When we left Hosea yesterday his wife Gomer had deserted him for other lovers.

Gomer represents Israel, the other lovers represent the pagan nations whose gods Israel chose over the God of Israel, and Hosea represents God in this marriage metaphor.

Hosea knowingly married a promiscuous woman, just as God knowingly made a covenant with wayward Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. God knew Israel had the potential to betray him, but he rescued them from slavery in Egypt and led them to Mount Sinai where he made his everlasting covenant with them.

Why did he do that?

God chose Israel because he chose to love them. God wanted to show the world what being in a loving relationship with him looked like.

We can take this metaphor even further and apply it to ourselves. What God says to Israel through Hosea, he also says to every believer who has entered into a saving relationship with him. He loves us, he chooses us and he is jealous for our love and fidelity to him.

God’s Love for Israel

After Israel deserted God and he rebuked her, his heart went out to her again. He wanted to re-establish the relationship.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her . . . There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt . . . I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.” Hosea 2:14-15, 19-20

This was God’s perpetual stance toward his people. He wanted to love them. He wanted to have intimacy, friendship, joy and contentment in relationship with them.

God sent Hosea to redeem his wife Gomer from the man who had made her his mistress. Hosea got her back at a price, took her home and put her into confinement. She was going to live without a lover for a while.

“Then I told her, ‘You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will be the same way toward you.’” Hosea 3:3

Hosea hoped that Gomer would have a change of heart and become faithful to him again if she were deprived of expressions of his love.

God Did the Same with Israel

In the same way that Hosea put Gomer away from himself, God took Israel’s king away by having him put in jail by King Shalmaneser of Assyria. (2 Kings 17:1-4)

“For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.” Hosea 3:4-5

God was exercising his sovereignty over Israel, with no earthly monarch standing between them. He hoped they would want him again.

God’s Case Against Israel

“Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.” Hosea 4:1

How desolate this sounds! God had given Israel everything and longed to give them more, but when he looked for their response, there was none – no faithfulness, no love, not even an acknowledgment of who he was to them.

The priests were largely to blame for this terrible disconnect between God and his people. They had stopped studying and teaching the Word of God to Israel.

“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God . . . the more priests there were, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.” Hosea 4:6

As idolatry grew in Israel the priests fed on the sins of the people. They followed the people into pagan religion, so God said, “It will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.” Hosea 4:8-9

The leaders of Israel also failed the people when they sent to the king of Assyria for help. They were a sick nation with many problems, but they turned to the wrong source for a cure. “But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores.” Hosea 5:13

Hosea’s Entreaty to Israel

Hosea was on the front line with this prophecy. He heard the voice of God and felt the passion of his heart and he was moved to beg Israel to respond.

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;
he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us; that we may live in his presence.  Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises, he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:1-3

It should have been such a simple thing to respond to God, especially when he was so direct and clear with Israel. It was only the most unloving, sinful hearts that could have resisted the Lord in these circumstances.

Israel Displaces God

The nation of Israel had displaced their devotion to the Lord with a lust for pagan religious practices. They burned with desire for the sins that were part of worshiping Baal and Asherah. Their king enjoyed watching the spectacle and the priests joined in. There was no one to call Israel back to God except the prophets he sent.

“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the dew that disappears. Therefore, I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth – then my judgments go forth like the sun.” Hosea 6:4-5

Israel was so lost that they didn’t even realize the dangerous state they were in. They were like a loaf of bread burning on the griddle with no one to turn it over. Foreigners drained their spiritual energy; they were like doves, easily deceived and senseless. God was getting ready to catch them in a net and pull them down.

“Woe to them because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak about me falsely. They do not cry to me from their hearts but wail on their beds. They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they turn away from me.” Hosea 7:13-14

The Years of Hosea

When we read these prophetic words all compressed into one book, we may forget that it took years for them to be delivered. And Hosea was only one of the prophets speaking to Israel on God’s behalf. It helps to space out the sections of the book and recognize that they were given at different times.

Sometimes God talked about his love and tenderness for Israel, at other times he warned them about impending disaster. The different words and emotional tones were related to what was going on in Israel.

Reading Hosea is like being at a stage production where only half of the stage and one or two  characters are visible. We hear Hosea and God, but Israel’s people, king, and priests are hidden behind a curtain.

The thing about prophecies is they have to come to pass at some point or they are not really prophecies. Hosea prophesied during a relatively short part of Israel’s history, and his was one of the last voices Israel heard before the prophecies came to pass.