephraim, but God says here “nor will I devastate Ephraim again”. The invasion of Assyria was only a warning, a precursor, of final judgement, it was not the final judgement itself. So these verse must be looking forward to God’s future restoration and protection of Israel.

Hosea 11:1-4 - With cords of kindness

11:1

It is vital that we read Hosea as a whole, just as it is important that we read the Bible as a whole. If we pick out a verse or even a section from here or there we can get either the message “God loves Israel”, or “God is going to inflict terrible judgement upon Israel because of her sin”. To understand the message we to fully take on board both messages. Hosea can in some ways viewed as a drama, with the holiness of God, the terribleness of Israel’s sin and God’s righteous anger against that sin, playing out against God’s love for Israel and deep desire to redeem them. Indeed, in many ways this is what the whole of the Bible is about.

11:2-4

God loved Israel, indeed He created Israel. Just as He created us all, and loved us all. Yet Israel rebelled again and again, despite repeated warnings and discipline. Instead of worshipping the God who created them and saved them, they persisted in worshipping Baals and other idols. Yet it was God who gave Ephraim all that they had. He treated them with loving kindness. When Jesus came to earth He set people free, healing them and casting out demons, yet all the thanks He got was to be nailed to a cross.

Hosea 10:12-15 - You have eaten the fruit of lies

10:12

Now we get a rather sudden change in tone. There has been a fairly relentless condemnation of Israel with numerous warnings of what will befall her and why it will befall her. Now God calls on Israel to change, to repent. Instead of injustice she should sow righteousness. If she does this then she will reap mercy (NKJV) or “steadfast love” (ESV). She is to break up the hard ground. If we live a godless life, if we sow sin then it hardens the “ground”, it makes it impossible to grow anything fruitful. We see this in nations that have been ruled by dictatorships or unrighteousness. It makes it very hard for anything good to grow. The years of apartheid in South Africa have left a very hard ground and South Africa has not yet recovered from this. If instead we sow righteousness then it prepares the way for the Lord’s blessing. Note that what happens is not just a result of natural processes, but also of God’s favour or judgement. This does not mean natural processes are irrelevant, they were created and designed by the Lord. But they are not the be all and end all, the world is affected by our obedience to or rebellion against God.

10:13-15

But Israel had been going in the complete opposite direction. She had ploughed wickedness and sown lies, so she had reaped iniquity and the fruit of lies. We will reap what we sow. She had trusted in her own way and in her own strength. We see the same thing happening in our society today. So terrible destruction would come her way.

Hosea 10:9-11 - I will discipline them

10:9

Gibeah was where the sin against the Levite’s concubine was carried out by the tribe of Benjamin and the subsequent destruction of most of the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 19,20). It was also the birthplace of Saul. Sin was not an unusual occurrence for Israel, but a way of life. So war would overtake her. Events happen in history and no one seems able to do anything about it.

10:10

God chooses when He will discipline them. And when He does so He will use the nations to discipline them. This happened most obviously with Assyria and Babylon, Assyria conquering the northern kingdom, and then Babylon conquering Judah. These invasions could be viewed in military terms, in political terms, and these views form part of the picture, but God’s actions are also a vital part of the picture. In the same way, the political events we see in the world are not purely human matters, but are also part of God’s plan.

10:11

This verse may be alluding to the way an oxen was trained for service, initially threshing grain before being used to pull a plough, her real purpose. God had a much greater purpose for Ephraim than she ever realised. Judah and Ephraim would be trained for her true purpose, and indeed that is still God’s plan. It is also the way He works in our lives. God’s purpose for us is much greater than we imagine. We may sometimes wonder at the discipline and training He puts us through, but it is because His purpose for our lives is far greater than our own purpose for our lives.

Hosea 10:5-8 - Cover us

10:5,6

Beth-Aven means “House of Iniquity” and is a polemical term used by Hosea to refer to Bethel, where this idol was originally set up, though it would be carried off to Assyria. An example of a similar term today could be referring to the Episcopal Church of America as the Apostate Church of America. Why the trembling? Maybe the people feared that it would be carried away, and then they wondered where their help would come from (though, of course, it never actually came from the calf-idol!). They would all moure, people and priests alike, when it was taken into exile. All this would bring shame upon Israel.

10:7,8

The high places had been set up as places to worship idols, the king was complicit in all this, ruling a rebellious kingdom. Both would be destroyed. The king would be swept away, the high places destroyed. Note that Israel (and Judah) had been told on numerous occasions not to set up high places, and having set them up, to totally destroy them. She had failed to do so, so God would do it Himself. We either fulfil God’s commands, or He will fulfil them Himself.

The high places would become utterly desolate. The cry to the mountains to fall upon them is echoed in Revelation. (Rev 6:16).

Hosea 10:1-4 - Their heart is false

10:1

Israel was doing well. When Israel invaded the Promised Land they conquered many peoples, and then started to plant and cultivate the land. They started to prosper, but then instead of giving thanks and honour to God, they gave it to idols instead. Israel was warned against this, and it is a pattern that is repeated again and again in humanity, and even in churches. We will attribute success to anyone or anything other than the Lord from whence it truly comes.

10:2

Our minds and hearts are corrupted. And remember that when the Bible speaks of heart it includes far more than just our emotions, it also includes our mind and will. So our minds will deceive us, and Israel would have to bear her guilt. In the ensuing destruction her altars ad sacred stones would be destroyed.

10:3,4

There is a deep cynicism in the land. They had no king, but even if they did have a king what would he do for them. So promises and oaths multiply, but they all turn to nothing ending up with many lawsuits which are like a poisonous weed. This is prescient of our own society. Cynicism is rife, governments no longer seem to work. Politicians make promises, but they are often self-contradictory, nothing much happens except creating more work for lawyers. And courts rather than government seem to decide an increasing number of things. Israel’s situation in Hosea’s day, and our own situation, is the inevitable result of rejecting God. There is no longer any standard. We seek to set our own standards, making ourselves the reference point, yet it results only in chaos.

Hosea 9:12-17 - Wanderers among the nations

9:12

Now this verse offends us! Even if children are born, God would bereave them of them. This greatly offends our modern Western ears, but we need to read the second half as well. “Woe to them when I turn away from them!” This is a consequence of God turning away from them. Now why has God turned away? Because they repeatedly rejected God, they repeatedly turned away from Him! And what we do has consequences, but we also need to note that God portrays Himself as actively involved in the consequences. Sometimes we describe hell as being separated from God, and the atheist or secularist may consider this no bad thing! But if they think that, they think it only because they do not realise the full consequences of being separated from God.

9:13

This verse makes no more comforting reading. V13 reads differently in NIV and ESV, NIV mentioning Tyre, but ESV not. ESV has “like a young palm” instead of “like Tyre”. Anyway, Ephraim was planted in a pleasant place, everything should have been OK. But instead, because of her rebellion, she would only bring out her children to the slayer. Terrible judgement awaited her.

9:14-17

The misery continues, and continues to offend our western ears. Hosea calls on the Lord to give them “wombs that miscarry” and “breasts that are dry”, ie there will be no future generations. Gilgal became a place if idolatrous worship. So Israel would pay the price. We react in horror at this judgement, but we do better to react in horror at the continual rejection of God by Israel, and then look at the ongoing rejection of God’s ways by our own society. “They will be wanderers among the nations”, and this is surely what happened to Israel.

Hosea 9:9-11 - No birth, no pregnancy, no conception

9:9

The people had corrupted themselves. These last two verses were spoken to Israel, yet they are so true of our own society. We do not like to be told that we are wrong and need to change our ways. A sure sign that the grace of God is being poured out is that people are willing to acknowledge their sins and their need to change, people repent! Unless that happens, then God will “remember their iniquity” and punishment will come. There are two options with regard to our sins. Either God will remember them or God will forget them, and only through Christ is the latter possible.

9:10

Israel was nothing without God, she would not even have existed as a nation without God. Yet when they came to Ball-peor they started to worship idols. They consecrated themselves to things of shame, and so became detestable themselves. That is the consequence of worshipping worthless things, we become worthless. In fact, one could say we become like whatever it is we worship. As a race, the whole of humanity would not exist unless God had created us.

9:11

So Ephraim’s glory would fly away like a bird. And notice what that meant, no birth, no pregnancy, no conception. She would become unreproductive. The west is busily rejecting all its Christian heritage, and its glory likewise will fly away. It is also noticeable that in “advanced” godless societies the birth rate declines, and in a number of countries is below the replacement level.

Hosea 9:4-6 - What will you do?

9:4

Under the Law you were unclean if you touched a dead body. So when someone in your family died you had to eat separate from others and could not go to the temple for a while. This is what eating the “bread of mourners” meant, and this is what it would be like for Israel. Indeed, this judgement upon them lasted for hundreds of years, for even in New Testament times Samaria was considered unclean be most of Israel, they had to eat by themselves.

9:5,6

The Israelites thought they were in control of worship. They held the feasts, they offered the sacrifices. We are in grave danger whenever we imagine that we are in charge, instead of being people who are led by the word of God and the Spirit. They would realise how little they were in control when they were taken away, other nations would have a hold over their lives. Life would be miserable for them.