August 5, 2023 - Hosea 1-3

“In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel” (1:1). These were not good days for the northern kingdom. As Gomer had committed adultery against Hosea, so the nation had spurned the Lord, and he commanded the prophet, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” (1:2). Gomer’s betrayal of her husband is a picture of Israel’s betrayal of her God. Though the nation was warned by the Lord – “lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst” (2:3) – he instructed Hosea, “Say to your brothers, ‘You are my people,’ and to your sisters, ‘You have received mercy’” (2:1).

Though she chases after her lovers (2:5), the Lord says, “I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths” (2:6). When he disciplines the people thusly, “Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now’” (2:7). I am reminded of the prodigal son and how he reached the same conclusion, i.e., “I was better off before; I will return” – “When he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father’” (Luke 15:17-18). How foolish to turn from the one who has given us life but how sweet when we return to our God!

There for me the Savior stands,

shows His wounds and spreads His hands.

God is love! I know, I feel;

Jesus weeps, but loves me still!

Now incline me to repent,

let me now my fall lament;

now my foul revolt deplore!

weep, believe, and sin no more. –John Wesley (1740)