Unfaithfulness and Punishment (2:2-13)

Introduction

We began our study last week of the book of Hosea with a real live parable of God’s relation with Israel, using Hosea, who was commanded to marry a prostitute and have children whose names would be analogous to God’s judgment on unfaithful Israel.

If you will remember from last week, this was a time of peace and prosperity in the northern kingdom under Jeroboam II. However, this peace and prosperity had caused the children of Israel to become spiritually and physically promiscuous, thinking, “all is well between me and my husband Yahweh, since my combined worship of Yahweh and my worship of Baal have brought all this to pass.”

This thinking is not exclusive to wayward Israel. We ourselves live in a day when we have become not only consumers of physical things, choosing what we want from the myriad of stuff to buy, but we have become spiritual consumers as well. We like the God of love stuff, but when we start talking about sin or what the bible says about sexuality or covetousness or commitment in marriage, we look for others to help us put together a self-made religion that we can live with to make us happy. Like we said last week, not a whole lot has changed in the last 3000 years, this is why this book which was written in the eighth century BC is so contemporary. Remember what Paul said in Romans 15:4 “4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

This morning, as we look at Hosea 2:2-13, we will be set straight on what God thinks, as we look at the unfaithfulness of Israel, and the resulting punishment that Yahweh, their husband was about to pronounce. We are still in the midst of this living parable, and get to look in more detail at what Israel was actually doing that incurred Yahweh, her husband’s, judgment.

Text: Hosea 2:2-13

Hosea 2:2–13 ESV

2 “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; 3 lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. 4 Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. 5 For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ 6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. 7 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.’ 8 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. 9 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. 10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. 11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. 12 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. 13 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.

Main Idea: Since God’s grace provides good things for his people, we must respond to his goodness with repentance and exclusive worship.

I. Plead for Repentance (2)

Plead ..., plead - plea for repentance is repeated twice for emphasis.

with your mother - Analogous to the children of unfaithful Gomer/Israel pleading that their mother would be awaken regarding her plight. The reason they are to plead is because...

for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband - a repudiation of the marriage bond, which would parallel God’s right to repudiate his covenant bond with Israel. But perhaps it should be read as a threat, rather than an actual divorce.

that she put away (change direction, abandon) her whoring from her face and her adultery from between her breasts - the call to repentance

Repentance is always the answer to sin. But repentance must be true repentance as we shall see in a moment.

Hebrew vs Greek thinking - Hebrew thinking is more community, while Greek thinking is more individual.

Example: the twelve spies sent out at Kadesh-barnea (Num 13). The whole nation was judged for the failure of 10.

II. Consequences of No Repentance (3-10)

A. Merciless Humiliation (3-5)

(3) lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. -

If repentance does not take place, the unfaithful wife (Gomer/Israel) will be publicly exposed (v. 10) and left destitute, punishments traditional for an adulteress (Ezek. 16:37–39; Nah. 3:5–7), though less severe than the death penalty (Deut. 22:22)

this “stripping” may be the retrieval of everything a husband had provided for his bride (Ex. 21:10–11; cf. Hos. 2:9).

(4) Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. (5a) For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully - This is the husband judging not only the unfaithful wife, but the children of her unfaithful relationships that were not his own.

(5b) For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

This suggests that it was Gomer/Israel who pursued the lovers, rather than the other way around (cf. Jer. 2:23–24). Israel’s “lovers” are other gods.

This shows how far she has strayed, for when her husband who had been her provider begins to bring on her the judgment she deserves, she pursues her lovers as if they were the ones who had provided for her. So what does her husband Yahweh do...

B. Frustrated Pursuits (6-7)

(6) Therefore (since she is insistent on chasing her loves) I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. - Yahweh will block her pursuit, like placing her in a maze in which her escape is impossible.

(7a) She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. - Yahweh will cause her lovers to be elusive. So what is her response?

(7b) Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ - in frustration she goes back, not because it is right, but because it is better than what she is going through. It is a consequential repentance, not a true repentance.

C. Unrecognized Blessings (8-10)

(8) 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. - The pursuit of her lovers to help her in her dire need was a slap in the face of her husband Yahweh.

(9) Therefore (since she does not understand my continue provisions) 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. - all her provisions will be removed, and no one will be able to stay the hand of Yahweh. Yahweh has no rivals!

(10) Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. - Yahweh is saying that he will expose her for what she truly is before the audience of the world.

Now that Yahweh’s judgment has been poured out on his unfaithful bride Israel, he now turns to the religious system that she so vigorously held on to.

III. Destruction of Religious Syncretism (11-13)

Syncretism - the process in which aspects of one religion are assimilated into, or blended with another religion.

After entering Canaan, Israel was constantly tempted to absorb into the worship of Yahweh the Canaanite worship of fertility gods and goddesses, if not to make images of Yahweh Himself—both practices being forbidden in the law (Ex. 20:3–6). The spiritual issue was whether Israel would remember that the covenant God was all-sufficient for them and that He claimed their exclusive allegiance, making the worship of other gods a spiritual adultery (Jer. 3; Ezek. 16; Hos. 2). This was a test the nation often failed.

When we come to the New Testament, we find syncretism to be widespread in the Roman Empire during the first centuries of Christianity. Polytheism was rife and all manner of mystery cults flourished. Early Christian teachers fought diligently to keep the faith from being assimilated to Gnosticism, a kind of theosophy that had no use for Christ’s Incarnation and Atonement, since it saw the root problem of man as ignorance rather than sin. Neoplatonism and Manichaeism also saw the way of salvation mainly as a matter of ascetical detachment and escape from the physical world. Christian resistance to these movements was successful, and the classic formulations of the Trinity and the Incarnation in the creeds are a permanent legacy of these struggles.

A. Baalistic Worship of Yahweh (11-12)

(11) And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. - These festivals had become occasions for religious syncretism, in which the worship of the Yahweh and Baal were intermingled.

(12) 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. - This is slap in the face of the Baals, since Baal was the storm god who brought rain and caused the crops to grow, and was known to be the god of fertility, thus these actions of Yahweh would show Baal for who he is, a false, powerless, dead no-god.

B. Promiscuous Baal Worship (13)

(13) 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.

feast days of the Baals - the worship of Baal included sacrifices, sometimes of children, along with drunken sexual orgies engaging shrine prostitutes, thus mocking and belittling the commands and love of Yahweh her husband.

adorned herself with her ring and jewelry - On pagan goddesses, jewelry emphasized erotic areas of the anatomy.

went after her lovers and forgot me - The essence of the charge against Israel was that she had forgotten the Lord, whom she should have loved, because it was the hesed love of her husband that has cared for her all these years.

So What?

How real is our repentance? Are we quick to circumstantially repent, hoping that God’s good grace will continue, allowing us the best of both worlds?

Do we realize that God knows our hearts, our thoughts, and resulting actions, and that if we say we love him, he knows if we really do?

God calls us to: Matt 22:37 “37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Are our lives a system of compromises and tolerances so that we find our relationship with God syncretized with what our culture says is important and necessary for happiness?

This is a question of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in your life as compared to what the culture says is important. Remember what Paul said to the Christians at Corinth: 2 Cor 12:9 “9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”