Old Testament for August 7, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Isaiah is one of the most prominent prophets in the Old Testament.  The book of Isaiah is sometimes called the “Fifth Gospel” because it is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than any other Old Testament book.

Isaiah’s years of active prophetic ministry stretch from the death of King Uzziah, around 740 B.C., to the reign of Hezekiah, which ended in 687 B.C.

There is evidence that Isaiah was related through his father Amoz to the royal house of Judah, which would explain his residence in Jerusalem and his proximity to the court.

However, if any such relationship existed, it didn’t prevent Isaiah from speaking forthrightly to the kings about issues of social justice and injustice, and God’s judgment.

In today’s lectionary Scripture selection, he is taking the current administration to task, and he doesn’t pull any punches.  He demands that they listen to the word of the Lord, and calls them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah!

This reference to the two cities destroyed in the time of Abraham and Lot is serious.  The sexual sins and cruel inhospitality of their citizens were punished with “extreme prejudice” — they were totally annihilated (Genesis 19).  Only Lot and his two daughters were spared.

What is the nature of Judah’s crimes?  God is fed up with their insincere worship, sacrifices, festivals, Sabbaths, and empty prayers:

    I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.

Instead, he calls upon them to purify themselves not merely by washing, but by reforming their actions:

cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Ritual worship without moral reform and social justice for the oppressed and the most vulnerable among them is futile.

Nevertheless, God is eager for Judah to encounter him and to work through what it means to truly belong to him.  The language that he uses is like that of a judicial court proceeding:

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:

However, there is the clear offer of mercy even for a people compared to Sodom and Gomorrah:

though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

Isaiah has already accused them of having their hands bathed in the blood of their victims — this is why their sins are scarlet and crimson. Still, God’s grace is able to wash away the bloodstains of sin.

Isaiah offers them two choices — blessing or curse:

If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

This was no idle threat. In Isaiah’s time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was already experiencing the beginning of judgment at the hand of Imperial Assyria.  Eventually, Israel was conquered in 721 B.C.  And by 700 B.C., the Assyrians invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and even besieged Jerusalem.  Although the Assyrians did not destroy Judah, they were a constant threat.

APPLY:  

One of the constant refrains from the prophets and the Psalmists is that worship without justice and sincerity is empty.  The height of hypocrisy is to worship on the Sabbath and then oppress the poor, cheat others in the marketplace, and engage in sin of any kind.

The goal of worship is not merely ritual righteousness, but right relationship with God.  And right relationship with God must be grounded in true holiness of heart and life.

God’s appeal to us is transformative.  The NRSV translation suggests God wants to argue with us, as though we are in court. Older translations, like the RSV, offer a gentler perspective:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

The implication is that it is not the blood sacrifices of the temple that will wash away the scarlet sins that stain our hands, but a God who wishes to penetrate our very hearts and minds with his lovingkindness.

RESPOND: 

I am an amateur student of the American Civil War.  I have ancestors who fought and shed blood for the Confederacy.  I understand the importance of not judging the choices of one’s ancestors by modern standards.

However, as Abraham Lincoln once said:

If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.

In my opinion, the injustice and oppression of slavery received its due penalty in the bloodbath of a terrible war.  The “Original Sin” of our Founding Fathers was expiated in blood. Isaiah might have said to them:

…if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

In the times in which we live, when racial tensions and inequality still exist, we must also hear the Lord say to us:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

Lord, may my worship and my works be in harmony. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Isaiah 1:17” by Lisa Hall-Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for July 31, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Hosea 11:1-11
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This prophetic oracle from Hosea captures God’s deep sense of ambivalence about Israel.  The Lord loves Israel as a father loves a child; and yet, Israel has estranged itself from the Lord by worshiping other gods.

The Lord begins by focusing on the salvation history of Israel, with the bondage of Israel in Egypt.  In one brief sentence, he sums up his fatherly relationship with Israel:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

This deep parental love increases the sense of grief that God expresses at the puzzling behavior of Israel:

The more I called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.

In vivid imagery, God describes his relationship with Israel in terms that a grieving parent might use when remembering the childhood of his rebellious offspring.  His language is tender and caring:

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

But this isn’t mere nostalgia, or a parent reminiscing over a family photo album.  This is a warning to the child that he loves.  He warns Israel that their behavior will return them to bondage in Egypt, and to the new imperial power of Hosea’s time — Assyria.

He warns that the sword will consume cities and also the oracle-priests who are devouring the people by their plots.  The oracle-priests were the false priests who used magic incantations and consulted idols to offer guidance to King Jeroboam II and his people.

Curiously, Israel pursues a kind of “both/and” policy in their religious practices.  They consult these oracle-priests and worship their Baals, but they also call upon the Most High, who is the Lord.  But the Lord doesn’t heed their call.

Still, the Lord’s attitude toward his Israel is like that of a father who grieves over a wayward child. In a passage filled with pathos, he cries out:

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.

Admah and Zeboiim were cities that were destroyed as part of the collateral destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Part of the warning to the people of Israel in the days of Moses 500 years earlier included stern admonitions against idolatry, and used these cities as an example of divine judgment (Deuteronomy 29:21-29).

And yet, God’s love for Israel still burns so warmly that he is reluctant to enact this warning against them:

I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

Ephraim, of course, was one of the two sons of Joseph; and Ephraim became one of the tribes of Israel. In this context, Ephraim is a synonym for Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

God expresses his patient mercy by declaring that he is God and no mortal and won’t come in wrath.  But if there is any doubt of his power, he describes himself with a mighty metaphor:

They shall go after the Lord,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.

 They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.

The fact is that Israel will be exiled.  But the roar of the Lord will summon them back home from their places of exile.  The father will welcome the prodigal child home again.

APPLY:  

While there are many metaphors and images that are used in Scripture to describe the relationship between God and his people, none is more powerful and more intimate than Hosea’s description that God is a loving father who cherishes his children.  The people of God are God’s family.

However, this image also brings with it deep feelings of regret and even grief.  Just as Israel was loved, taught to walk with God, and cherished as a father cherishes a young child, so have we all been loved by God.

And just as Israel rebelled against their Father, and worshiped their own pleasure and sought alternate sources of power, so have almost all of us who are honest with ourselves.

The parable Jesus tells of the two sons and their father in Luke 15 seems almost a commentary on Hosea 11.  Except it is not only the  “prodigal” son who leaves his father’s house — the “dutiful” older son refuses to enter the house because of his jealousy and pride.  I say that whatever separates a person from God is sin — whether it is carnal sin and profligacy, or self-righteous pride.

The bad news in this passage from Hosea is that there are consequences for our departure from God.

The good news is God, like the father in Jesus’ parable, is always ready and eager to welcome us back.

RESPOND: 

This passage has a two-edged blade.  On the one hand, I’ve been the parent who loved and grieved a child who was going through a rebellious phase.  I can identify with God’s self-description of tenderness and affection — and with God’s deep grief at feelings of rejection.  I do rejoice that for me those relationships are healed and hopeful.

But on the other hand, I’ve also been the rebellious, self-willed, self-seeking child who sought happiness and fulfillment outside of God.  And it grieves me to have caused my heavenly Father such sorrow.  I am so grateful that he has given me ample opportunity to repent and return to him.

Lord, your love for your children is infinite.  Thank you that you never give up on us, though we may turn away from you.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Hosea 11:8-9” by Sapphire Dream Photography is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for August 11, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Isaiah is one of the most prominent prophets in the Old Testament.  The book of Isaiah is sometimes called the “Fifth Gospel” because it is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than any other Old Testament book.

Isaiah’s years of active prophetic ministry stretch from the death of King Uzziah, around 740 B.C., to the reign of Hezekiah, which ended in 687 B.C.

There is evidence that Isaiah was related through his father Amoz to the royal house of Judah, which would explain his residence in Jerusalem and his proximity to the court.

However, if any such relationship existed, it didn’t prevent Isaiah from speaking forthrightly to the kings about issues of social justice and injustice, and God’s judgment.

In today’s lectionary Scripture selection, he is taking the current administration to task, and he doesn’t pull any punches.  He demands that they listen to the word of the Lord, and calls them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah!

This reference to the two cities destroyed in the time of Abraham and Lot is serious.  The sexual sins and cruel inhospitality of their citizens were punished with “extreme prejudice” — they were totally annihilated (Genesis 19).  Only Lot and his two daughters were spared.

What is the nature of Judah’s crimes?  God is fed up with their insincere worship, sacrifices,  festivals,  Sabbaths, and empty prayers:

    I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.

Instead, he calls upon them to purify themselves not merely by washing, but by reforming their actions:

cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Ritual worship without moral reform and social justice for the oppressed and the most vulnerable among them is futile.

Nevertheless, God is eager for Judah to encounter him and to work through what it means to truly belong to him.  The language that he uses is like that of a judicial court proceeding:

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:

However, there is the clear offer of mercy even for a people compared to Sodom and Gomorrah:

though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

Isaiah has already accused them of having their hands bathed in the blood of their victims — this is why their sins are scarlet and crimson. Still, God’s grace is able to wash away the bloodstains of sin.

Isaiah offers them two choices — blessing or curse:

If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

This was no idle threat. In Isaiah’s time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was already experiencing the beginning of judgment at the hand of Imperial Assyria.  Eventually, Israel was conquered in 721 B.C.  And by 700 B.C., the Assyrians invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and even besieged Jerusalem.  Although the Assyrians did not destroy Judah, they were a constant threat.

APPLY:  

One of the constant refrains from the prophets and the Psalmists is that worship without justice and sincerity is empty.  The height of hypocrisy is to worship on the Sabbath and then oppress the poor, cheat others in the marketplace, and engage in sin of any kind.

The goal of worship is not merely ritual righteousness, but right relationship with God.  And right relationship with God must be grounded in true holiness of heart and life.

God’s appeal to us is transformative.  The NRSV translation suggests God wants to argue with us, as though we are in court. Older translations, like the RSV, offer a gentler perspective:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

The implication is that it is not the blood sacrifices of the temple that will wash away the scarlet sins that stain our hands, but a God who wishes to penetrate our very hearts and minds with his lovingkindness.

RESPOND: 

I am an amateur student of the American Civil War.  I have ancestors who fought and shed blood for the Confederacy.  I understand the importance of not judging the choices of one’s ancestors by modern standards.

However, as Abraham Lincoln once said:

If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.

In my opinion, the injustice and oppression of slavery received its due penalty in the bloodbath of a terrible war.  The “Original Sin” of our Founding Fathers was expiated in blood. Isaiah might have said to them:

…if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

In the times in which we live, when racial tensions and inequality still exist, we must also hear the Lord say to us:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

Lord, may my worship and my works be in harmony. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Isaiah 1:17” by Lisa Hall-Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for August 4, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Hosea 11:1-11
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This prophetic oracle from Hosea captures God’s deep sense of ambivalence about Israel.  The Lord loves Israel as a father loves a child; and yet, Israel has estranged itself from the Lord by worshiping other gods.

The Lord begins by focusing on the salvation history of Israel, with the bondage of Israel in Egypt.  In one brief sentence, he sums up his fatherly relationship with Israel:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

This deep parental love increases the sense of grief that God expresses at the puzzling behavior of Israel:

The more I  called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.

In vivid imagery, God describes his relationship with Israel in terms that a grieving parent might use when remembering the childhood of his rebellious offspring.  His language is tender and caring:

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my  arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

But this isn’t mere nostalgia, or a parent reminiscing over a family photo album.  This is a warning to the child that he loves.  He warns Israel that their behavior will return them to bondage in Egypt, and to the new imperial power of Hosea’s time — Assyria.

He warns that the sword will consume cities and also the oracle-priests who are devouring the people by their plots.  The oracle-priests were the false priests who used magic incantations and consulted idols to offer guidance to King Jeroboam II and his people.

Curiously, Israel pursues a kind of  “both/and” policy in their religious practices.  They consult these oracle-priests and worship their Baals, but they also call upon the Most High, who is the Lord.  But the Lord doesn’t heed their call.

Still, the Lord’s attitude toward his Israel is like that of a father who grieves over a wayward child. In a passage filled with pathos, he cries out:

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.

Admah and Zeboiim were cities that were destroyed as part of the collateral destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Part of the warning to the people of Israel in the days of Moses 500 years earlier included stern admonitions against idolatry, and used these cities as an example of divine judgment (Deuteronomy 29:21-29).

And yet, God’s love for Israel still burns so warmly that he is reluctant to enact this warning against them:

I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

Ephraim, of course, was one of the two sons of Joseph;  and Ephraim became one of the tribes of Israel. In this context, Ephraim is a synonym for Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

God expresses his patient mercy by declaring that he is God and no mortal and won’t come in wrath.  But if there is any doubt of his power, he describes himself with a mighty metaphor:

They shall go after the Lord,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.

 They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.

The fact is that Israel will be exiled.  But the roar of the Lord will summon them back home from their places of exile.  The father will welcome the prodigal child home again.

APPLY:  

While there are many metaphors and images that are used in Scripture to describe the relationship between God and his people, none is more powerful and more intimate than Hosea’s description that God is a loving father who cherishes his children.  The people of God are God’s family.

However, this image also brings with it deep feelings of regret and even grief.  Just as Israel was loved, taught to walk with God, and cherished as a father cherishes a young child, so have we all been loved by God.

And just as Israel rebelled against their Father, and worshiped their own pleasure and sought alternate sources of power, so have almost all of us who are honest with ourselves.

The parable Jesus tells of the two sons and their father in Luke 15 seems almost a commentary on Hosea 11.  Except it is not only the  “prodigal” son who leaves his father’s house — the “dutiful” older son refuses to enter the house because of his jealousy and pride.  I say that whatever separates a person from God is sin — whether it is carnal sin and profligacy, or self-righteous pride.

The bad news in this passage from Hosea is that there are consequences for our departure from God.

The good news is God, like the father in Jesus’ parable, is always ready and eager to welcome us back.

RESPOND: 

This passage has a two-edged blade.  On the one hand, I’ve been the parent who loved and grieved a child who was going through a rebellious phase.  I can identify with God’s self-description of tenderness and affection — and with God’s deep grief at feelings of rejection.  I do rejoice that for me those relationships are healed and hopeful.

But on the other hand, I’ve also been the rebellious, self-willed, self-seeking child who sought happiness and fulfillment outside of God.  And it grieves me to have caused my heavenly Father such sorrow.  I am so grateful that he has given me ample opportunity to repent and return to him.

Lord, your love for your children is infinite.  Thank you that you never give up on us, though we may turn away from you.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Hosea 11:8-9” by Sapphire Dream Photography is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for August 7, 2016

Start with Scripture:

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Isaiah is one of the most prominent prophets in the Old Testament.  The book of Isaiah is sometimes called the “Fifth Gospel” because it is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than any other Old Testament book.

Isaiah’s years of active prophetic ministry stretch from the death of King Uzziah, around 740 B.C., to the reign of Hezekiah, which ended in 687 B.C.

There is evidence that Isaiah was related through his father Amoz to the royal house of Judah, which would explain his residence in Jerusalem and his proximity to the court.

However, if any such relationship existed, it didn’t prevent Isaiah from speaking forthrightly to the kings about issues of social justice and injustice, and God’s judgment.

In today’s lectionary Scripture selection, he is taking the current administration to task, and he doesn’t pull any punches.  He demands that they listen to the word of the Lord, and calls them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah!

This reference to the two cities destroyed in the time of Abraham and Lot is serious.  The sexual sins and cruel inhospitality of their citizens were punished with “extreme prejudice” — they were totally annihilated (Genesis 19).  Only Lot and his two daughters were spared.

What is the nature of Judah’s crimes?  God is fed up with their insincere worship, sacrifices,  festivals,  Sabbaths, and empty prayers:

    I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.

Instead, he calls upon them to purify themselves not merely by washing, but by reforming their actions:

cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Ritual worship without moral reform and social justice for the oppressed and the most vulnerable among them is futile.

Nevertheless, God is eager for Judah to encounter him and to work through what it means to truly belong to him.  The language that he uses is like that of a judicial court proceeding:

 Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:

However, there is the clear offer of mercy even for a people compared to Sodom and Gomorrah:

though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

Isaiah has already accused them of having their hands bathed in the blood of their victims — this is why their sins are scarlet and crimson. Still, God’s grace is able to wash away the bloodstains of sin.

Isaiah offers them two choices — blessing or curse:

If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

This was no idle threat. In Isaiah’s time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was already experiencing the beginning of judgment at the hand of Imperial Assyria.  Eventually, Israel was conquered in 721 B.C.  And by 700 B.C., the Assyrians invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and even besieged Jerusalem.  Although the Assyrians did not destroy Judah, they were a constant threat.

APPLY:  

One of the constant refrains from the prophets and the Psalmists is that worship without justice and sincerity is empty.  The height of hypocrisy is to worship on the Sabbath and then oppress the poor, cheat others in the marketplace, and engage in sin of any kind.

The goal of worship is not merely ritual righteousness, but right relationship with God.  And right relationship with God must be grounded in true holiness of heart and life.

God’s appeal to us is transformative.  The NRSV translation suggests God wants to argue with us, as though we are in court. Older translations, like the RSV, offer a gentler perspective:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

The implication is that it is not the blood sacrifices of the temple that will wash away the scarlet sins that stain our hands, but a God who wishes to penetrate our very hearts and minds with his lovingkindness.

RESPOND: 

I am an amateur student of the American Civil War.  I have ancestors who fought and shed blood for the Confederacy.  I understand the importance of not judging the choices of one’s ancestors by modern standards.

However, as Abraham Lincoln once said:

If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.

In my opinion, the injustice and oppression of slavery received its due penalty in the bloodbath of a terrible war.  The “Original Sin” of our Founding Fathers was expiated in blood. Isaiah might have said to them:

…if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

In the times in which we live, when racial tensions and inequality still exist, we must also hear the Lord say to us:

Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord (Isaiah 1:18).

Lord, may my worship and my works be in harmony. Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Isaiah 1:17” by Lisa Hall-Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for July 31, 2016

Start with Scripture:

Hosea 11:1-11

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This prophetic oracle from Hosea captures God’s deep sense of ambivalence about Israel.  The Lord loves Israel as a father loves a child; and yet, Israel has estranged itself from the Lord by worshiping other gods.

The Lord begins by focusing on the salvation history of Israel, with the bondage of Israel in Egypt.  In one brief sentence, he sums up his fatherly relationship with Israel:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

This deep parental love increases the sense of grief that God expresses at the puzzling behavior of Israel:

The more I  called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.

In vivid imagery, God describes his relationship with Israel in terms that a grieving parent might use when remembering the childhood of his rebellious offspring.  His language is tender and caring:

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my  arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

But this isn’t mere nostalgia, or a parent reminiscing over a family photo album.  This is a warning to the child that he loves.  He warns Israel that their behavior will return them to bondage in Egypt, and to the new imperial power of Hosea’s time — Assyria.

He warns that the sword will consume cities and also the oracle-priests who are devouring the people by their plots.  The oracle-priests were the false priests who used magic incantations and consulted idols to offer guidance to King Jeroboam II and his people.

Curiously, Israel pursues a kind of  “both/and” policy in their religious practices.  They consult these oracle-priests and worship their Baals, but they also call upon the Most High, who is the Lord.  But the Lord doesn’t heed their call.

Still, the Lord’s attitude toward his Israel is like that of a father who grieves over a wayward child. In a passage filled with pathos, he cries out:

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.

Admah and Zeboiim were cities that were destroyed as part of the collateral destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Part of the warning to the people of Israel in the days of Moses 500 years earlier included stern admonitions against idolatry, and used these cities as an example of divine judgment (Deuteronomy 29:21-29).

And yet, God’s love for Israel still burns so warmly that he is reluctant to enact this warning against them:

I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

Ephraim, of course, was one of the two sons of Joseph;  and Ephraim became one of the tribes of Israel. In this context, Ephraim is a synonym for Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

God expresses his patient mercy by declaring that he is God and no mortal and won’t come in wrath.  But if there is any doubt of his power, he describes himself with a mighty metaphor:

They shall go after the Lord,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.

 They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.

The fact is that Israel will be exiled.  But the roar of the Lord will summon them back home from their places of exile.  The father will welcome the prodigal child home again.

APPLY:  

While there are many metaphors and images that are used in Scripture to describe the relationship between God and his people, none is more powerful and more intimate than Hosea’s description that God is a loving father who cherishes his children.  The people of God are God’s family.

However, this image also brings with it deep feelings of regret and even grief.  Just as Israel was loved, taught to walk with God, and cherished as a father cherishes a young child, so have we all been loved by God.

And just as Israel rebelled against their Father, and worshiped their own pleasure and sought alternate sources of power, so have almost all of us who are honest with ourselves.

The parable Jesus tells of the two sons and their father in Luke 15 seems almost a commentary on Hosea 11.  Except it is not only the  “prodigal” son who leaves his father’s house — the “dutiful” older son refuses to enter the house because of his jealousy and pride.  I say that whatever separates a person from God is sin — whether it is carnal sin and profligacy, or self-righteous pride.

The bad news in this passage from Hosea is that there are consequences for our departure from God.

The good news is God, like the father in Jesus’ parable, is always ready and eager to welcome us back.

RESPOND: 

This passage has a two-edged blade.  On the one hand, I’ve been the parent who loved and grieved a child who was going through a rebellious phase.  I can identify with God’s self-description of tenderness and affection — and with God’s deep grief at feelings of rejection.  I do rejoice that for me those relationships are healed and hopeful.

But on the other hand, I’ve also been the rebellious, self-willed, self-seeking child who sought happiness and fulfillment outside of God.  And it grieves me to have caused my heavenly Father such sorrow.  I am so grateful that he has given me ample opportunity to repent and return to him.

Lord, your love for your children is infinite.  Thank you that you never give up on us, though we may turn away from you.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Hosea 11:8-9” by Sapphire Dream Photography is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.