August 9, 2026 - Hosea 2

“Plead with your mother, plead . . .” (2:2).  Amazing!  After all Israel’s treachery and rejection of the Lord, still, through, his prophet, he pleads with Israel to turn.  But his response toward Israel is not in words only but also action.  He declares,

I will hedge up her way with thorns,

      and I will build a wall against her,

      so that she cannot find her paths.

She shall pursue her lovers

      but not overtake them,

      and she shall seek them

      but shall not find them.

Then she shall say,

      ‘I will go and return to my first husband,

      for it was better for me then than now’” (2:6-7).

The Lord cries out to his people.  He acts to discipline them.  His covenant stands!  He will not completely abandon them!  Again, what mercy and grace!  For us, toward us, what mercy and grace!

I cannot tell why he, whom angels worship,

should set his love upon the sons of men,

or why, as Shepherd, he should seek the wanderers,

to bring them back, they know not how or when.

But this I know, that he was born of Mary

when Bethl’em’s manger was his only home,

and that he lived at Nazareth and laboured,

and so the Saviour, Saviour of the world, is come.   -- W. Y. Fullerton (c. 1920)