Bridezilla
Hosea 1:2-10
I am old enough to remember the old Godzilla movies about a reptilian who liked to destroy cities and such. This fit in the genre of terror movies such as King Kong and Destroy all Monsters. Words were coined with the “zilla” ending to describe someone whose actions were monstrous. One of these coined terms was “Bridezilla” which could be termed as the bride from hell itself. Today, we will meet such a “bridezilla” in the Book of Hosea. Please open your Bibles and let us read Hosea 1:2-10 together.
There are many times we have heard said: “God would never ask me to do such a thing?” How could God ever do such a thing? We think of Abraham saying such a question to the LORD when in the context of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Surely you will not destroy the righteous with the wicked” and "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:23-25). We all have expectations of how God should act, and anything which runs contrary to our opinions must be wrong. But we must remember that God is God and we are not. We are not to substitute our ideas of our righteousness for what God calls righteous.
We come to one of these difficult passages. God comes to the prophet Hosea and commands him to marry a prostitute. The expectation in olden times was that a man, especially a prophet, would marry a virgin. God expects the same on the part of the man also, but culture seems to wink at this. One always knows who one’s mother is. But when there is unfaithfulness before and within the covenant of marriage, one can not be sure of who the father is. Today, with DNA testing, we can answer which man begat the child. But not then. The idea of covenant faithfulness before and in marriage is blessed by God and is His expectation of us. We disobey this understanding at our own peril and loss. So why does God command Hosea to marry such a woman who was unfaithful before and afterward?
When some people reflect on God and His character, they turn God into Godzilla in their thinking as though God is capricious and responsible for monstrous evil. Such a thought should cause immediate revulsion in the person’s heart. God is good, just, merciful, and holy. We confess such. This is why we are so troubled here. Perhaps what we need to do is examine the story in its historical context.
Hosea lived in a time when the Northern Kingdom of Israel had not yet been taken into captivity by the Assyrians, which God had told them would be their punishment for their apostacy. The Northern Kingdom which was centered in Samaria was continuously faithless to Yahweh, the Lord who had called them out of Egyptian bondage. Yahweh wanted Israel for his faithful bride. But Israel worshiped other gods as well. So did the southern kingdom of Judah. The faithlessness of Israel angered God. We who think that “God is love” think it beneath God to get angry. Yet the Bible clearly teaches that God becomes angry, and when He does, the expression of His anger is justified. Jesus got angry before He drove the moneychangers out of the Temple. It is wishful thinking to think that God is only kind and indulgent. But God is who He says He is in Scripture. There will be judgment. It is true that God is love. The Bible says so. But God is also Holy. In Hebrew thinking, instead of using comparative adjectives, big, bigger and biggest or the use of more and most, they simply repeat the word. The word “love is not repeated. We can see in the passage “God shall keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon thee that the Hebrew "Shalom” is repeated which has the idea of “more peaceful.” (Isaiah 26:3). Only one word is repeated three times in the Old Testament, and that is the word “Holy” in Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6:3. One should also note that in the New Testament book of Revelation, the word “woe” is thrice repeated (Revelation 8:13) which is used to describe the extreme severity of the judgment of the earth and its inhabitants. So what is most characteristic about God is not His love, but His holiness. And the holiness of God is expressed by his judgment. God would have been just to have simply destroyed Israel for her unfaithfulness. He would have been just to have destroyed Adam and Eve as well. In light of this, what hope could we have?
The point that Yahweh is making when he commands Hosea to marry a harlot is to point out the unfaithfulness of both Israel and Judah. Considering all that Yahweh had done for them, their behavior is truly shocking. Instead of pointing a finger at God, they needed to point the finger at themselves. God had shown great grace in calling Israel to be her bride. But just as Gomer was not faithful to Hosea and soon went after other lovers, Israel had become faithless to the marriage with Yahweh. the amazing thing is that Hosea took Gomer back. He redeemed her. This tells us that Yahweh would redeem Israel in spite of her failures and faithlessness.
The names of the children which Gomer bore to Hosea have symbolic meanings. The first child was named Jezreel which translates roughly in English as “The LORD make fruitful.” Jezreel as a valley in the Northern Kingdom of Israel known a place where Jehu massacred the children of Ahab to cut off the seed of Ahab and Jezebel. Later on, Jehu would also be cut off. So the name “Jezreel” is ironic. Hosea’s next child was a daughter named “Lo-Ruhamah” which means “not pitied.” Israel would not be pitied and would be cut off. However, her sister, Judah, would continue. The LORD would have pity on Judah and personally deliver her from the hands of Sennacherib without Judah’s help.
Hosea and Gomer had a third child, a son named “Lo-Ammi” which means “Not my People.” What the LORD is saying is that He is not the father of this child and takes no responsibility for it.This was utterly scandalous, as it made the child illegitimate. This does not mean that Hosea did not take care of his son, but the symbolism here is that Israel was no longer Yahweh’s people. This is because of her idolatry. Her real father was the gods of the heathen which he resembled. This judgment upon Israel would be catastrophic. Israel would be taken captive by the Assyrians and lose her identity. And soon, this would become the case in what we call “The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.” Some of these lost people were mixed into the Samaritans, but most have disappeared from human history, but not from God.
Yahweh promises to reunite Judah and Israel in the future. She who had been disowned as being part of God’s people would again be gathered. Jezreel would again become a fruitful land. The question we must ask is who are these scattered Israelites whom God was to regather?
Paul cites Hosea in Romans to indicate that the Gentiles which were not God’s people would become God’s people. The rejection of Israel for a season would become the means of including them. Some might think that Paul is stretching things here in that it appears that the inclusion would be the exiled kingdom of Israel which would again regain their identity. But is one looks at this, we should realize that there exiles intermarried among the nations of the earth. the word “Gentile” means “nation.” The children of such marriages would be ethnically mixed between Israelites and other nations by race. Through several thousand years and over 100 generations, the seed of these Israelites would be represented in all of the nations of the earth. Statistically speaking, virtually everyone alive today is a descendant of Abraham through Jacob. what is needed is to restore the identity as God’s people. One should also notice that Gentile blood was mixed into the line of Judah. Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, for example, were Gentiles. So, here is no such thing as a pure blooded Jew or Gentile. So being a child of God has to be reckoned in a different way, by being called of God and believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what makes a person a true Israelite.
Hosea, whose name is similar to “Yeshua” (Jesus) means “God saves.” He points to our LORD Jesus who would come and bear the punishment for our unfaithfulness and sins. He is the means by which we are pitied and transformed into His people. It should utterly amaze us that God so loved us that He gave us His son as an atonement. there is none worthy to be called “My People.” We were all Gomers. But not by faith in Jesus we have become children of the living God.
Now that we have been redeemed and call God “Our Father,” it behooves us to live lives which reflect the faithfulness and mercy of God. There should be a resemblance between us and God. This is a spiritual resemblance. When people see us, do they see “Christ in us, the hope of glory?” Having been cleansed by His grace, this is no time to chase other lovers. We need to diligently remind each other of this. As we have been shown pity, let us offer the pity of God to those who are not yet his people. We must be willing to witness to some very unsavory people.
Let us stive to be a faithful bride and not a Bridezilla.
