Studies in Hosea
5 - Ungrateful
We’re in Hosea chapter 6 and Israel’s unrepentant spirit is breaking God’s heart. There’s a Hebrew word ‘chesed’ which is a covenant word meaning total devotion to someone, more loyalty than love. It means remaining absolutely loyal to the other covenant partner whatever they do to you. God is asking, “What went wrong with our marriage?”
Verse 3 sounds good, but the people don’t mean it. The words are great, “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.” Sadly there is a complete absence of repentance and a failure to confess sins by name. There is no remorse. The crucial requirement of admitting their guilt has been carefully omitted. God sees through their empty words and so now hear the cry of heart of their tremendous lover: “What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears” (verse 4). Superficial repentance is no use.
A failure in love led inevitably to a failure in worship because true worship arises out of true love. Sharp prophetic words have been ignored time and again. God’s heart is expressed in verse 6, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” The word ‘mercy’ (Hebrew chesed) can mean right conduct towards one’s fellows, or loyalty to the Lord or both. It is ‘undying devotion’, ‘stay–with–it love.’ Israel saw religion as placating God with sacrifices – they were one hundred per cent out of tune with God’s heart and purpose. Their offerings were meaningless: They meant nothing to God. Had not Samuel the prophet stated long ago, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (I Samuel 15:22). In short, God is after love that lasts, not more religion.
Hosea catalogues Israel’s crimes in various localities from a town called Adam, to Gilead, to Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim. He calls the priests ‘marauders’ and murderers. God has ‘seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel’ (verse 10). He says, in effect, if the kingdom is a whore, then they are its pimps. Israel’s sin had defiled the nation. A harvest of judgement awaited Judah (verse 11).
Hosea was a man of extraordinary courage to face danger and speak for God to the government of the day. The nation was literally on the verge of collapse. Israel had gone too far and the storm of judgement must soon break, for the priests had turned their religion into a heartless, murderous racket.
Listen to the indictment at the beginning of chapter 7. “Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people, whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practise deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets; but they do not realise that I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before Me” (chapter 7:1 - 2). God doesn’t pull His punches. Verse 4 in the Message reads, “They’re like wood stoves, red hot with lust. Through the night their passion is banked; in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking.”
Hosea was witnessing a morally bankrupt and spiritually backslidden nation hurtling away from God at breakneck speed. Their supreme sin has been to leave God completely out of the equation. “All their kings fall, and none of them calls on Me” (verse 7).
In verse 8 we’re told “Ephraim mixes with the nations” – that means mingles with pagans – “Ephraim is a flat cake not turned over.” Ephraim is half-baked. Some years ago we were in Tunisia watching a Berber woman, Fatima, and her clay oven. A flat cake, a disk of dough shaped like pitta bread, was clapped to the side of the oven and left unturned. One side was inedible, raw dough, the other side scorched crust. Ephraim had one side turned to the nations and was getting badly burned. The other side, with its unpalatably weak commitment to Yahweh, was underdone.
The big problem in Hosea’s day, around 733 BC, is the same problem we face in the 21st century. We fail to recognise God is in charge: we are blind to all His warnings and we systematically phase God out of our increasingly secular worldview. Are we in danger of becoming, as Israel had, an unteachable people?
Hosea can be compared to Jeremiah, a later prophet in the southern kingdom. Jeremiah warned his people in Judah that they would go into captivity, and he lived to see it happen. Hosea warned the people in the northern kingdom that they would go into Assyrian captivity, and he lived to see that happen.
The messages of nearly all the writing prophets belong to the period of the divided kingdom. When the kings failed, then God raised up prophets to speak to the nation.
But in 733 BC Hosea found himself addressing an unteachable nation. The priests ought to have been exemplars and teachers of covenant righteousness, but they became masters of deceit and priestly guile. David Pawson has listed Israel’s seven deadly sins as follows: infidelity, independence, intrigue, idolatry, immorality, ignorance and ingratitude.
Years ago I saw a Salvation Army production of “Hosea – the musical”. The one song I remember was entitled “I nearly forgot to say thank you.” Israel had completely forgotten and ingratitude ruled supreme.