Project 119: Hosea 1
| Project 119
“An Imperfect Family”
The Bible teaches that “God is love.” It is one of the simplest, yet most profound of Bible teachings concerning God. But what does that teaching mean? While we may never fully understand or exhaust the significance of God’s love for His fallen creation, we do get a vivid picture of the extent of such love in the book of Hosea.
Hosea’s prophecy is a part of the Old Testament we call the minor prophets. The entirety of Hosea’s ministry points to God’s full commitment to reclaim a stubborn and rebellious people. Central to Hosea’s preaching is the doctrine of God’s steadfast love, which parallels the New Testament word agape. God’s unconditional loyalty to His covenant promises assures us that He will keep faithfulness with us even when we are less than faithful to Him.
Before we can hear Hosea’s message we must appreciate how vividly his personal life reflected his preaching life. Hosea, whose name means “Salvation,” preached during the reign of Jeroboam II in the northern kingdom of Israel which would have placed his ministry during the middle part of the eighth century B.C.
Other details of Hosea’s background are sketchy with the exception of his marriage to a harlot named Gomer. God’s command to take Gomer as his wife (Hosea 1:2) mirrors the faithlessness of Israel and the nation’s persistent interest in the Canaanite fertility god Baal, whom Israel’s neighbors believed was responsible for making sure that both family and farm life flourished. By the time Hosea answered God’s call, the people of Israel had come to take their participation in Canaanite fertility festivals as normal and accepted. Clearly, God needed to get their attention and awaken them to the error of their ways. Thus God called Hosea to marry “an adulterous wife” and have “children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD” (Hosea 1:2, NIV).
The names of Hosea’s children are clearly symbolic of Israel’s sordid past. “Jezreel,” the name of the firstborn, reminded the people of the place where the house of Jehu, one of Israel’s earlier kings, had been established by means of excessive bloodshed (2 Kings 9-10). “Lo-Ruhamah,” the second child, means “not loved or pitied,” symbolizing for the people how nothing could turn away God’s impending judgment for their sins and transgressions. “Lo-Ammi,” the last child, means “not loved or not my people,” pointing to how the people’s rejection of God could only end in God’s rejection of them, an inconceivable thought to those who had grown accustomed to presuming upon God’s steadfast love. Nonetheless, God cannot go against His promises so Hosea held out the hope that once God’s people had been subjected to a time of judgment, God would surely restore them, through a leader “who will come up out of the land” (Hosea 1:11, NIV) to reunite the people into a nation that shows deep devotion to God.
At first thought, the sin against which Hosea preached may seem foreign from where we live today. Though sexual immorality is rampant in our prevailing culture, you may not find it to be a compelling temptation. Nonetheless, there are other loves and loyalties that compete with our love and loyalty to God.
But that is precisely the point at which Hosea’s message speaks to us today. It challenges us to consider how those loves and loyalties tend to move us away from God. Since every sort of sin carries a consequence, we would do well to confess our faithlessness and turn from it, and respond instead to the love of God in Jesus Christ, the leader who “came up out of the land,” which is truly a steadfast love that will never let us go.
Hosea 1 (ESV):
1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
Hosea’s Wife and Children
2 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. 7 But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”
8 When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. 9 And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” 11 And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.