Hosea (Part 2)

Richard Belcher explores the latter themes of the Book of Hosea, focusing on God’s enduring love and forgiveness despite Israel’s repeated infidelity. He underscores the necessity of repentance and the promise of restoration as central messages, highlighting how Hosea’s personal life as a metaphor reflects God’s relationship with His people.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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This audio lecture is brought to you by RTS on iTunesU at the virtual campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. To listen to other lectures and to access additional resources, please visit us at itunes.rts.edu. For additional information on how to take distance education courses for credit towards a fully accredited Master of Arts in Religion degree, please visit our website at virtual.rts.edu.

Alright, we are in the middle of Hosea 2, the covenant lawsuit that Hosea is bringing against Gomer. But as we go through this chapter, Hosea and Gomer will fade into the background. Yahweh and Israel will come to the forefront because this is ultimately a covenant lawsuit that is being brought against Israel, God’s people.

We come to the place where three sentences against Gomer or Israel are introduced. Each of them begins with “therefore.” The first one comes in Chapter 2:6, and it follows verse 5:

⁵ For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ ⁶ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. ⁷ She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ (Hosea 2:6-7, ESV)

That’s a part of what is going on here, that her way will be so difficult that she will go back to her first husband. In Gomer’s situation, that would be go back to Hosea. In Israel’s situation, that would be go back to Yahweh. That’s the first sentence. The second one comes in verse nine.

⁹ Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. (Hosea 2:9, ESV)

The taking away of covenant blessings so that she’s left destitute, which we will see in chapter three. She’s in a very destitute situation. So the removal here of covenant blessing, which came from Hosea or Yahweh, which she thought came from other lovers or Baal.

So you take away those blessings, bring to a situation of destitution as a part of sort of a person coming to the bottom of the rung of the ladder before they look up, and that might be part of what’s going on here. And then the third sentence is somewhat of a surprise. Verse 13, I will punish her because she’s gone after she’s forgotten me. And then you have verse 14, this third therefore, behold. And you’re sort of expecting further punishment, movement toward destitution, but you’re a little surprised.

¹³ And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord . ¹⁴ “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. ¹⁵ And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. (Hosea 2:13-15, ESV)

I will allure her. I will court her. See, God promises restoration. He is going to romance her. He’s going to win her back. He’s going to allure her, which is going to lead to a change of terminology. Some translations, this is easy to see. Other translations, it’s not easy to see. The ESV does help us here.

Hosea 2:16 says,

¹⁶ “And in that day, declares the Lord , you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ (Hosea 2:16, ESV)

And the ESV has ‘My Baal,’ you will no longer, you will call me ‘My Husband.’ Ishi is the Hebrew. Ish is the Hebrew word for man or husband. You will call me Ishi, my husband. You will no longer call me Baal, my master. You will no longer use the name Baal when you talk about me, which is part of the problem that Israel, a mixture of Baal and Yahweh worship.

The term baal will no longer be used, only appropriate terminology. Ishi, my husband, is what is mentioned here so clearly in context. This is an attack, if you will, on the whole baal worship approach, and you see how much that had become a part of Israel’s worship. So God will allure. God will bring her back. God will give her different terms to use about himself. Now, this leads to a reversal of the names of the children.

We could talk about that in chapter one, but we will address it here at the end of chapter two, at the end of this covenant lawsuit, when God surprisingly says, “I will bring her back, I will allure her.” You then come back to the names of the children and see the results when God brings back his people, and you have a picture here again, similar to what we saw in Amos 21.

²¹ “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord , I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, ²² and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, ²³ and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'” (Hosea 2:21-23, ESV)

Jezreel, remember chapter one, the judgment aspect, place of Jezreel, place of massacre. There will be another massacre. Jezreel, however, also is related to the Hebrew Zarah, to sow, to sow seed. And it’s that aspect of this word that Hosea picks up on. I will sow her for myself in the land. Jezreel now no longer a place of massacre, but a place of sowing, planting. In the land, God will plant his people.

There will be abundance. And I will have on no mercy. Mercy, mercy. Ruhamma not lo ruhama. Mercy. Compassion now poured out on God’s people. And those who are loam, not my people, will now be called my people. The exile, the judgment of God has brought a separation so that Israel was considered, in essence, not my people. Broken covenant. And now God will bring them back and restore them, which Paul uses, does he not, in his letters, to refer to gentiles as well, being brought into my people. Those who are not my people are now called my people.

Okay. It’s not a hand. Oh, you didn’t remind me. Oh, okay. I was in denouden. Okay. But thank you for that half hand. That reminded me some of your syllabi, whatever, has September 27 missing. I don’t know why that is. We do meet next week, and you do have some assignments next week.

So if you need September 27, if you look at your original syllabus and the dates and you don’t have a September 27, I’ve made some copies of just that page. Because we will start Isaiah next week. your profile for Isaiah is due next week. And for that profile, you don’t have to read 40 through 66. For the profile, you know, the first, the title, for sure would be appropriate. So you have a Prof. And your outline next week is Isaiah outline. We will probably finish Jonah next week.

And then you will have the opportunity to take the first exam outside of class. And we can talk about that next week. So, if you need September 27 for some reason, it’s not in your syllabus, there are copies of it up here. Feel free to grab one because we will have class next week. And some of you, I think, are signed up for lunch as well. But no lunch today. Okay.

Chapter three. We come back to Hosea’s life again. And the major question in chapter three is this: woman Gomer? Your translation, your English translation may help you here. It may leave it more ambiguous, I think. In your notes, I’ve given you the Hebrew. For those of you who know Hebrew, there is a way you can translate this very ambiguously, so you’re not quite sure what is being said. I’ve given you two translations. I think in your notes, I’ve given you the NIV translation, which clearly goes in the direction that this is the same woman.

The Lord said to me, “Go show your love to your wife, Isha.” It can mean wife. Go show your love to your wife. Again. Go again. Show your love to your Isha wife, though she is loved by another. Now, you read the NIV, and it’s clear that the woman in chapter three is the same woman in chapter one, and that’s virtually my position. You may have the New King James Version, which is a little bit more ambiguous. The Lord said to me again, see, where you place the “again” can be significant. Go show love again. Or the Lord said to me again, New King James.

¹ And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man… (Hosea 3:1, ESV)

The Lord said to me again, go love a woman. Not wife, not translated wife. It could be translated either way apart from context. Go love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery. So the Hebrew can be here a little ambiguous, but I would argue strongly that the woman of chapter three and the woman of chapter one is the same woman. The character of the two women are the same. Hosea is told to love her, not take her.

If chapter three said, go take a woman, I would say that might be reason to say it’s a different woman. Take meaning, Mary. But it’s not take, it’s love. So I don’t think this is a new marriage. I think it’s a renewal of a relationship that had already been established. Plus, it fits the parallel between Israel and God. I just can’t understand why you’d want to argue that the woman in chapter three is someone other than Gomer. I mean, it’s Israel, God’s people, that he’s going to lure back and bring to himself.

I think that kind of destroys the parallel that is going on here. So, I would argue that this woman is Gomer. Go again. Love a woman who is loved by another, a companion, a friend, even companion, depending on the nuance of that Hebrew word. She’s an adulteress. She’s loved by another, Hosea. Go get her. And he goes and gets her. And he has to purchase her. He has to buy her with barley and 15 shekels of silver. Barley is the cheapest grain. 30 shekels of silver is the price of a wounded slave.

He pays 15 shekels. It gives you the idea of the destitute condition that Gomer has fallen into. We don’t know why. We don’t know why she’s not being provided for by her other lovers. But what was said in Chapter 2:6, what was said in Chapter 2:9, you see, worked out here in her situation, the destitute of her situation. God says, I’m going to remove from her these blessings. And Hosea goes and he gets her, purchases her, brings her back to himself.

In verse 3, there is enforced isolation. You must dwell as mine for many days. You’ll not play the whore. You’ll not belong to another man. Enforced isolation requiring her to be faithful. Forced separation from her lovers and even from himself for a while. This is punitive restorative love, what some people might call tough love.

³ And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (Hosea 3:3, ESV)

In verses four through five, the application is made to the children of Israel. For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.

⁴ For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. 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. (Hosea 3:4-5, ESV)

So, you have God here removing from the children of Israel those things which in the northern kingdom are not good things. The kings in the northern kingdom, not one of them is good. The worship in the northern kingdom is a false worship, without sacrifice, without pill, or without ephod. The priesthood in the northern kingdom is a false priesthood because all the legitimate priests went to Judah when Jeroboam I 931 established that illegitimate worship.

And so God is saying, I’m removing all of that from the northern kingdom. So they will then come and seek their true king David and come to fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. Punitive, restorative love, disciplining love that will bring restoration. And part of that is the northern kingdom falls in 722, and we saw in Amos especially the remnant idea, and that will also become prominent in Isaiah. So there is hope for God’s people. That road to hope is a difficult road.

Discipline is hard, but it’s needed to bring his people back to himself. Now for the rest of Hosea, you have more notes than we’re going to cover. There are several places in the prophets where you have more notes than what we’re going to cover because we don’t have time to cover everything. But let me just say a few words about the rest of Hosea. Just sort of give you a very general overview of chapters four through 14. I’ll say a word about how to preach the prophets because of all the judgment imagery.

And then we’ll move on to Jonah in chapter four of Hosea. Actually, in chapter four, it begins a new section. You start the journey over again, from judgment to hope, from the tragic present to the hopeful future. So chapter four begins that again. And chapters four through 14, in a very broad sense, deal with three things. It deals with the priests in chapter four. The responsibility for where the nation of Israel is at is laid at the foot of the priests. They had the responsibility to teach the people God’s law, and they had failed.

And that is a major reason why the northern kingdom was as it was. So you’ve got the priests addressed in chapter four. you’ve got political issues and kings addressed primarily in chapters five, five through eight. And some of that political intrigue that we talked about at the beginning of this lecture you may find reflected behind chapters five through eight. And we’ll not take the time to comment on that.

Some of the chaos of the end of the northern kingdom may be reflected in chapters five through eight, after Jeroboam II, and then in nine and following, you have more of an emphasis on the historical tradition of God’s people. Part of that to show the unfaithfulness of God’s people in their past, but part of that to show hope for God’s people. So just in a very broad look at chapters four through, you have those things addressed: the priests, political kingship stuff, and then historical tradition to undergird the message of Hosea.

If you look at the end of the book, I do want to comment at the end of the book before I comment on preaching or teaching from the prophets. If you look at chapter 14, verse nine, you have an address to the reader, the reader of the book.

⁹ Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. (Hosea 14:9, ESV)

You know, this message of Hosea is not just for the northern kingdom. That’s part of what this concluding postscript means. Whoever hears, whoever reads these words, be wise, understand the meaning for God’s people. The kingdom of Judah, after the northern kingdom falls, no doubt would have had available Hosea’s prophecy. This message is for the kingdom of Judah. You can learn from what happened in the northern kingdom. If you disobey God, God’s judgment’s going to fall. That’s basically the message that the southern kingdom should have learned, but did not learn it, as we will see as we focus on the southern kingdom more in the days ahead.

And a similar message would be for God’s people today you disobey the word of God, you can expect to reap the consequences as individuals, as the church, whatever, and yet hope is held out in both Amos and Hosea. But the message of Hosea, clearly you see it from the title of the book because you’ve got all those southern kingdom kings listed, and you see it from the ending of the book. This message is also for the southern kingdom.

What is implicit in Amos and the rest of the prophets is explicit here in Hosea, because we know that God’s word is a message not just to its particular historical situation, but it’s a message for God’s people all throughout their history. This makes it explicit here at the end of the book. Now, one more issue is not in your notes. How do you preach and teach from these prophets that are so full of judgment? We’ll talk at one point, I forget exactly where, about the two-sided nature of the word of God.

That when God’s word goes forth, it brings salvation, it brings restoration, it brings renewal and healing. But as the word of God goes forth, it also brings judgment because people reject it. So if you’re not faithful in preaching the word of God, you don’t give the opportunity for the word to have that effect. If you’re always preaching the happy, positive side, which I’m all for, that God’s grace, but there’s an appropriate side of responsibility when we are called as God’s people to be faithful.

And if you’re not preaching that more negative side, you don’t give the word an opportunity in someone’s life. You don’t give an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to use the word to bring conviction. You know, we want messages that are always uplifting and make us feel good. And I’m not against that. There always should be that hope.

But if you’re not willing to be faithful to the word of God and preach the word of God, you’re not giving the Spirit an opportunity, not that he’s dependent upon us, but you’re not giving the word an opportunity to bring conviction into the lives of God’s people. I could tell you stories of people who have sat under a faithful ministry, the preaching of the word, and they walk away from that service and they are mad and they are never going back again.

They’re under conviction, and they wrestle and they struggle, and a week or two later, they’re sitting right there, and they walk away, and they’re wrestling and they’re struggling. So, just a call for faithfulness to preaching the whole counsel of God, because God’s word works in many different ways. It renews. Yes. Brings encouragement and hope. Yes. But there is that negative side where people need to be convicted of their sin. That’s a part of that renewal in some people’s situations.

In other people’s situations, it’s a rejection of the word of God, leading to their hardening, and that’s also a function of the word of God. So it’s a call to be faithful to preaching, but it is a challenge, shall we say, to preach or teach from the prophets. Because it is a lot of it. It’s bad news. It’s the negative. So what do you do? Well, just a couple of suggestions. The prophets are very good at putting forth their message in a variety of ways. In the Book of Amos, God comes to visit his people.

Is that good? Would it be good if God came to visit you? Well, it all depends, doesn’t it? And that word “picad” visit has both negative and positive. You know, is it good that God comes to dinner to visit? It depends. But you can use that as an avenue. You have a funeral lament in Amos 5. You show up at a funeral and you all of a sudden realize that they’re lamenting your death. You can present that in a very interesting way as a sermon or a teaching.

You see, there are a variety of ways to present this message of judgment, because the prophets present this message of judgment in a variety of ways. In the book of Hosea, what you find in the book of Hosea are these metaphors. All over the book of Hosea, God is like dry rot, or he’s a lion or he’s a leopard, he’s a pine tree. Israel is like an oven, a stubborn heifer, a dew vessel, wild grapes, silly birds. So you can focus on these different metaphors as different ways to communicate the message.

So the prophets are difficult because many times the message is negative. And you want to be sure that at the end of every sermon, you can always point people to Christ. There’s always that hope. But there’s a variety of ways to present the message of judgment, because the prophets present their message of judgment in a variety of ways.

Hosea is a difficult book. Chapters four through 14, you’ll read commentaries, and they throw their hands up and they say, you just can’t figure out what’s going on in these chapters. It just seems to be an amorphous mess. I don’t think it’s quite that bad. But the metaphors that are used here are powerful, shocking in many ways, trying to sort of get Israel to rethink who God is and those will preach and be very interesting. I would encourage you not to avoid some of these difficult passages and to look for the way the prophet himself puts forward his message.

Because the way the prophet puts forward his message may be an avenue that you can use to present that message yourself and to present it in a very interesting way, even though there may be difficult words of possible judgment in those messages. So pay attention to what the prophets are doing, and they can help you in the way you present it. Any comments or questions on yes sir? You mentioned back in 2:17 that God says that, or speaking of Israel, I guess, but we’ll no longer call him Baal.

Does that strengthen the argument that Emeril was a temple prostitute? It could, although she could have just been a faithful worshiper of this syncretistic veil. Yahweh worship 414, I think, is a little stronger if you’re going to go in that direction. It just seems like everybody’s involved in this kind of moral activity, and it seems to be, in some sense, perhaps connected to worship. So, I definitely don’t want to remove that possibility. It may be one of these things that all that we’ve talked about is tied together. So that baal worship, sexual immorality, pursuit of other lovers, all that, you know, maybe one picture.

This audio lecture is brought to you by RTS on iTunesU at the virtual campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. To listen to other lectures and to access additional resources, please visit us at itunes.rts.edu. For additional information on how to take distance education courses for credit towards a fully accredited Master of Arts in Religion degree, please visit our website at virtual.rts.edu.