Hosea 6: 1 – 11
What’s day is it?
1 Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. 3 Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth. 4 “O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away. 5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of My mouth; And your judgments are like light that goes forth. 6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7 “But like men they transgressed the covenant; There they dealt treacherously with Me. 8 Gilead is a city of evildoers and defiled with blood. 9 As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem; Surely they commit lewdness. 10 I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: There is the harlotry of Ephraim; Israel is defiled. 11 Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for you, when I return the captives of My people.
We see in 2 Peter 3:8, ...that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, we look at the correlation between the 7 days of creation and the 7000 years that God has appointed for earth to go through with its many trials and experiences. We can read in God’s Word the generations that are recorded in the early books of the Bible. We have an exact record of the years between the patriarchs, such as Enoch lived 65 years and begat Methuselah, and Methuselah lived 187 years and begat Lamech, and Lamech lived 182 years and begat Noah, and so on. By using this dating record, we find from Adam to Abraham a period of exactly 2000 years, or if you want to put it in God’s time, it could be looked at as 2 days.
When we figure the generations from Abraham to the birth of Christ, we find a period of exactly 2000 years, or 2 more days in God’s time.
From the birth of Christ till present day time, we have a period of 2020 (Roman Time) years, or 2 days in God’s time.
These three segments equal 6 days.
Our Holy Father God did this as reported in Genesis 2, “1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. (finished in 6 days) 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
Considering that we have the last time called out in God’s Word defined as the 1000-year millennial reign, this would conclude that God’s time for man would be 7000 years or in His timing 7 days.
Houston, we have a problem! What exactly is the correct year we are now living? Well you will probably answer within a month it will be 2020. You see up to the time of our Lord Jesus Christ time was measured on a 360-day calendar. So, if you do the math from our Lord Jesus’ birth and continue to calculate time based on 360 days then the year will be in the year 1992. So, we are at 5992 years since the beginning of our time on earth.
Now at first you might say that in just 8 years we will reach the 3rd segment or third day of 2000 years or the end of 6 days or 6000 years.
The prophet Hosea tells of the 2nd Coming of our Lord Jesus and this 2-day waiting period. Hosea 6:1, “COME, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up,” (please note that the verse says ‘in’ the third day. We have only 8 years left in this third day folks) and we shall live in his sight.
Verse 1 speaks of Christ healing and binding our wounds, and Verse 2 tells of his return to raise us up to heaven.
All throughout the holy scriptures, God, through his divine Word, gives us examples or pre-pictures of this 2-day period so that we can understand what he has planned for mankind. This started back with Moses, which was a type of Christ, wandering in the wilderness. The Lord commands Moses to tell the people to wash their clothes and sanctify themselves for two days. Then on the third day the Lord will come down. This is a picture of Christ coming back for his church in 2000 years after his ascension to the Father and bringing them back home as his Bride. We are to be washed in the blood Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross. In this manner, we will be sanctified and worthy to receive God’s salvation.
Exodus 19:10, “And the LORD said unto Moses, go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, 11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.”
When Jesus came to earth and began his ministry at the age of 30, the first public miracle Christ performed was to change water into wine at a wedding feast in Galilee. There were six water pots used for the purification ceremonies of the Jews. These were filled with water, and then the water was turned to wine. We can compare these six water pots to the 6000 years of man’s time on earth before Christ reigns.
John 2:1, “And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
6 And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.”
Verse 1 says on the third day we have a wedding feast, another example of the two-day waiting period and then on the third day, the Return of Christ’s.
In John 4 we see Jesus being weary, sits at the well of Jacob in Samaria and asks a woman for a drink. It is the sixth hour. This is another comparison to man’s time before Jesus returns. Jesus felt the need to go through Samaria to show his acceptance of the peoples outside of the Jewish nation. 4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days… 43 Now after two days he departed thence and went into Galilee. (The Jewish nation rejected Christ as the Messiah, but the Samaritans readily accepted him. Jesus explains why), 44 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honor in his own country. 45 Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast.”
Jesus continued after the two-day stay and came to Galilee where he had performed the miracle with the wine at the wedding feast. A nobleman asked for help for his sick son. Jesus tells him his son is healed. This miracle is done in the seventh hour, just as we will be healed in the seventh day, or seventh 1000-year period at the millennial reign with Christ.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. 52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. 53 So the father knew that it was the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
These examples are all for the 2 days, or 2000 years, after Christ’s death till the Return comes. Christ also shows an example of the 4000-year period, or 4 days, from Adam to Christ’s birth.
When Jesus was away beyond Jordan, which was a good distance for walking, Lazarus becomes sick. Jesus gets news of this sickness and says, John 11:3, Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. V.6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.
Then Jesus says, Let us go into Judaea again. He was in no hurry to get to Lazarus. Jesus knew Lazarus had died, but he also knew that there was a divine purpose that had to come to pass. That is why he allowed this to happen. 11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep… 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead…17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. This was to fulfill the 4 days, or 4000 years, that man has been on the earth up to this time. In the Jewish belief, when a man is in the grave three days, this is when his soul departs from the body. As Lazarus is in the grave four days, the people have no hope or understanding of a resurrection at this time.
As Martha cries to the Lord Jesus, if he had only been there, Jesus tried to explain. 23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Martha didn’t understand Jesus at this time. When Mary came to Jesus, she was crying and didn’t understand the divine purpose behind the delay in coming. Jesus couldn’t make them understand that he had to wait for the four days to fulfill God’s will. This troubled him in his spirit so much that, 35 Jesus wept.
In Verse 37 Jesus was troubled by the onlookers not understanding, and he groaned once again in his spirit because of their unbelief. 38, Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Finally, Jesus couldn’t take their lack of knowledge anymore, and he simply says, Take this stone away. After the stone was removed and Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out, the people then understand and see the fulfillment of the resurrection of Lazarus…43, And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, loose him, and let him go.
This fulfills God’s divine purpose for the four-day delay in Jesus coming to the aid of Lazarus. He shows the 4000-year, or 4-day, period fulfilled; and with the resurrection of Christ himself coming from his tomb, we see the Levitical law being shattered. When Christ said, Take the stone away, he was symbolizing the end of the law that man was bound to serve. When Jesus ascended from the earth to heaven to be with the Father, he brought all the old testament saints with him into the third heaven. This was symbolized when Lazarus walked from the grave.
We can see with the 4 days before Christ and the 2 days after Christ plus the 1-day millennial reign, that we have a completed "7".
From our study of the previous chapters the idea of Israel torn by a lion (5.14) and smitten by a wasting disease (5.13) would have lain heavy on Hosea’s heart, but as ever he does not see it as the end. For he knows that God must fulfil His promises to His people as so clearly described in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-29. Thus, he recognizes that at some future time, once the smiting is over, Israel must be restored. But he knows that it can only happen if they turn and seek God with all their hearts (5.15). And it can only happen once His judgments have been worked out.
Here then he makes a call for that restoration in response to his words in 5.15, as he visualizes Israel as awakening and calling on each other to return to YHWH Who will then heal them and bind them up. This return is pictured in terms of the arousing of a dead man within the traditional three-day period during which his spirit remains in his body. It is suggesting that on the first day they will repent and turn to YHWH, on the second day He will revive their hearts, and on the third day He will cause them to rise and live before Him. It is a picture of genuine spiritual restoration occurring in three stages, based on the thought of a literal raising from the dead of a corpse.
This ‘raising from the dead’ will result in their truly knowing YHWH once again and following on to know Him even more. For though they may at present be going through the dark night of unbelief, Hosea considers that the coming of light in their spiritual morning is as sure as the coming each day of the morning itself. And then God will again visit them, coming to them as the initial rains, and then as the latter rain which waters the earth (after the seed has been sown). The Spirit will fall on His people from above and they will be made ‘alive’ by the Spirit.
The initial fulfilment took place after the Babylonian exile when the remnants of the people gathered back to the land, joining those who had bravely remained there in the face of all the difficulties, followed no doubt by the arrival of many more as the news reached different areas of the successful re-establishment of ‘Israel’ in the land. And we certainly know of ‘revivals’ under Haggai and Zechariah, and then under Ezra and Nehemiah. The people of God were back in the land in repentance and faith and were enjoying the working of the Holy Spirit (Haggai 2.4-5; Zechariah 4.6). This would eventually result in the establishment of an independent kingdom which prospered and grew in readiness for the coming of Christ.
The second greater fulfilment may be seen in the coming of the King Himself, preceded by His herald. On ‘the first day’ the preaching of John the Baptist called the people to return to the Lord. On ‘the second day’ the people were revived under the ministry of Jesus as large numbers in Israel turned to their Messiah. And on ‘the third day’, after that crucial third day of the resurrection, His people were raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2.6) and commenced living their lives in the very presence of God. They had been transferred out of the tyranny of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, as those who had been forgiven and redeemed (Colossians 1.13-14). Thereby Israel had been renewed and reborn as the kingdom of the Messiah, as sure as morning followed night, and as certainly and as fruitfully as after the coming of the rain in preparation for harvest.
1 Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
The carcass torn by the Lion and smitten and diseased (5.13-14), is called on itself to ‘return’ (a favorite word of Hosea, 3.5; 7.10; 14.1-2) to YHWH in repentance and hope, with a view to their being ‘healed and bound up’ and ‘revived’ and ‘raised up’. Note the inner rhetorical words ‘torn -- heal -- smitten -- bound up.’ It is the smitten who are healed and the torn who are bound up. The picture is of God’s estranged people once more seeking His face and praying for full restoration. It occurred to some extent after the Babylonian exile (which had followed all the preceding exiles), and it occurred especially under the ministry of John the Baptist, and of course of Jesus Christ when a new Israel growing out of the old would be established (Matthew 2.15; 16.18).
2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.
The reference to ‘two days’ indicates that all will not occur instantly, even after their repentance. These are God’s days and therefore longer than those of men. But then YHWH will revive His people in readiness for the ‘third day’ when He will raise them up and restore them to full health so that they may begin to live before Him. The picture is of a man rising from the dead within the three-day period while the soul was still in the body. Israel is thus seen as ‘rising from the dead’. While partially fulfilled after the Exile, the greater fulfilment came, first through the teaching and ministry of Jesus (when indeed many were also literally healed and bound up), and then in the period after His death and resurrection, when He was raised on ‘the third day’, and a new Israel came to life, a believing Israel (in contrast with the old unbelieving Israel which was cut off (Romans 11.17, 20), and became as one of ‘the nations’ (Acts 4.25-27)), a new Israel which brought light to the Gentiles so that many responded and became a part of the new Israel (Galatians 3.29; 6.16; Ephesians 2.11-22; 1 Peter 2.10). It was an Israel raised up from the dead and living before Him in resurrection life.
In view of the fact that our Lord Jesus clearly saw Himself as the representative of Israel this was possibly one of the passages that He had in mind when He spoke of rising again on the third day, and which Paul had in mind when he spoke of ‘rising on the third day according to the Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15.4).
3 Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.
The second appeal is that they might again truly ‘know YHWH’ and go on knowing Him continually. This will be brought about by the activity of YHWH Whose going forth is as certain as the coming of morning after nightfall, and Who will come as fruit bearing rain that waters the earth (Isaiah 32.15; 44.1-5; 55.10-13). It is the latter rain that waters the sown seed and ensures that it becomes fruitful in the hot climate. So, YHWH’s promise is that He will act like rain upon His repentant people, a picture taken up and used by John the Baptist with all his references to grain and fruit growing in terms of the coming Spirit Who will be provided by the Coming One, ‘He will drench you with the Holy Spirit’.
Hosea continues to describe the condition in which Israel find themselves and rebukes their reliance on other things than YHWH. Conditions in Israel would appear to be politically much worse, and these words were therefore probably mainly spoken during the years of turmoil following the death of Menahem and his son Pekahiah, that is, during the reigns of Pekah and Hoshea. During this period there was an off-on relationship with Assyria which eventually caused the downfall of Pekah and the initial submission of Hoshea to Assyria, followed by his later turning to Egypt (and not to YHWH) in the hope of breaking free from Assyria’s yoke.
Hosea, in words of YHWH, now contrasts his future glowing picture of Israel’s restoration with the current situation in Israel and Judah. Judah is now firmly included with Israel in the condemnation. This may well have been because many Judeans had attended the feasts at Bethel and fully participated in them, bringing home to Hosea the fact that while the worship at the Temple continued seemingly satisfactorily (until the time of Ahaz), the hearts of much of Judah were like the hearts of the people of Israel.
The contrasts with verses 1-3 should be noted. Whereas in verse 3 YHWH’s coming work was as sure as the morning dawned after night time, here morning will for the current Ephraim and Judah be a false dawn in that like the morning mist and the dew their supposed covenant love quickly disappears. That is why, instead of mercy, YHWH’s judgment will at present come on them as the sun which goes forth, because to Him response to the covenant and a true heart knowledge of God was more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices, and they have not yet repented. It is a warning to us today lest our worship too become an empty ritual.
4 “O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away.
We can see in this the cry of a father’s heart for his children. God is, as it were, in despair at what to do with them because He loves them so much while they are unwilling to listen to what He says. He feels that He has tried everything. We can see those attempts for ourselves, starting from the deliverance from slavery in Egypt, moving through the conquest and the deliverances under the Judges, and coming to Samuel, David, Solomon and the prophets, and the ups and downs which followed, before finally attaining the prosperous times under Uzziah and Jeremiah II, followed by the threat of the Assyrians. During that past they have again and again professed covenant love (obedience and response to the covenant in loving worship), but sadly it has always proved to be like a morning mist and like the dew, which, when the sun arises, which rapidly evaporate and disappear. It has never lasted for any great length of time. The morning mist and dew were common sights in Israel, and provided vital moisture outside the rainy season, and all knew how quickly they dissolved before the morning sun.
So, in contrast to the sure work which, once they had repented, YHWH would do as sure as morning came after night time (verse 3), where the morning was a picture of certainty, here the coming of morning is simply a picture of how quickly their love and faithfulness has disappeared. Furthermore, in contrast with the latter rains from God which would water the earth and make if fruitful (verse 3), the behavior of Israel and Judah was like a rapidly disappearing morning mist.
5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of My mouth; And your judgments are like light that goes forth.
It was because of this shallowness revealed in their attitudes that God had in the past sent His prophets to ‘hew them down’ like trees falling before the lumberjacks. And because of that same shallowness He had slain them with the words of His mouth, both by making them shudder before Him and by His word of power bringing disasters upon them.
For it had been necessary for Him in the past, having provided His covenant with its demanding stipulations, to send His fiery prophets to seek to apply that covenant permanently to the people, but now He wanted them to know that, as their own history demonstrated, His efforts had failed. And it left Him not knowing what He could do next. Of course, as He will go on to point out, He did know, for things had reached a situation where the only solution was devastation and exile. So, by bringing out the past by these words the current situation in Israel was relating to the failures of that past.
YHWH now points out that because of their failure in covenant faithfulness and covenant love He is about to send forth His judgment which will come on them in the same way as the sun (or the morning light) causes the night to disappear. Like their covenant love, they themselves will soon ‘go early away’. Unlike the morning mist the sun (or period of light) lasts throughout the day, an indication of the certainty of God’s purposes.
6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
The reason for God’s judgment on Israel and Judah is now explained. It will be because their religion has been both false and formal. It was true that they were continually offering sacrifices and burnt offerings, even doing it in the name of YHWH, but they were doing it on the basis that they were, as it were, engaged in a kind of bargain. Their idea was that they played their part in offering their gifts and the gods were then expected to play theirs by sending the rain and causing the earth to be fruitful, regardless of how the ‘worshippers’ behaved. Each scratched the back of the other. But YHWH is pointing out that He is not just ‘one of the gods. He is not so limited. He Is the living God Who requires covenant love, resulting in obedience to His moral and religious requirements (both of which were being ignored), rather than sacrifices used simply as a formal bargaining counter. Sacrifices were, of course acceptable to Him when presented in the right way and from the right motive, for He Himself had ordained them. But they were not acceptable if they were not offered by those whose hearts were full of love and obedience, for that was indeed the whole point of them, as Samuel had previously made clear (1 Samuel 15, 22 - 23, “So Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.”).
Furthermore, He required that they come to a true knowledge and awareness of Himself, without which burnt offerings were pointless. Dedicatory offerings were meaningless unless they were presented to One Whom they knew in their own spiritual experience, and to Whom they rendered obedience based on that knowledge. For if they truly knew God they would not allow social injustice, nor would they engage in false sacrifices in cultic centers and at shrines on the mountains. It was the final explanation as to why there could be nothing but judgment in the short term.
The sinfulness of Israel is now exposed commencing from Gilead (6.8), and moving through Shechem (6.9) to Samaria (7.1). They are revealed as covenant breakers (seen as a gross sin in those days) and murderers (6.7 - 8), their priests are exposed as murderers, highway robbers and perpetrators of ‘mischief or ‘heinous crime’ (6.8), the house of Israel is found to be guilty of ‘whoredom’, both literal and spiritual, and Samaria is described as a place of ‘wickedness’ where falsehood abounds, theft is commonplace, and bandits await any who leave the city. But what they overlook is that YHWH remembers all their wickedness, and that what they do so gathers round them as a spectacle that it is openly apparent before the face of YHWH.
And this occurs despite YHWH’s desire to restore them (6.11b-7.1a), a desire which proves futile because it only helps to reveal their sinfulness. Judah also are warned in a brief aside that they too have a harvest of judgment to reap.
7 “But like men they transgressed the covenant; There they dealt treacherously with Me. 8 Gilead is a city of evildoers and defiled with blood.
An example of the breach of covenant is then given with reference to the city Gilead. This may have been Ramoth-gilead, or the Gat-gilead. It is described as a city where there was much iniquity and where murder was).
9 As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priest’s murder on the way to Shechem; Surely, they commit lewdness. 10 I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: There is the harlotry of Ephraim; Israel is defiled.
Just as Gilead was a city of blood, so was Shechem. But even worse in this case was that, (if we take it literally), the blood was being shed by priests who were acting as bandits. They (or their appointees) would wait in the road that led to Shechem and murder people for their possessions. The word translated ‘mischief’ can mean a heinous crime.
However, the comparison ‘as troops of robbers wait for a man’ may suggest that we are to see the reference to the priests’ activities as to be interpreted with the idea being that by their activities as priests of the false cult they are ‘murdering men’. This would tie in well with the words that follow, where the activities of the false cult are certainly in mind.
The general use of the phrase by Hosea is to refer to the people of Israel, in which case the crime of which they are guilty is both spiritual and literal whoredom by engaging in the activities of the false cult. The horror with which this was looked on comes out in the description of it as a ‘horrible thing’. It left Israel/Ephraim totally defiled.
11 Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for you, when I return the captives of My people.
In a quick change of tack Hosea turns on Judah. If many Judeans were attending the cult festival at which he was speaking these words, this might be perfectly natural, for while Judah was not specifically in his sights he might well have wanted to give them a warning shot. And so, he declares to them that God has also prepared a harvest for them. They too will reap what they are sowing.
