I’ve known a number of men over the years whose wives have left them. I remember one man who came home from work one day to discover his wife had had the removalists in and they’d taken everything apart from his personal belongings. I remember one man whose wife left him and his children for another woman. I remember another man whose wife had simply said she didn’t love him any more and so had moved out.
Each of these cases was different, but they all had one thing in common. In every case the man was left feeling powerless, impotent, at a loss as to what to do about it. As much as they may have wanted to get their wife back there was nothing they could do. It was too late. All they could do was grieve.
In this prophecy of Hosea we find a similar scenario. Hosea is told to marry a woman who has a lover, an adulteress. He’s told to do this to illustrate how God has experienced his relationship with the nation of Israel. But the great difference in God’s case is this: God isn’t powerless. He isn’t at a loss as to what to do about it. As he sees their unfaithfulness working itself out, he moves to the next stage in his plan for the salvation of the world. As we read in the previous section of Hosea 2, he first removes from her the blessings that she’s enjoyed as his special people, blessings, remember, that she’s attributed to the false gods of Canaan. He says he’ll block her in so she can’t get to her lovers. He’ll take away the plenty of the land. The land will become a wilderness as the people are removed from the place where God’s blessing is found and are taken into exile.
But having done that, God will then begin to act to win them back. He says "I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her." God is going to win her back by his charm, by his winsome character. He’s going to take her back to the place where their love was first discovered, to the wilderness. The idea is that he’s going to take her back to the place where they enjoyed a brief honeymoon, a short period of youthful enthusiasm for their new found love. To the desert where their relationship was cemented. And again he’ll offer her a promised land if only she’ll commit herself to him once more.
The Valley of Achor, which means ’Trouble’, was the place where Achan’s disobedience, in taking some of the silver and gold from Jericho (Josh 7:26), had been discovered. But that doorway to the promised land that had been such a shameful reminder to the Israelites was to be renamed. It was to become a door of hope. God’s forgiveness, you see, is such that he can transform our failings into a reminder of his grace, of his power to forgive, of his power to rebuild relationships.
You might never have thought about your failings like that. We tend to avoid thinking about our failings because we’re too ashamed of them or embarrassed by them. But when we live in the light of the grace of God, our failings, once we’ve repented of them, actually serve to remind us of the hope of the gospel, of the certain hope that no sin is too great for God to forgive. And so it would be for the people of Israel. The Valley of Trouble would become a Gateway to Hope.
But then we come to the crux of the matter. The problem with their worship of God was that it was too much tied up with the vineyards and the victories, it was too focussed on the land flowing with milk and honey. They’d missed the reality of what God was offering them. God didn’t just want their worship because of what they got from him. That’s the nature of most pagan worship; of the cargo cult. No, what he wanted was a personal relationship with his people.
So he says to them: "On that day, ... you will call me, "My husband," and no longer will you call me, "My Baal." Baal was used for an owner or a husband. But it was actually the word for ’lord.’ So when the Israelites first came to the land you can see there was some confusion among them when the locals worshipped Baal and they worshipped the LORD. That may explain to some degree their turning away from the worship of Yahweh to the worship of Baal and Asheroth. It’s reminiscent of what we hear so often today: people who say, "Surely we’re all praying to the same God. After all that’s who we all address our prayers to isn’t it?" Never mind that one is the God of Christians, the Living God and one is called Allah and the third is one of the Hindu pantheon of gods. The danger is that we go the way of the Israelites here. They ended up worshipping Baal the same way the Canaanites did, as the source of the fertility of the land and of their prosperity. What’s worse they followed the pagan practices of their neighbours while claiming that they were really worshipping the God of Israel. And so God says he’ll put an end to these superstitious beliefs. And he’ll win them back so that they no longer serve a remote provider of prosperity, but will have an ardent love for and fidelity to a God they know, a God they’ve learned to love with all their heart.
Then he describes the blessing that this new relationship will bring. It’s a picture of paradise isn’t it? A covenant with the animal world, reminiscent of the images in Isaiah of the last day when "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." (Is 11:6) And then there’ll be no more war: "I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land." And it’s a picture of everlasting life in God’s presence: "I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD." Notice how he repeats that phrase "I will take you for my wife" or "I will betroth you" three times, as if to say ’This is the heart of the matter, this is the thing I long for.’ There’s a sense of eagerness and desire and longing in the way he repeats himself. This isn’t the case of an aggrieved husband who takes his wife back grudgingly, knowing what she’s done, and carrying all that hurt inside him. These are the words of someone who’s starting out afresh. This is the start of a new life, of a brand new relationship.
Here the grace of God shines forth in all its glory. He’s wiped the slate clean. There’s no hint of retribution or accounting for past sins. All is made new. All that awaits is the betrothal ceremony. It’s no wonder Jesus used the metaphor of a wedding banquet to describe the last day, is it? Not to mention the image in Rev 21 of "the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." God’s relationship with his people is like a husband’s relationship with his young bride. And notice the description of the betrothal. It’s almost as though God is listing the betrothal gifts he’ll shower on his beloved: "19I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20I will take you for my wife in faithfulness." Not only will God forget our failings, he’ll bestow on us the things we lack: righteousness, justice, steadfast love, mercy, faithfulness. This is a marriage that will last because God will provide what’s needed to allow it to last.
And the result will be that we will know the Lord. As 1 Cor 13:12 says "now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." The image is of the intimate knowledge of a wife by her husband or of a husband by his wife. A time is coming when we will know God as personally, as fully, as he knows us.
One of the teenagers at our confirmation preparation last week, asked me the question, "were Adam and Eve able to see God?" Well, that’s the implication of Gen 3. Before the fall they were able to see God and know him because there was nothing to drive them apart. And on the last day, when we’re welcomed into his kingdom with that relationship again restored, we too will be able to speak to God face to face.
For the people of Israel the promise is complete restoration. The land will again provide all they need. They will again experience God’s care and compassion. They’ll again be called God’s people.
But first there’s still a way to go. God’s promise doesn’t imply that they’re there yet. First they need to understand how far they’ve fallen. The judgement of the first 2 chapters is still to be worked out. The people still need to understand just how rebellious they are. So Hosea is told to go again and marry a woman who has a lover. As if his first experience wasn’t bad enough, now he’s told to take her back, knowing that she persists in her unfaithfulness. He’s called to show an heroic love to this faithless woman. In facts you can see the depths to which Israel has fallen in the description in 3:1: "just as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes." It’s as though a few raisin cakes shared in their pagan ceremonies are worth more than all the love God has lavished on them. So too, Hosea’s love has been spurned but now he’s called to go and get her back. In fact he has to buy her back. Perhaps there’s an outstanding debt that she’s worked up. Perhaps he has to buy her back from the owner of the brothel in which she now works. Whatever it is there’s a feeling that he has to scrape the amount together. This is a costly undertaking. "So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine." Just how far she’s fallen can be seen by that one word, ’bought.’ She can no longer claim to be her own person. She’s sold herself to her new lord, to her Baal. And so it’s Hosea, acting out God’s part, who has to buy her back. And having bought her back she’s brought to realise her true position as he puts limits on her freedom to ensure she remains faithful to him.
This of course is a prophecy of the exile, when Israel is without a king, removed from the temple and from the guidance given by God through the high priest. This is to be a time when they learn again what it means to be God’s people. The removal of kings and sacrifices and ephod sounds at first like a bad thing. But then you realise that the Teraphim, and at times the ephod, were objects used by pagan soothsayers to divine the future. So it seems that what he’s saying is that this is a good thing. As we’ll see later on in ch6, they thought all that mattered was that they kept up the religious practices, the outward form of godliness. But what God wanted was inward righteousness. So he was going to remove all the outward vestiges of religion from them until they learned to turn to God with their hearts; until they turned again and sought the Lord and returned to God in awe and trembling.
But there’s more to this prophecy than even that isn’t there? Did you notice that interesting phrase in v5: "They shall return and seek the LORD their God, - and David their king." How will they seek David their King? This is a Messianic statement isn’t it? It’s a statement of great significance to the northern kingdom of Israel of course. David came from the tribe of Judah. Israel had rebelled against David’s descendants. Yet now they were being told that they’d again return to the king, of the house of David, that God would anoint to rule over the whole nation once more.
We know, don’t we, that that king was born in a stable in Bethlehem: Jesus, the son of David, and at the same time the Son of God. It puts v5 in a whole new light, doesn’t it. We might translate it something like this: "Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the LORD their God, and Jesus their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days." Well, those latter days began with the coming of Jesus and will be completed when he returns. But in the meantime his coming fills out even more of this prophecy of Hosea.
First of all, when we see the cost to Hosea of buying back his wife, we understand a little of what God is saying to his people. But it’s when we compare that to the great cost to God of buying us back that the message really hits home. For God the cost isn’t a bit of silver, a sack of barley and a cask of wine. No, for God the cost is the death of his only son. This is an overwhelmingly costly gesture of love, isn’t it?
But there’s more. It comes out in our reading from John 15 today. God says to Israel, from now on you will call me ’My Husband’ rather than ’My Baal.’ What does Jesus say to his disciples? "15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." Jesus incorporates in his own being the love of God, a love that deserves our faithfulness but that will never force it. A love that looks for the response of an equal, of a wife or a friend, never of a slave or a servant.
Let’s not get this wrong. Sometimes you may get the impression that God’s love is hard or cold; that he demands our obedience or else. That his love depends on how we relate to him. Well, he does expect us to be faithful. His standards of righteousness are exacting. But his love is never forced on anyone. In fact it’s the opposite. If we choose to turn away from his love in the end, he’ll let us. When the light appears in the world and people love darkness rather than light, What does he do? He lets them run away. But at the same time he sends messengers to those who have turned away pleading with them to return. With some he removes the blessing they’ve begun to take for granted so they’ll turn back to him. For some he sends someone like you or me to invite them to discover for themselves the great love he’s poured out on all peoples. For others he places the church in the world so people will see the way we love one another and will want to discover why.
God’s love is a powerful love. It’s a love that reaches out to us even while we’re being unfaithful. It’s a love that willingly pays the cost to win us back. But in the end it’s a love that must be taken up by those to whom it’s offered. Let’s make sure that we’ve accepted that love, that we’ve committed ourselves to being faithful to our loved one and that we’re seeking to show that love to others who also need to hear of it and experience it for themselves.
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