Studies in Hosea
11 - Judgement Day
Hosea chapter 13 is not really bedtime reading. It covers the Lord’s anger against Israel and contains some very colourful language and some frightening threats, but the nation has long since stopped listening.
When God gives warning of judgement, He’s not playing with words. The nation of Israel had shrivelled in spirit and what was happening was that the sin which had been covered up was being uncovered. All was being exposed. The Living Bible opens chapter 13 with these words: “It used to be that when Israel spoke, the nations shook with fear, for he was a mighty prince; but he worshipped Baal and sealed his doom. And now the people disobey more and more. They melt their silver to mould into idols, formed with skill by the hands of men. ‘Sacrifice to these!’ they say – men kissing calves!” (verses 1 - 2). Idolatry carries its own punishment. You worship nothing, you get nothing and you end up as nothing. It‘s just vanity.
Don’t we also live in a day when there is no shame? Sin is brought out into the open and flaunted. A halo is put around sin today. The sinner is commended for doing something new and daring and courageous. The openness of sin is not a mark of advancement, but it indicates that we are losing the civilization which formerly carried some semblance of Christian culture. Open sin is applauded. They hate hypocrisy – which is laudable- but sin is still sin whether hidden or out in the open.
Chapter 13 is the climax of Hosea’s prophecies of doom, but it is not the climax of the book. The roots of Israel’s failure were to be found in the inner life of the nation. “Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window” (verse 3). Mist, dew, chaff and smoke are all figurative for Israel, who was soon to vanish as a nation. The very God who cared for them in the desert, in the land of burning heat, is now ignored. “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot Me” (verse 6).
God’s response sounds outrageous. He, who had previously been pictured as a shepherd (4:16) would now attack like the wild beasts that often ravaged their flocks. Remember that God is a jealous God. He is no tame divinity. The popular picture of God is as a tolerant, easy going spectator. Here’s a ferocious picture of God. He would become like a dangerous lion, a lurking leopard, a mother bear robbed of her cubs, a female bear in a frenzy. Moffatt’s translation says, “So I was a lion to them, I leapt like a leopard on their path, I sprang at them like a bear robbed of its whelps, tearing their breast open; I crunched them like lions, and worried them like wild beasts” (verses 7 - 8).
The Authorised Version in verse 9 states, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: but in Me is thine help.” We’ve already seen how this alarming situation has been reached. Israel had turned a deaf ear to every appeal, defiance and obstinacy became her lifestyle, wantonness was second nature to her. There was a deep reluctance on God’s part to resort to judgement but perhaps, at last, it might serve to bring His people to their senses. Their foolish trust in political leaders has seriously let them down (verse 10).
One of the outstanding features of this book is its sudden changes of tone from the sternest of threats to the warmest of resolves. So we can glimpse a promise of redemption from death, even the death of the nation. Verse 14 says, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave is your destruction?” In the New Testament Paul applies this passage to resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:55). Could it be that, although the death-knell sounds in long delayed judgement, death can be overcome because God is the God of resurrection?
If God could change Jacob, a wheeler dealer, full of guile and arrogance, a nasty piece of work, engaged in such dubious conduct, could He not save Israel, Jacob’s descendants? In His sovereign will, God laid His hand on Jacob for a special purpose, and when God undertakes something no one can defeat Him. The God of Bethel took the initiative and dynamically intervened in Jacob’s life (Genesis 28: 10 - 19) in such a classic display of grace, unexpected, unsought and overwhelming. The very God who recovered His wayward child, Jacob, is the unchanging God who can recover His wayward nation, Israel. He is the God of predestination who undertakes to see something through to its end. Eventually Jacob bore fruit and God revealed Himself in this unpromising man. He became a gentle and deeply feeling parent, despite his former meanness and ability to pull a fast one. He had a genuine desire for spiritual things.
Doomed Israel will have a future, though it doesn’t look like it in Hosea chapter 13. The Message ends the chapter with these words: “God’s tornado is on its way, roaring out of the desert. It will devastate the country, leaving a trail of ruin and wreckage. The cities will be gutted, dear possessions gone for good. Now Samaria has to face the charges because she has rebelled against her God: her people will be killed, babies smashed on the rocks, pregnant women ripped open.” Using the cruel, godless nations around them, the judgement of God was about to fall on unrepentant Israel.
History tells us that Samaria held out from 724 to 722 BC, then fell to Sargon the second. Israel’s inhabitants were deported to Assyria to be replaced by other subject peoples.