Hosea 1

Friday, July 31, 2009

Read the passage here.

I started by reading the passage online at BibleGateway.com in 3 versions, for a little comparision: The Message, New Living Translation, and NIV. It makes for an interesting comparison. I’m not a fan of The Message personally, but I accept that it can provide a new way to look at the passage. I also went to Bible.org and found this: http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=925 which is a link to “An Introduction to the Book of Hosea” that provides background information, along with a section titled “Purposes For the Book.” This may be an interesting way to look at the book, by seeing if and how it aligns itself with its purposes.

So I’ll begin with some thoughts on the first heading -“Hosea’s wife and children.”

I find it interesting when the idea of “prophet” doesn’t align with my traditional thinking. What’s funny is that after looking it up in the dictionary, only one of seven definitions is the “person who fortells or predicts what is to come.” Other definitions make more sense defining the prophets, especially the type of prophecy Hosea was charged to do, like “a person who speaks for God, ” “inspired to utter special revaltions” or “a spokesperson of a cause or doctrine.” Here I find that Hosea is definitely supposed to be speaking for God, and I find it interesting that God first spoke himself to his people, then moved onto prophets, then spoke thru Christ and now doesn’t seem to “speak” at all (aside from the spirit being called inside of us). I wonder if God were to choose a spokesperson nowadays, if we’d even know, or cast this person aside as another cult leader or nut job. But back to discussing Hosea.

One of the reasons I like looking at different versions (especially when they are so accessible on the internet) is passages like 1:2. Here are the different verses.
The Message:

2 The first time God spoke to Hosea he said:
"Find a whore and marry her.
Make this whore the mother of your children.
And here's why: This whole country
has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, God."

New Living Translation:

2 When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute,[b] so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.”

And NIV:

2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD."

In the NIV version, “Children of Unfaithfulness” hints at what is explicitly stated in the NLT, and not at all in The Message. Not only is Hosea marrying a prostitute, she will continue to prostitute during her marriage, and producing children that may not be his. I think this detail is important, especially when considering the Lord is saying that Israel is guilty of the “vilest adultery in departing from the Lord (NIV)” because it has turned “against the Lord [by] worshipping other Gods (NLT).” I think all these translations together paint a very vivid image of how the Lord has been betrayed and disrespected by his people (That‘s probably why He did it - He‘s good like that :P ). However, in the intro of my study bible, it says a few things of note:
1) there is debate of whether or not this first story of Hosea marrying a prostitute is symbolic or true, and
2) some scholars believe that Gomer was faithful at first, and later became unfaithful, while others believe that she was always unfaithful.

As a side note, Gomer is an unfortunate name for a woman.

So they have three children, a son who is named Jezreel for murders committed at Jezreel, and the Lord, in all three versions, clearly states that Israel’s military power will come to an end as punishment for what King Jehu did at Jezreel. But when I went back to figure out what had been done, it looks like the Lord had ordered him to destory Ahab’s line, and he did. In fact, in the NIV version, it even says : The LORD said to Jehu,

"Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation."

(2 Kings 10:30). It also says that Jehu was not good at keeping the law of the Lord, but massacre specifically mentioned was commanded of Jehu by the Lord through Elijah. (Originally, in 1 Kings, the Lord was going to kill Ahab, and his family for the sins of Ahab, but Ahab repented, so the Lord spared Ahab, and decided he would punish his family later on down the line) So why are the descendants of Jehu punished now? Maybe I am missing something…

Next came Lo-Ruhamah, which means “not loved” although The Message calls her “No Mercy,” both are attempts to show that the Lord’s mercy and love would be withheld from Israel, but not Judah. An interesting note here is that all versions state that Goram gave Hosea a son, Jezreel, but then only states that she became pregnant with the other two. That, along with verse 2:4 (“I will not show my love to her children, because they are children of adultery”) suggests that Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi were both children of other men, as a result of her prostitution (which may also be why some scholars believe that Gomar was faithful at the beginning, but unfaithful later). Lo-Ammi means “not my people” or “Nobody” in The Message, to indicated the Lord stating to Israel that “I am not your God (NIV).”

So the Lord’s message in all, to the people of Israel is “I will take away your power, I do not love you anymore, and you are not my people.” Ouch.

The Purposes, in the Bible.org introduction to Hosea, state:

A. To call Israel and Judah to repentance in Yahweh, the God of loyal love
Here, I don’t think that repentance has been “required” or demanded of Israel yet.
B. To reveal the faithlessness of the nation toward their covenant with Yahweh
This one is clearly obvious, in the allegory of Hosea’s marriage to Gomer, and their children.
C. To indict the nation of its lack of knowledge, loyal love, and faithfulness
This too, I think is represented, as Israel is indicted in the naming of the children.

After the children are born, the Lord begins by saying “Yet…” which, according to the NIV study bible, means that “the threatened punishment would be only for a limited time.” I really like the NLT of these last two verses, I think they spell out intent more clearly than the NIV version:

10 “Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore—too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’ 11 Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be—the day of Jezreel[d]—when God will again plant his people in his land.

So despite the Lord’s judgement that Israel will not be loved or be God’s people, the Lord reassures them that their ways will change and they will once again be loved in the eyes God. I think this is a statement of God’s anger and mercy in one. If you consider the Father figure that to which the Lord is compared, its as if he is grounding the nation of Israel for their sins.