Category Archives: Hosea

Hosea 1:6,7

02 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in Hosea, Old Testament, THE WORD

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And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him:

“ Call her name Lo-Ruhamah,
For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel,
But I will utterly take them away.
Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah,
Will save them by the LORD their God,
And will not save them by bow,
Nor by sword or battle,
By horses or horsemen.” (Hosea 1:6,7 NKJV)

We are continuing on in the book of Hosea, and looking at couple of things in verses 6 and 7. After being blown away by the depth of verse 4 alone, I was literally bubbling over with excitement to look at what God had in store next, and I was not disappointed. As I read ahead about the next child bore to Hosea, Lo-Ruhamah (Meaning No-Mercy), the first thing that jumped out at me was Judah being shown mercy, and not Israel. Why was Judah benefitting from the mercy of God, and not Israel? That doesn’t seem fair, but I know that God is just, so there had to be an answer. Secondly, what does God mean when he says He “will save them by the LORD their God”? Again, a little research into the books of Kings and Chronicles would absolutely blow my mind.

First off, I wanted to know why Israel was being chastised, seemingly severely, by God via the Assyrians, and not Judah. I needed to understand that although the punishment recapped in 2 Kings 17 was indeed severe, the punishment was also completely called for and righteous. As it says in 2 Kings 17:7-8, “For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods, and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.” The people had forsaken the Lord even after all He had done for them, and after all the prophets He had sent them, such as Isaiah and Elijah. And although God takes no pleasure in death (Ezekiel 18:19-32, Matthew 23:37), they had refused to walk with God at every turn, therefore they had to be judged. Israel had every opportunity to turn from their sins, and God wanted them to come to him desperately, but they refused.

(Side Note: Such is the case with people today. God gives every person every opportunity to turn from their sins, and give their life to Jesus, but he does not force anyone to come to Him. We all have our desire fulfilled in the end: Either to be with God, or to be separated from Him for all eternity.)

So, what about Judah? Just a quick run through the scriptures will tell us they had sinned against the Lord as well, yet they were spared this judgement from God while Israel was not. Something was brought to my attention while I was reading through David Guzik’s commentary on Hosea that I had not thought about previously. The thought that caused me to pause and think was the definition of mercy. Mercy by definition is not earned. Guzik says, ” It does not really matter if Judah was more worthy of mercy than Israel was, because by its very nature mercy is mercy. If one deserves leniency, then leniency is a matter of justice, not mercy. Mercy is only shown to the guilty. Therefore it is within the wise and loving heart of God to show mercy to whom He will show mercy (Romans 9:15). But no one is ever unfair for not showing mercy.” So, really who am I to cry unfair when God is all-knowing, all-wise, knows exactly the best course of action to have the most people brought to Him, and execute perfect judgement. Just writing that makes me feel pretty silly for even questioning God, but that is the great thing about God; He wants us to get to know Him more and more, invites questions of Him, and even rewards those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Yet, there is something to Judah being spared in this situation. During the time of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Israel was perpetually ruled by kings that did not walk with the LORD their God, while Judah was somewhat hit or miss with kings that walked with God and those who did not. Their current prophecy of Hosea is going to take place at a time in which Judah was being ruled by one of the kings that walked with God: Hezekiah. I firmly believe that one of the reasons Judah was delivered was because when Judah was being besieged by the Assyrians, Hezekiah humbled himself and sought the Lord for help (2 Kings 18,19). More simply put, Judah was delivered because Hezekiah prayed. While Israel had been carried away by their unfaithfulness, Judah tore their clothes, covered themselves with Ashes (Ancient tradition symbolic for mourning and humility), went to the Lord, and prayed. This coupled with the arrogant boasting of the Assyrians against the God of Israel, and the abundant mercy of God leads to Israel being miraculously spared the judgement of God.

Now, as we move on to verse 7 of Hosea 1, we look at how God did in fact miraculously deliver Judah from the Assyrians. Remember God said through Hosea, “Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, “Will save them by the LORD their God, And will not save them by bow, Nor by sword or battle, By horses or horsemen.” To get a some perspective of the situation, the Assyrians had already taken most of the nations around Judah, including all of the northern tribes, the Babylonians, as well as all the fortified cities of Judah when they decided to besiege Jerusalem. Hezekiah had been so afraid of the Assyrians that 2 Kings 18:16 tells us, “At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.” So, Jerusalem is being besieged by the mighty Assyrians who even taunt the Judeans at the wall, and mock God’s ability to deliver them. Then after Hezekiah turns to the Lord and prays, God promises to deliver them, and soon after God does this as shown in 2 Kings 19:35-37, “And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.” (NKJV). This is the most amazing thing to me. God had promised to show mercy to Judah, and to deliver them, but not by any human means, and did so years before this event actually happened. Yet, the events described come to pass more accurately than ever could have been imagined! The worthiness, reliability, and accuracy of the Word of God is just amazing.

The main thing that all of this reinforces in me is that The Word of God is to be trusted in, and leaned upon in every situation, and at all times no matter what the circumstances around us are telling us. I know the Word of God is true, but when I test, and look into, the Word of God it just reinforces my faith, and brings the Word to an even more tangible place in my heart. So, I encourage everyone to dive in to the Word of God, to be passionate about getting to know God, and see just how amazing our Lord is.

May God bless you, and cause you to grow in His Word and love.

 -Cory

Hosea 1:4

25 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by in Hosea, Old Testament, THE WORD

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Then the LORD said to him:

     “ Call his name Jezreel, 
      For in a little while
      I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, 
      And bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” -Hosea 1:4 NKJV

I started the book of Hosea a while back, and the first time I read through the first chapter I understood that God was painting a picture. God is showing Israel’s spiritual harlotry through Hosea’s life, his wife, and his children.God commands Hosea to take a harlot for a wife, and the three children she bore’s to Hosea are all given symbolic names to help us understand how Israel had strayed, and what was going to happen to the Israelites. I was familiar with the book of Hosea, so I had a basic understanding of how the story, and the picture of Israel’s Harlotry, was going to look like. That was about all I knew, and expected to pick us some tidbits along the way as I read back through it. But there something was tugging at me (hello Holy Spirit), and bugging me about verse four. Why call the first child Jezreel, and why was the blood of Jezreel going to be avenged on Jehu? Didn’t Jehu do the Lord’s will by wiping out Ahab, Jezebel, and the worshippers of Baal? What did this verse mean?

First, I want to say that I am so glad that I asked these questions because if I had been content to just slosh my way through the book, and not looked into the why behind this verse, I never would have had one of the best times I’ve ever experienced in God’s Word. So, my first encouragement for you is to ask God “why?” when you come across something in God’s Word that you don’t understand, and be willing to look through the scriptures to find the answers. God will speak to you in the most amazing ways, and you will get know the God of the universe in such amazing ways it will blow your mind. The Word of God is so worthy of our time and investment. Right around the time I got saved a Pastor told me the simplest, but most profound, statement pertaining to your walk with Jesus Christ, (he even prefaced his statement with, “this sounds cliché, but it’s true”) “the more you put in, the more you get out.” So, get to know Jesus Christ better and more intimate than you ever thought possible. What else is there really?

Now, Back to Jezreel and Jehu. God says “I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu” What is Jezreel? I had to go back and look at 2 Kings 9 and 10 to get the answer because I couldn’t remember if Jezreel was a place or person, and I wanted to know what God was avenging. As I reread the story, I remembered that Jezreel was the city where Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard (1 Kings 21) that the King of Israel, Ahab, wanted for himself, but could not persuade Naboth to sell the field to him. The king’s wife Jezebel had Naboth killed by deceit, and took the field for Ahab. By the mouth of Elijah, God would prophesy to about Ahab, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours.” (1 Kings 21:19) Then, in reference to Jezebel “And concerning Jezebel the LORD also spoke, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’” (v. 26). So, we see there is going to be bloodshed in Jezreel, but why is God avenging this blood on the house of Jehu?

The reason I asked why is God punishing the house of Jehu is because wasn’t Jehu appointed by God to strike down the house of Ahab as he did? In 2 Kings 9:7-10 after Jehu is anointed king, God says “You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free. So I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah. The dogs shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.’” So, yes God did appoint Jehu do wipe our the house of Ahab, and Jehu would do just that with great zeal and fury. As you read on in 2 Kings you see that Jehu even cunningly gathers up all the idol worshippers of Baal and has them slaughtered with great Zeal. At first glance, the zeal of Jehu even seems to compare with the zeal of the great king Josiah, and that Jehu should be commended. In fact, God does commend Jehu in 2 Kings 10:30, And the LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in doing what is right in My sight, and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”  So again, why is the blood of Jezreel being avenged on the house of Jehu?

As I looked closer, there are two things that show us why God would repay Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel:

First, God called Jehu to wipe out all the house of Ahab. The meaning house refers to all the men in his family, and most likely all of Ahab’s sons, so that Ahab’s name would be cut off. So, Jehu would be completely justified, and even commendable, in killing all the men of Ahab’s family, but Jehu goes a step farther in his rage in 2 Kings 10:11. It reads, “So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his close acquaintances and his priests, until he left him none remaining.” The question is this: Did God tell Jehu to kill anyone besides the house of Ahab? The answer is no. Yet, Jehu shows us his heart in that he disregards the command of God, and fulfills his own rage by killing all the friends and priests of Ahab. God did not command Jehu do all that he did, and as the anointed of God, Jehu has an extra responsibility to represent God correctly with his actions, and he does not. Jehu misrepresents God in this situation in a way that reminds me of the way Moses misrepresents God when God tells Moses to speak to the rock, so that water would flow from the rock. Yet, Moses adds to the command of God by chastising the people, and then striking the rock twice, misrepresenting God (Numbers 20).  God cares about the disposition of our hearts towards Him, and Jehu did not love or revere God, but seemed to only care about following orders to get what he wanted: the kingdom.

The second detail that shows us why God judges Jehu is in 2 Kings 10:31, “But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart; for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin.” We see that Jehu’s heart truly did not belong to God. Jehu walked wickedly according to his own heart, and the wicked kings before him. So, even though Jehu was appointed to do the work of God, and did some commendable things before God, his heart was not for God, and therefore he was judged, and Israel was cut off while the house of Jehu was reigning.

We now see clearly how this little piece of scripture in Hosea 1:4 shows the amazing providence of God, as well as his amazing righteousness and perfection. Next time out, we will look ahead a couple of verses in Hosea, and focus more on the amazing accuracy of the Word of God, and why we should be absolutely passionate, and completely invested in the Word of God.

May God bless you, and grow you in His Word and in His love.

Cory