The prophet Hosea prophesied to his own people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. You will recall that the nation which Solomon had inherited had been split in two after his reign, with the Northern Kingdom having its capital city of Samaria, and the southern kingdom of Judah having its capital in Jerusalem. His ministry spanned several decades, covering the reigns of seven kings, all of whom it was said continued in the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Jeroboam was the man that instituted national idolatry in Israel; so we know the spiritual climate in Hosea’s time was nothing short of deplorable. (See last week’s lesson).  

Our lesson focuses attention on the fact that nothing is more important than knowing God in a deep and personal way.  This is the only way to abundant life; to have with us the source of wisdom and strength to endure in difficult times. 

Without this intimate relationship with God there can be no obedience and faithfulness to him.  Truth will be absent, mercy and kindness will play little part in our lives and the sins that bedevilled the nation of Israel will overtake us, steadily increasing in influence and control, so that our lives will end in destruction. 

An awareness of the situation following the split of Israel into Israel and Judah will aid our understanding.  The first King of Israel, Jeroboam had personally appointed priests from among the common people and the baser sorts and had set up idol worship in the sanctuaries of Bethel, Gilgal and Shiloh.  The priests that God had appointed left Israel, the Northern Kingdom and went to the Kingdom of Judah and so Israel was left with a broken connection with God and a severed source to the knowledge of God. 

We today must understand that knowledge of God is most important.  If we move away from the word of God and begin to add or take away from the revelation of God, appointing leaders and priests in a way different from that way established by God, there are bound to be tragic consequences. We will like Israel increasingly reveal our faithlessness toward our covenant with God, show a lack of loyal love, reject the covenant love, the unfailing love of God and continually walk away from his call to repentance. 

The terms of God's covenant with us are quite comprehensive and there is little room for deviation.  It is in that narrow way that we find life abundant.  Outside of that prescribed way there is only illusion fantasy and death.  Helpfully the book of Hosea contains powerful warnings for the church, as well as for our personal life. 

Some suggest that Hosea may have been among the priests, given his

knowledge of religious affairs, but this is not certain. His ministry took place about eighty years after that of Elisha and he ministered to his people about eight centuries before Jesus. 

It is assumed that Hosea began his ministry around the end of the reign of Jeroboam 11 and that this continued doing that time of chaos as four kings reigned in one year (Jeroboam, Zechariah, Shallum, and Menahem), before the final Syrian invasion of Israel in 722 B.C. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser had forced King Menahem to submit to him, then had defeated Pekah and put Hoshea on the throne and when he rebelled, the Assyrian king’s successor Shalmaneser V defeated him, took Samaria, and deported the people. 

We know that Hosea began his prophecies in the very troubled years before the final Syrian invasion of Israel, when the nation was in steady decline and the royal line was most unstable. 

The times were extremely dangerous but he confronted Israel with the nation's unfaithfulness to God and their tremendous sins of idolatry, prophesying over a period of about fifty years in the capital Samaria. 

2 Kings 14-19 summarizes the history of that troubled period, during which time, as one writer puts it:

“the Northern Kingdom spiralled downwards into political anarchy and economic confusion. The sin of idolatry persisted in the worship of Baal.  Everywhere Hosea looked, there was increasing oppression among the people, injustice, and moral and spiritual decline.”

It appears that Hosea also dealt with the situation in the southern kingdom of Judah and his listing of the kings of Judah implies that his ministry went well past the time of the kings of Israel. He was a contemporary of Amos and they were addressing the same corrupt and idolatrous northern kingdom during the last decades of its existence. 

Hosea began his ministry when things were politically successful and economically prosperous. The seeds of idolatry, spiritual failure and moral corruption sown in days of Jeroboam II and before him however, now produced the inevitable, tragic harvest at an ever quickening pace in the ensuing years. 

Israel was an extremely ‘sick’ nation. Hosea called Israel and Judah to repentance in Yahweh; he revealed the faithlessness of the nation toward their covenant with Yahweh and God indicted them for their lack of knowledge, loyal love and faithfulness. They rejected many of the Commandments of God and the terms of the Covenant and were guilty of ingratitude, idolatry, brutality, materialism and immorality. Hosea’s message to Israel is against the backdrop of God’s compassion and love for them, as illustrated in Hosea's marriage to the unfaithful Gomer.

His message conveys an overwhelming sense of God’s compassion and love for his people, set against their unfaithfulness and indifference, though they had not altogether lost all sense of the sacred. The rituals, the rites, the liturgy were still being practiced,

but they were not only directed to Jehovah.

The pervasive injustice, idolatry and oppression in the nation, confirmed their total alienation from Jehovah; yet they were religious. In their lives Baal was alive and well and held a priority position, though they still worshiped Jehovah. 

We like Israel often allow other things to take priority over God in our lives and depend on things outside of His providence for our security. If this is the case, we are very much like Israel and Hosea’s message is our warning. If we are his children, God will bring the necessary discipline in our lives, not only for punitive purposes, but to prod us to repentance and eventual restoration.   

Hosea’s ministry began with the unusual command from God to marry a woman who some think was a prostitute before her marriage, and who would subsequently turn out to be an unfaithful wife. His marital situation would become an object lesson in demonstrating God’s unfailing love for Israel, despite their unfaithfulness.  

A parallel is drawn between Hosea’s marriage and the relationship between God and Israel, in the light of God’s love to Israel as His own dear children and as His covenant wife. Hosea’s wife was repeatedly unfaithful but God had the prophet reunite and maintain conjugal relations with his wife, as a reflection of God’s own unwavering love for Israel. “Then the Lord said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods…” (Hosea 3:1).

One writer notes: Through His command to Hosea, God brings to life a consistent picture used throughout the Old Testament. In this picture, the LORD is the husband of Israel, and their passionate, chronic attraction for idols was like the lust of an adulterer. His people were as unfaithful as a prostitute was.

In this vivid picture, we see how our idolatry and rejection of the LORD feels to God. When we put anything in front of the LORD, it hurts Him like unfaithfulness hurts the victim of an adulterous marriage. By commanding Hosea to take . . . a wife of harlotry, God will put Hosea in the place where he feels what God feels - and it won't feel good. 

The question might reasonably be asked as to why God would put his prophet through such an experience. God has to do very unusual things to teach us his truth when we are locked in blindness. So God’s answer is: “…because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD."  

Hosea's marriage was to be a picture of God's marriage to Israel. One lesson from all this is that the servant of God must be always conscious of Jesus’ words: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me…”

(Matthew 17:24).   

King Jehu had substantially suppressed and removed Baal worship from Israel four generations earlier but by the time of Hosea, the worship of Baal had returned to Israel in full force. The practice was characterized by temple prostitution and sexual rites and so God's used the analogy of marriage in his case against Israel. Stressing its significance was very fitting, as idolatry is viewed as a form of spiritual adultery. Israel had certainly abandoned Yahweh for another, but while Hosea's wife was a prostitute, the people of Israel were themselves literal prostitutes, performing "religious" sexual acts, so that they might receive a bountiful harvest from Baal.

As unfaithful as Hosea’s wife was, Israel was no less so to God. The land was rife with idolatry, sin and widespread corruption at all levels of society but still God remained compassionate. He longed to bless His people with the knowledge of Himself and the blessings that naturally flow from their right relationship.

The words harlot and harlotry are very prominent in the book and given God’s holiness, justice and covenant with the nation

(blessing/cursing Deut.28-30), we sense the inevitability of judgment. The consequences of infidelity in marriage were severe but the case had to be made against an offender. 

Israel was bound to God by a legal contract made at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:1-8) and they were not living up to their side of the contract.  The Israelites had violated their sacred covenant with God,  and so He was entitled to divorce himself from them.  

In our study the prophet lays-out God’s accusations against Israel in the form of a court case, with God as the aggrieved party. But note, true to His compassionate heart, God holds out the promise of restoration and the restoration will not come without the repentance of Israel.

TEXT

Verse 1.…ye children of Israel, A call to the entire nation, for while the nobility, leadership and priesthood  are directly indicted,  the ordinary people were willing accomplices and so God’s case or disputeis with all the inhabitants of the land. It is God the plaintiff against the Israelites, the defendants. 

The particular relationship between God and Israel created grounds for intimate relationship but also conferred the right of action on the part of God, based on their formal covenant. Even so God will not automatically invoke judgment without repeated warnings and cautions and he informs the nation of their sins, infractions and violations, with an eye toward their repentance. Of course all rest on the sovereign grace of God, because God is not beholden to any nation or person and it is only his gracious condescension that puts anyone into a relationship with Him in the first place. 

Here we are told that God had a “controversy” with the people, and note that this is a very strong word with legal connotations.  These were intense and extremely serious charges which warranted the use of this word.  This will connect to God's approach to the nation in chapter 7:1 where He uses four different names for the people to cover all the bases and makes it unmistakably clear that he's talking to the ten tribes which primarily make up the northern kingdom. 

Clearly as one writer says, God has seen sin, that great mischief maker and ‘sower of discord’, in his own people and he intends to take action.

The indictment reads:

-no truth

-no mercy

-no knowledge of God in the land. 

  The word translated “truth” is literally “faithfulness”. This word is sometimes translated as truth, honesty, good faith, or trustworthiness.  So God is bluntly accusing Israel of having no faithfulness. 

Truth and mercy are often spoken of, as belonging to God. Truth takes in all that is right and to which God has bound Himself.

The next charge is that of no “hesed” or no loyalty love, loving kindness, or faithful love, or as it is translated ‘mercy’ or ‘kindness’.  Note the following comment.

 ‘Mercy’ has a wide meaning; it includes all love of one to another, a love issuing in acts. It includes loving-kindness, piety to parents, natural affection, forgiveness, tenderness, beneficence, mercy, goodness. The prophet, in declaring the absence of this grace, declares the absence of all included under it. Whatever could be comprised under love, whatever feelings are influenced by love, of that there was nothing. 

…truth, mercy, knowledge… These three virtues are connected, for  where the knowledge of God is discarded, truth and mercy are automatic casualties.  This is so because mercy and truth flows from and are manifestations of knowledge of God.

Note, knowledge of God is not merely an awareness of His nature and will. To know things of God, that is, understanding information or theories, or having even an acquaintanceship, is not to know God Himself.  

This word “know” implies intimate, personal relationship, deep personal involvement and interaction and as such is used in the Old Testament often to describe the spiritual and physical oneness of a husband and a wife, a knowing sexually, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. 

One must therefore have an experiential knowledge of his love, faithfulness and compassion and intimacy with God, which is more than just knowing ideas about him.  So David says in Psalm 139

“O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me…

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts”. 

This Psalm gives us an idea of what “to know” is all about.

Such knowledge not only produces fear of God, but also love and truthfulness towards brethren (Eph 4:32; Col 3:12). Jesus called these the weightier matters of the Law (Matt.23:23) and they were grave omissions from the moral and social fabric of the society. So it is those most important of duties that are in view. Where these righteous principles are wanting, injustice gains the upper hand and vicious practices sprout, as was the case in Israel. 

Paul’s words in Romans 1:21-31 fits the situation in Israel at this time.

…although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. …And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;  being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers,  backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,  undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving unmerciful;  

Josiah, one of the good kings of Judah’s concern for social justice was tied to his knowing God (Jer.22:15-16). In Old and New Testaments our relationships with people shows our relationship with God. It shows whether or not we “know” God.

Verse 2.   When there is no “knowing God”, heinous sins inevitably must follow.  There will be a complete breakdown in community life, the breaking of at least five of the Ten Commandments.  There will be no boundaries, rules or inhibitions. The list suggests a wanton abandonment of moral principles and a total lack of restraint and ties in with the previous verse. We have here a direct assault on the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and these sins pervaded the land among all classes of people. The corruption was universal in both geography and morals.   

swearing,... swearing or cursing means using or invoking God’s name, in a curse.  The people were clearly denouncing their fellows and wishing evil on them.  In addition, they had no intention of keeping oaths that they had made and by invoking God’s name into their transactions they were totally disrespecting God. 

These sins: lying, killing, stealing and committing adultery are very vivid and forceful in Hebrew and express the idea that they were continual and that nothing else (so to speak) was going on; it was all one scene of such sins. There was widespread dishonesty, lying, deceit in the justice system and in the marketplace.  Scales were rigged and there was no fairness in trade and commerce.  The level of stealing showed that the people did not think that an individual had any right to the material possessions that according to the covenant, God had given him. 

Adultery of course involved sexual impurity, jealousy and lust.  Families were being torn apart and the basic structure of the society was being eroded. No wonder murder was widespread; the usurping of God's authority over life.  Life itself ceased to have any value.  

…they break out, that is, they cross all bounds of reason, conscience and the divine law, (Job 36:9) as they gave place to unchecked evil. One writer explains ‘they break out’: i.e., burst through all bounds, set to restrain them, as a river bursts its banks and overspreads all things or sweeps all before it. 

…blood toucheth blood, murders were commonplace and appear to be in a series or succession, so there was no break. The situation was like falling dominos, back to back. It was in and around this time that there was so much blood shed in contending for the crown as we read of in

2 Kings. Murders occurred among the leaders and the people. This was the disintegration of society.  The Commandments of God had protected the people and restrained sin.  But now that these Commandments were ignored, violence escalated and the social fabric of the nation unravelled. 

Obviously when people ignore the Commandments of God, the Word of God, they are removing the restraint against sin and removing the protection that God has placed around His people. 

They would in addition be destroyed for lack of knowledge.  There would be judgment and they would perish.  Their priests would be rejected. Even worse, verse six warned them that since they had forgotten the law of God, He would also forget their children. 

It is frightening to think that when people and priests or leaders do the forbidden things, that they will inevitably begin to stumble and be dangerous to themselves and other people. Inevitably they all come to the place where God removes his resources and let them all go. What a tragedy not knowing God and being disobedient brings!

Chapter 7:1-2.

In this chapter the prophet continued to lay out specific charges against the people, particularly those of the nobility and priesthood. Such was the extent of their evil that they rebuffed God’s efforts to show them His gracious mercies.

The contrast here is between a God who is committed to the best interest of His people and wants to restore, versus a people who are in extreme decay, corruption and decline.

Verse 1. The entire society was ‘sick’ and their condition was dangerous and malignant. They were in wilful blindness and ignorance. Interestingly God makes it clear that he wanted to heal.  God was committed graciously to healing Israel, to show mercy to his people who were into self-destructive sin.  He wanted to reverse their immorality so that they would avoid its consequences. When He came to heal, His efforts to ‘heal’ only made their sins more evident and their sins continued unabated.

This now brings us to another aspect of God that we cannot ignore. God is committed to exposing or revealing sin. In addition, in the next verse, we see another aspect of God's nature, namely, that He is committed to paying close attention to the people and what they were doing; to come close to them, to see up close the full ugliness of their condition.

From His close-up view God first called them in 6:11 “my people”, the covenant name which spoke of commitment. Then He called them “Israel”, their national name given to Jacob, which should have reminded them of their identity and worth. Then He called them “Ephraim”, which means double fruitfulness, double effectiveness or richness, for this is what they should have been. Finally “Samaria” calling it the center of wickedness, where all the kings and princes and the élite ruled spiritually, economically, militarily, politically and immorally.

Note that if there is no response to the ‘light’ of God, the result is a deepening and impenetrable darkness. Apparently whatever healing methods God had employed, whether through the teaching of the prophets or through His own restoring discipline, they paid no heed but continued obstinately in their evil ways. Someone noted:

the disease prevailed against the remedy, and was irritated by it, so that the remedy served only to "lay open" the extent of its malignity, and to shew that there was worse in it, than did at first appear.  

…they commit falsehood, they were totally insincere in all spheres and activities of their lives, being completely immersed in deceit and falsehood. From top to bottom they were underhand in all their dealings both with God and man.  Night or day there was no break from their pillaging and robbery, it appeared to be a continuous state of anarchy, chaos and violence as a way of life. 

In the first three verses in this chapter there are different words used for the general as well as the specific wickedness, so that the people would understand clearly what God meant. 

The next word is used twice, and is the word for ‘deceit’, which is dishonesty toward oneself, God and other people.

Verse 2.  God tells them bluntly that he is well aware of what is going on.  Here we see the result of a seared conscience; they silenced the voice of their conscience and thus any awareness of their sins and guilt before God. Completely enmeshed and engrossed in their sin and rebellion against God they asked, What sin can we be possibly accused of doing? The people had passed beyond wilful blindness to being oblivious to their condition and the thought that God remember all their wickedness does not even cross their minds. We can better understand their condition if we keep in mind the fact that they had blotted out their knowledge of God, would not tolerate rebuke, reproof or instruction and opposed any that would dare to speak about God to them. 

The charges continue to be enumerated against Israel but note that  now Judah also comes under the indictment, for these sins are the basis of the controversy that God had with them. Specifically, fraud and injustice are cited, and Ephraim, in shocking behaviour, seems to justify their despicable activities.

Now the nation is described by the word Jacob. This description is used in this charge, for Jacob was deceitful and now just like him, they were following along the same road.

Verse 8.   Now Ephraim was expressing confidence that their wealth would protect them. They had used deceit and oppression to become wealthy and they had prospered.  Even though in the eyes of God they were spiritually and morally wicked, they thought that what they were doing was right.  To them their prosperity was a sign that they were doing no sin.

The unrepentant wicked will always seek to defend themselves and evade the convictions of the ‘word’, when told of their faults. 

‘Ephraim’ was accused of being a cheat and offered no denial or confession but rather sought to justify himself. Even if the prophet thought he was a cheat, that and its consequences were of little concern to him. What was important was that he had become rich. For many today, as back in the times of Hosea, material benefit and possession trumped all else and seems to justify all means to acquire such goods.

Ephraim’s (Israel's) attitude runs counter to the teaching of Scripture, for the things we acquire are entrusted to us by God. Every word in what Ephraim says here proclaims his folly. It is foolish to think that riches are things for our honour and to say proudly I have become rich. He must have been clever in concealing his embezzlement activity to have remained undetected and seemingly maintained a good reputation. Ephraim blended well into the climate of fraud and excused or overlooked his dishonest behaviour. It might have been acceptable iniquity, being what every one did but God sees different from men and his standards are different. Thus whatever God regards as sin He will judge.

Verse 9.   In this verse God holds out the promise of restoration. The phrase, from the land of Egypt alludes to all that God had been to them and for them, from the time he called Israel from Egypt, through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. First they would be humbled.  After that there would be whole centuries of blessings and they would once again see all the miracles in Egypt, His providence as in the wilderness under Moses and Joshua, and the victories over enemies.  

…dwell in tabernacles might refer to the Feast of Tabernacles, which was the yearly remembrance of God's miraculous guidance and support of Israel through the wilderness years. It was a reminder of their journey from Egypt to their entrance into their ‘rest’. The Feast of Tabernacles was also a yearly thanksgiving for the mercies with which God had crowned their year.  

The notice of the impending punishment carries a promise of future mercy. Note that God is the one who will yet make…The repentance which will precede this blessing will be initiated by God Himself. Clearly the mindset and behaviour of the people then will be radically different from the time of Hosea, for it will be as in the days of the solemn feast.     

CONCLUSION

This lesson should teach us that we cannot blame God for our sins.  God wants to heal and take us out of our misery.  He often comes to help in crisis but often we do not accept his instruction. When people in their heart want to be changed, God will come, in which case we should  then be prepared for him to discover our iniquities and our wickedness and like a surgeon probe our wounds, so that what is bad inside can be removed to ensure good health. 

When we are prosperous and things are going well, our wickedness tends to become flagrant and we become impudent and impenitent.  We grow proud and wanton and stop all attempts by God to cure us. It often takes trouble and deep distress to turn us to God. 

Through the prophet Hosea God brought a case against his people based on a long list of sins. Significantly it all started with their spiritual adultery in turning from God their ‘husband’ to Baal. There are more Baals today to seduce the child of God and Christians should check their fidelity with their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Sins must be dealt with or they remain on God’s ledger to be dealt with on the Day of Judgment. God sees through the cloaks of spirituality, so let us in all things retain, maintain and apply our knowledge of God, so the fruits of truth and mercy will be evident in our lives. 

Even in the midst of God's condemnation of Israel, there is a prediction of Israel's future restoration. Israel will come to know Yahweh, and He will give them plentiful crops and fertile herds and; …"I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they will say, 'You are my God!

(Hosea 2:23 NASB).