Studies in Hosea
4 - Home Truths
Hosea chapter 5 is heavy stuff. This is God’s exposure of His people and what must happen to them. God sees His people as a menace, when they were meant to be a blessing to the world. Now no one can see the difference. The leaders are found wanting and a scathing rebuke is administered in public. The label once fastened on the Canaanites and on harlots comparing them to snares and nets must now be pinned on God’s people.
“Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, O royal house! This judgement is against you!” (5:1). God states, “I know all about Ephraim; Israel is not hidden from Me. Ephraim, you have now turned to prostitution; Israel is corrupt” (verse3). The Living Bible, in verse 4, reads, “Your deeds won’t let you come to God again, for the spirit of adultery is deep within you, and you cannot know the Lord.” God hates mixture (‘iniquity and solemn assembly’ Isaiah 1 verse 13) and His people have arrogantly been playing fast and loose with other gods. Now God is going to withdraw Himself. This is judgement by frustration. “When they go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord, they will not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them” (verse 6). Divine withdrawal is part of judgement.
God’s anger is that of love not hate. His relentless harrying of His people is designed to bring them home. God’s judgement needs a reason. His compassion doesn’t. One can sense the prophet’s heart break when he says, “They are unfaithful to the Lord” (verse 7).
The alarm will be sounded on Judah’s borders because Judah shares the sin to which Israel, alias Ephraim, had become addicted. “Blow the ram’s horn shofar in Gibeah, the bugle in Ramah! Signal the invasion of Sin City. Scare the daylights out of Benjamin!” (verse 8 The Message). The reality is “Ephraim will be laid waste on the day of reckoning” (verse 9). The people are stained and polluted and a harlot spirit possesses them.
Hosea is speaking some home-truths very plainly, but people did not want to hear his message. The prophet was announcing that the new foe was not to the north, nor to the south. The new foe to the nation was a former ally – the God of Israel. Behind the gathering clouds of international conflict, Hosea perceives an even greater threat, namely God has turned against Israel on the basis of the nation’s sin. God, who should have been Israel’s closest friend in covenant, would be an irritant to both nations, like a festering sore. The outlook is incredibly bleak, the prognosis blazingly thorough. “Judah’s leaders are like those who move boundary stones (i.e. all moral landmarks). I will pour my wrath on them like a flood of water. Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgement, intent on pursuing idols” (verses 10 - 11).
Hosea was one of the most radical of Israel’s prophets using striking language to grasp the attention of his audience. Verse 12 is hardly the language of theology. The Lord says. “I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah.” Because all things serve Him, God can use not only the march of armies to work out His purposes, but even the silent process of decay is His. When Ephraim woke up to its predicament, it turned straight to Assyria for help. “But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores” (verse 13).
This is no empty threat on God’s part to be ‘like a lion’ tearing them to pieces and carrying them of off ‘with no one to rescue them’ (Verse 14). The Northern Kingdom was wiped out in 722 BC. The pantomime of Israel’s worship was simply a cover up for the gross actions of a people who no longer desired to find God. They wanted the myths and magic of the corn god, not the Ten Commandments and a surrendered life. Just some self-indulgent, mindless religion to keep God happy. So God will withdraw Himself. Verse 15 reads, “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek My face; in their misery they will earnestly seek Me.
I guess chapter 5 of Hosea could be subtitled “How to make God your enemy.” The people have certainly managed to do that. God sees His people as a menace. The leaders are weighed in the balance and found wanting. “Their rulers dearly love shameful ways” (4:18). They are arrogant, stumbling in their sin. It was a day of rampant paganism with guilt written all over the nation. In place of shamefaced looks, is a brazenness that denies that anything is amiss.
Commentators suggest that chapter 6 opens with the words of a penitential psalm, but they are not really meant. So the tone is ironic. Such words must be heartfelt, not just words spoken like a mantra. “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” (verse 1 - 2).
Words of repentance that only sound good are like the dew, for this mood will quickly disappear. There’s no admission of guilt, no specific sins are mentioned and there’s no evidence of true repentance. Maybe these are simply facile and presumptuous words with no substance, no genuine turning back to God.