Studies in Hosea
7 - Unfruitful
Chapter 9 begins in the Message paraphrase, “Don’t waste your life in wild orgies, Israel. Don’t party away your life with the heathen” (verse 1). God had blessed Israel with prosperity, but this had blinded her to the reality of her true spiritual condition. She is now on the verge of captivity. In fact, the party’s over. For Israel their form of religion managed to penetrate everything except conscience. Their worship was unclean and unholy.
The result of this is, “they will not remain in the Lord’s land” (verse 3). In fact “My God will reject them because they have not obeyed Him; they will be wanderers among the nations” (verse 17). Because their feasts have become like pagan activities, to the pagans they will go and their religious festivities will be impossible in exile (chapter 2:11).
Grief is in store for Israel as God withdraws His love and grace by departing from them. Their persistent abuse of God’s love eventually releases the landslide of self-induced judgement. “The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac” (verse 7). The alert watchman, God’s lookout man, has spotted the impending disaster and sounded the alarm. But he’s not popular – prophets never are – and obstacles are numerous. “Snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God” (verse 8).
How serious the situation has become is spelled out in verse 9 “They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah.” Gibeah was a name that went down in infamy in Jewish history as one of the most sordid scenes in the Old Testament. It was the city where the gang rape and sex murder of a Levite’s concubine occurred and it nearly led to the wiping out of the Benjamites in a civil war (Judges chapters 19 - 21).
The Message Bible puts it bluntly “Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt. Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria. As refugees in Egypt and Assyria, you won’t have much chance to worship God ... You’ll be starved for God, exiled from God’s own country” (verses 3 - 4).
In chapter 9 verse 10 God becomes nostalgic. “When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig-tree.” The very beginnings of His relationship with His people was like the surprise and delight with which one might come upon a vineyard in a desert. One can sense the divine disappointment. At Baal Peor the Moabites seduced Israel (Numbers 25:1 - 5) even before they entered the Promised Land. God laments “they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol” (verse 10).
In verse 11 the end of Israel’s nationhood draws near. “Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird ... Woe to them when I turn away from them!” (verses 11 - 12). Sin leads to judgement which, in grace, will lead to restoration. God will judge in mercy, by letting them go. They will be out of fellowship, but not out of relationship. They remain God’s ancient people.
We need to remember judgement is rooted in love, the grief of God’s love. Love constantly abused results in unavoidable judgement.
At Gilgal Saul was made king (1 Samuel 11:15) and, in effect, God was rejected and the rot set in. Moffatt’s translation reads, “Their guilt lies all at Gilgal; so there I learned to hate them! For their evil practices, I drive them from My house; no longer will I love them – their rulers are all rebels” (verse 15). The reality is that “Ephraim the Fruitful” bears no fruit.
There’s strong irony here. When God says, “Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house”, He’s echoing the promises given to Israel at the Exodus and reversing them. The Canaanites were driven out so Israel could enjoy God’s gift of the land: now the Israelites were to be driven out because of their assimilation of Canaanite practices. As the unfaithful wife was driven from the husband’s house, so Israel was driven from God’s ‘house’ i.e. His land.
When God says He ‘hated them’ it means ‘loved less than before’. Warm affection pervades the book of Hosea from end to end. Such language announces with anguish not the final ultimatum but a break off of relationship, that is, the suspension of the marriage. In Hosea’s vision he has seen the sons of Israel doomed.
The Israelites have worshipped fertility through the sex rites of Baal and they have sold their souls for peace. Their judgement will be infertility and war. The chapter ends with the picture of the wandering Jew, living as a refugee, scattered far and wide. The Message puts it this way, “My God has washed his hands of them. They wouldn’t listen. They’re doomed to be wanderers, vagabonds among the godless nations” (verse 17).
But this is not God’s last word on the Jews! Romans chapter 11 makes that abundantly clear. Read that chapter and see there the purposes of God for them. Hosea doesn’t pray out of a hateful vengeance against Israel, but because he shared God’s holy wrath against her sins. Despite God’s condemnation and the harshness of language with which the unavoidable judgement was announced, the major purpose of the book is to proclaim God’s compassion and love that cannot – finally – let Israel go.