Project 119: Hosea 2:14-23
| Project 119
“God’s Undying Love”
Wilderness times, for all their difficulty, can also be times of revelation. In the desert, made aware of our own emptiness and ineptitude, we become able to see more clearly how good it is to lean upon God for our everyday needs.
God’s steadfast love never gives up. Here, God promises to take the people at their point of need and transform their “Valley of Trouble” (Joshua 7) into an opportunity to have a new experience of God’s blessing.
On the coming day of salvation (“Hoshea”), God would draw them near to His side as a husband tenderly courts his wife. It will be a time of peace and safety (Hosea 2:18-19) as God replaces their former love with one that cannot be overcome. The result will be a time of transformation for the nation. They will become loved and reclaimed as His people. The old will have passed away and all things will have become new in God’s new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
This part of Hosea’s prophecy teaches us that God can use even our negative experiences to bring about possibilities of restoration. While we all go through “Valleys of Trouble,” God is never far away. God is committed to binding us unto Himself in perfect love and righteousness through Jesus Christ. In the relationship that faith in Jesus makes possible, we enjoy intimate communion with God and a new start at knowing the abundant life God created us to know.
Hosea 2:14-23 (ESV):
The LORD’s Mercy on Israel
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
21 “And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
23 and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”