"HOSEA: GOD'S REDEEMING LOVE"

Hosea 1:2 (CSB)

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said this to him: Go and marry a woman of promiscuity, and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord.

>>>The beginning of Hosea is the command by God for Hosea to marry a woman of promiscuity (prostitute).

>>>Hosea marries Gomer and has three children.

*Jezreel (“God Sows”)

*Lo-ruhamah (“No Compassion”)-God will not have compassion on Israel.

*Lo-ammi (“Not My People”)-God says Israel will not be His people/Him their God.

>>>The purpose: it represents acts of promiscuity (prostitution) Israel committed against God.

*God made a covenant (“married”) with Israel.

*In the same a way a wife has an affair/cheats on her husband, Israel was “cheating” on God through pursuing other gods.

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Hosea 2:5–13 (CSB)

Yes, their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, “I will follow my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.” Therefore, this is what I will do: I will block her way with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will think, “I will go back to my former husband, for then it was better for me than now.” She does not recognize that it is I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil. I lavished silver and gold on her, which they used for Baal. Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time and my new wine in its season; I will take away my wool and linen, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will expose her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my power. I will put an end to all her celebrations: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her festivals. I will devastate her vines and fig trees. She thinks that these are her wages that her lovers have given her. I will turn them into a thicket, and the wild animals will eat them. And I will punish her for the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense. She put on her rings and her jewelry and followed her lovers, but she forgot me. This is the Lord’s declaration.

>>>(v.5) Israel followed what they thought would satisfy them.

>>>(v.6-13) God’s rage was His response against them. Israel’s unfaithfulness/adultery angered Him.