Hosea 3
“And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.” (Hosea 3:1-5)
For many of us who have God in our box of what He can and cannot do, Hosea should be an eye opener to this truth stated to Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 55:8,9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” You would never ask your son to pick a promiscuous woman for a wife, but that is what God ask Hosea His prophet to do. And once she had married Hosea she sought out other lovers and even left Hosea for them, but once more God instructed Hosea to buy her back and to be faithful to her. Was it that God did not love Hosea, I can only imagine the humiliation he suffered and yet He knew this was bigger than him, for it was a picture of God as the husband of Israel His wife. And yes, Israel was watching but much like the man in our day that God calls to stand on a public sidewalk and tell all who pass by the gospel message of redemption, they paid little attention, as those who walked by with little or no hope. Another thought came into my mind, neither you nor I would have asked our son to die for a people who you knew would reject and kill him, but God did!
I read right by this fact, God did not refer to Gomer as your unfaithful wife but called her woman, she had broken the marriage covenant and was living with another man. She had no claim on Hosea, just as Israel had broken its covenant with God and had no claim on Him. My study Bible tells me that “Raisin cakes” were apparently used in Canaanite religious rites, possibly as an aphrodisiac. With its four uses of the word “love,” this verse graphically depicts the foolishness of Israel’s attitude toward God. Their relationship was best portrayed by “a marriage that is to all appearances senseless and grotesque.” (A. Richardson)
A time in the future where Israel will enter into a “New Covenant” is told of in Hosea, in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and in chapter 32:40-41, and also Ezekiel 36:26-27, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
Gene A. Getz has this insight on the verses above; “There seems, then to be an important difference between God’s future new covenant relationship with the children of Israel and His present new covenant relationship with us as members of the body of Christ. Though we are born again by God’s Spirit, we can still “walk according to the flesh” rather than “according to the Spirit”. (Romans 8:4;cp. Galatians 5:16-23). However, when God ultimately restores Israel and transforms their hearts by His Holy Spirit, it appears they will keep God’s laws perfectly.”
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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