In my Old Testament class, we just finished a unit on the prophets. During that unit, I had the privilege of reading Hosea. Now, I did my own personal study on the minor prophets a while ago, and by far, Hosea is my favorite. I think it may well be my favorite book in the whole Bible, and this is primarily because of Chapter 2. Thus, I wish to post may favorite selections of Chapter 2. Here, God is using the metaphor of husband and wife to show the outworking of his relationship with Israel: God is the husband and his wife is Israel. When Israel worships other deities (in this case, the Baals), God considers it adultery, but when they worship him, it is consummation. This parallels to the rest of the church today, so count yourself in the reciept of these words if you have been seized upon by the gospel of God.

CONTEXT: God has just called the prophet Hosea to act out God’s feelings towards Israel by marrying a prostitute and then sending her away after she cheats on him, just as God has done with Israel it this point. Just sense the passion God has as he says these things. The following are selections from Hosea 2. For the full text, click here:

Plead with your mother, plead–
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband–
that she put away her whoring from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts.
Upon her children I will have no mercy,
because they are children of whoredom.
For their mother has played the whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers.”
Therefore 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.’
And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
which they used for Baal.

Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
‘These are my wages,
which my lovers have given me.’
I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals
when she burned offerings to them
and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, declares the LORD.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of trouble a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.

And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on those I called ‘No Mercy’,
and I will say to those called ‘Not My People’, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'”

**Some punctuation and preposotions have been changed for continuity.

–paul<