“When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, 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, “Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 “On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” 6 Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. 7 “But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and deliver them by the LORD their God, and will not deliver them by bow, sword, battle, horses or horsemen.” 8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. 9 And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God.”
It may sound like a strange thing to say about a story that begins with all the cheeriness of a root canal performed with a pocket knife, but the book of Hosea is about love and redemption and restoration.
One commentator called it the ‘second best story in the Bible’.
This is a story about a God who loves His people so much, that every time He has to expose their sin and declare the calamity that is to befall them; that indeed He is about to bring upon them; He follows it quickly with promises to save them and restore them to Himself. He can’t stand to utter harsh words, even though they are well-deserved, and let it go at that. His deep love for them compels Him to offer hope.
In fact, it is in the instructions He gives to Hosea the prophet that He reveals His own heart toward His adulterous people; then…and now.
DID HE REALLY SAY THAT?
The first thing we ought to get settled, just in case anyone has difficulty accepting the assertion of verse 2, is whether God really did give Hosea such a command.
There have been many commentators, and although I haven’t read his stuff, John Calvin is reportedly among them, who have denied that this could have been an actual marriage; that a holy God would not instruct His prophet to actually enter into a marriage relationship with a prostitute.
So, as with all the other difficult passages of scripture that men like to cut a swath around if they can, there have been numerous speculations about this passage, men trying to reconcile God’s Word with their personal and cultural sensitivities, instead of just saying, ‘thus says the Lord’ and teaching it.
“Oh, it’s really just a vision. It’s symbolic.”
“No, no, it’s real, but she was a good woman when they got married and only turned unfaithful later.”
“No, I think she wrongfully participated in an ancient Canaanite premarital sexual ritual in preparation for marriage and that’s what this means…”
One commentator actually began his introduction saying that Hosea wanted to marry a harlot named Gomer and God allowed it but warned him she would break his heart. Do you see that in verse 2? I do not.
Y’know what? Hosea 1:2 says, “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord’.” That’s all.
We live in an age, - and I think this has always been a focus that Satan has desired to turn mankind to, so it’s not really anything new- when happiness and success are the only ways to define blessing. We don’t want to think that a ‘good God’ would lead us into danger or discomfort or difficulty of any kind; and we certainly do not equate these things with ultimate blessing.
This is backwards, sinful, selfish thinking and as long as staying warmed and cheered and comforted is our primary goal we will never grow spiritually, we can never be used to accomplish Kingdom work and bring glory to God, indeed, we can never really know Him at all.
I was recently reading some of Tozer’s works and came across the following gem.
"If we lived in a spiritual utopia where every wind blew toward heaven and every man was a friend of God, we Christians could take everything for granted, counting on the new life within us to cause us to do the will of God without effort and more or less unconsciously.
Unfortunately we have opposing us the lusts of the flesh, the attractions of the world and the temptations of the devil. These complicate our lives and require us often to make determined moral decisions on the side of Christ and His commandments.
It is the crisis that forces us to take a stand for or against. The patriot may be loyal to his country for half a lifetime without giving much thought to it, but let an unfriendly power solicit him to turn traitor and he will quickly spurn its overtures. His patriotism will be brought out into the open for everyone to see.
So it is in the Christian life. When the ’south wind blew softly’ (Acts 27:13), the ship that carried Paul sailed smoothly enough and no one on board knew who Paul was or how much strength of character lay hidden behind that rather plain exterior. But when the mighty tempest, Euroclydon, burst upon them Paul’s greatness was soon the talk of everyone on the ship. The apostle, though himself a prisoner, quite literally took command of the vessel, made decisions and issued orders that meant life or death to the people. And I think the crisis brought to a head something in Paul that had not previously been clear even to him. Beautiful theory was quickly crystallized into hard fact when the tempest struck."
That Incredible Christian, a collection of essays by A.W. Tozer, chapter "Love’s Final Test’, Christian Pub 1964
It is amazing, if you think about it, that we can maintain within ourselves the fantasy that if all is going well that means God is pleased with us, and when trouble comes we’re either doing something wrong or God is otherwise angry with us.
The testimony of the entire Bible and history itself is that through testing and trials and crisis and tragedy men and women of God grow stronger in faith and hope and, well, to keep it simple, eventually qualify for the sort of witness from God that we find in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, even in that wonderful parenthesis of verse 38, ‘(men of whom the world was not worthy)’.
Think of our best example; Jesus. He must have been full of Godly joy for there was no sin nature for the enemy to appeal to in order to steal it away. Yet the Bible says He was a ‘man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’, Isa 53:3 and He said of Himself that He had no place to lay His head.
Jesus walked through this world, confronted every day from every one around Him with the sin He came to conquer. He was despised and rejected by the very ones He came to call to life. And the Bible says that the cross itself represented the joy of perfectly accomplishing that which the Father sent Him to do. Not worldly comforts, not worldly acclaim, but completion of the Father’s will, not counting the cost.
When true believers, walking by faith, endure the sufferings and the disappointments and the physical pains and life-tragedies that the Father sends their way, the end is joy and blessing. Always.
Hosea was told to marry a harlot; to love her, to provide for her even in her rebellion, to protect her even when she deliberately put herself in harm’s way, to remain ever willing to welcome her back with open arms and a heart of love when she finally found repentance, because Gomer represented an adulterous nation and an idolatrous people, and Hosea, whose name means ‘salvation’, was to represent to those people the God who loved them and wanted them back.
If God would take to Himself such an adulterous bride as they were, as we often are, and love her and protect her and provide for her and implore her to return in repentance and know His love, why would He not require His faithful prophet to do the same as a message to an unfaithful nation; a wandering people?
James Montgomery Boice answers this way.
“If Hosea’s story cannot be real (because ‘God could not ask a man to marry an unfaithful woman’’), then neither is the story of salvation real, because that is precisely what Christ has done for us. He has purchased us for himself to be a bride ‘without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Eph 5:27), and he has done this even though he knew in advance that we would often prove faithless.” THE MINOR PROPHETS Vol 1, Boice, Baker Books 1983
JEZREEL, LO-RUHAMA, LO-AMMI
“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, “Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 “On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”
Here is the story behind what God is saying to Hosea.
In 1 Kings 21 we find the story of Naboth and his vineyard, located in the valley of Jezreel, which means ‘scattered’.
The vineyard was next to the palace and King Ahab decided he wanted it. So he made Naboth an offer for the vineyard, but since it was land that was inherited from his father Naboth did not want to sell.
So Ahab went back to his palace and sulked like a spoiled child, and when Queen Jezebel saw him she asked why he was so downcast. When Ahab told her that Naboth had refused to sell him the plot of land, Jezebel ordered the elders of that city to set up a dinner with Naboth as the honored guest, and hire two thugs to falsely accuse Naboth of cursing God and the king.
This was done and as a result Naboth was stoned to death, and Ahab then took possession of Naboth’s land.
In response to this God spoke through His prophet Elijah and predicted the kind of death Ahab and Jezebel would suffer and announced that the house of Ahab would be cut off from the land of Israel. This came to pass when Jehu rose up and slaughtered hundreds of Ahab’s family in the valley of Jezreel.
Now although Jehu was fulfilling the decree of God it was also an evil act that had to be punished, and in verse 4 of our text that is what God is talking about.
A second application of what He is prophesying through Hosea is that because of the nation’s adultery he will scatter her people and put an end to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Thus the command to name Hosea’s son Jezreel, to signify the scattering that is soon to take place.
“Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them.” Vs 6
‘Lo’ means not or no. Ruhamah means ‘pitied’ or ‘loved’. Through the second child God declares to Israel that He will no longer pity or care for her. Does this seem to contradict all the things the Bible says about a God of love and compassion and mercy?
Not at all.
“Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.” Ps 103:13 That is just one of the very many passages of scripture that declare God’s unending love and compassion.
But whether a nation or an individual consistently turns its back on God and rejects His compassion and His love and mercy, He must remain true to His own nature and withhold His pity from them so they might learn to turn back to Him.
“When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God.” Vss 8-9 Lo-Ammi means ‘not My people’.
What a horrific thing to hear from the God of all Creation!
Men and women, in their bold, vicious sinfulness declare with upper lip curled in a haughty sneer that they don’t care for God; that they don’t believe in Him; that even if He exists they have no desire to have any part of Him. They do not know what eternal horrors await them.
If they knew Him, if they had a sense of who He is and His holiness and majesty and power and authority and the immensity of His love, they would fall to their knees weeping just to think of hearing from Him these chilling words; “You are not My people, and I am not your God”!
What does it say about the depths to which the children of Israel had sunk in their hearts, when they could hear this declaration through the prophet of God and not be driven to repentance in sackcloth and ashes?
And how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation by once more playing the harlot with the world and worldliness and going back to the things which once held us in darkness, after our Hosea; our ‘salvation’; paid such a precious price to purchase us as His bride?
I wonder, at this point, if anyone is remembering what I said in my opening statement, about this book being a story of love and redemption and restoration. Because right now, it’s sounding like anything but those things, isn’t it?
But the thing we have to realize is that sin blinds and deafens. Sin dulls sensitivities and befuddles the mind.
Therefore before there can be healing and restoration there sometimes has to be a pushing away; a rude awakening. The prodigal had to go the way he insisted and find himself starving and unloved.
The immoral man in the Corinthian church 1 Cor 5 having an adulterous relationship with his father’s wife had to find himself disassociated with the brethren and left on his own to hopefully come to his senses.
Saul had to find himself blinded and alone among those he had sought to harm for several days so he could think things through and spend some time in repentant prayer.
Israel, after many years of spiritual adultery, blinded and deafened and desensitized to the yearning of her spiritual husband had to find herself uprooted and carried away; scattered, unloved, without God, so that when He finally reclaims her she will be prepared to turn back to Him.
Hear chapter 3 verse 5.
“Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days.”
RESTORATION PROMISED
Spiritual truth does not change from one age to the next or one culture to the next or even one dispensation to the next.
Christians, you must understand that you cannot sit smugly and tell yourself that you have never worshiped idols or given lip service to God and gone and played the harlot with the spirit of this world.
When you have taken the abounding love of Jesus Christ for granted and followed at a distance in less than absolute obedience haven’t you done as Gomer?
When you’ve quenched the moving of His Spirit in your life by ignoring His voice and seeking comfort instead haven’t you done as Gomer?
When you have had opportunity to honor the name of the Lord in a Christ-hating world but have kept silent so that you might not lose the approval of men haven’t you done as Gomer, and haven’t you been less than the spotless and wrinkle-free bride He deserves?
And when we see a person of the church fall hard into sin and suffer the consequences we say, “Oh, the Lord is dealing with him (or her) and we will pray for that person and they will eventually repent and return, perhaps after suffering hardship in the sanctification process”.
But how many Christians, to the eyes of flesh walking in obedience and keeping their nose clean, willing to announce gladly that they are a Christian, are weak and dry spiritually because they have consistently ignored God’s specific call. How many are really playing the harlot spiritually because in their heart of hearts they yearn for the things of this material world more than for closeness to Christ?
How many, due to years and years of ignoring His Word and shutting out His voice are really, in ignorance, worshiping a god of their own manufacturing because ease and apathy were the goals their eyes rested on as they ran?
Do you sense any of these things applying to you? Are you a Christ-follower yet you have for a long time felt ‘dry’ and weak and as though you wander spiritually and have no sense of direction?
I have good news for you, because this first chapter of Hosea has two more verses.
“Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered; and in the place where it is said to them, “You are not My people,” It will be said to them, “You are the sons of the living God.” 11 And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together, And they will appoint for themselves one leader, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.”
In a sudden change of tone, and written in verse as though God has broken into song, He declares that Israel will once more enjoy a relationship with the Living God and they will be restored to the Promised Land.
He repeats His promise to Abraham that the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, and then He changes some names.
Where once they were scattered, they will be once more brought together.
Jezreel has two meanings in the Hebrew. One is ‘scattered’, the other is ‘planted’. So where God has announced that for their adultery they will be scattered, He now promises that in the end God will plant them once more in the land.
Then we have to go to the first verse of chapter 2 for the rest.
“Say to your brothers, “Ammi,” and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.”
No longer ‘not-pitied’, no longer ‘not your God’, but ‘pitied’, or ‘loved’, and ‘the people of God’.
Christian you can be encouraged today. No matter how you have been feeling; whether you have been ‘down’ spiritually, feeling abandoned, or just weary and wondering when God will change your circumstances and send you some relief…
God has made these same promises in the New Testament and He has said them to you.
“…you were at (one) time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Eph 2:12
But now “…you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” Eph 2:19-20
And:
“…you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.” 1 Pet 2:9-10
And:
“As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” Rom 9:25-26
He’s talking about you, believer, and He calls you ‘sons of the living God’. He calls you, ‘My people’.
Your acceptance with Him is not based on your merit, but on Christ’s accomplished work. If you need to repent of little acts of adultery, if you need to confess to niggling little idols of the heart, be assured that He is closer to you than a whisper, and He can purge those things from you faster than lightning because of you He says, ‘Planted. Loved. My people.
By the way; do you know what Gomer means? ‘Complete’.
9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; (Col 2:9-10)
