A Mosaic of Deceit
Notes
Transcript
A melon farmer’s crop of melons was disappearing fast from his field. Thieves were continually stealing the melons under the cover of night’s darkness. The farmer finally became desperate and in an attempt to save his crop from the vandals he decided to put up a sign.
The sign had on it a skull and crossbones, and it read: “ONE OF THESE MELONS IS POISONED”—only the farmer knew that it was not true.
Sure enough, for two nights not a melon was missing. But, after the third night, the farmer noticed that his sign had been altered. Someone had scratched out the word “ONE” and replaced it with another word so that the sign now read: “TWO OF THESE MELONS ARE POISONED.”
Thinking to save his whole crop through deception, he lost it all, which just goes to illustrate Sir Walter Scott’s observation:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
We begin at Hosea 11:12 which in the Hebrew Bible is actually the first verse of Chapter 12.
I. Accusations of Unfaithfulness, 11:12-12:2.
I. Accusations of Unfaithfulness, 11:12-12:2.
The LORD brings this complaint. Ephraim (Israel) has consistently lied and tried to deceive Him. Every direction He turns, all He sees are cheaters.
The word deceit is from the Hebrew word mirmah (deceit, deceitfulness, trickery, false, unfaithfulness) is a characteristic marking Israel’s ancestor Jacob, Gen 27:35
Genesis 27:35 (NASB95)
And he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.”
The LORD also points out that the kingdom of Judah has also been unruly (Heb. rud, wayward) in its relationship with the LORD, “the Holy One who is faithful.” Israel and Judah had wandered away from the LORD, seeking out Baals and foreign alliances, but the LORD was always faithful to His covenant promises.
Ephraim is described as feeding on the wind. There is nothing sustaining or satisfying by eating wind. It is a picture of Israel pursuing vain efforts, none of which satisfy. And why would anyone pursue after the east wind, the hot desert wind that no one in his right mind would desire? That is what Israel has been pursuing, not the LORD. His actions described as multiplying lies and violence depicts the existence of internal social injustice. Hosea 4:2
There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Israel made treaties with Assyria and Egypt. They chose to trust foreign alliances, not their true God. The “oil” carried to Egypt in this verse is probably fulfilling a covenant obligation to Israel’s treaty partner, olive oil being a chief product of the land. It is not hard to picture Israel speaking peace to Assyria while currying favor with Egypt.
Judah was not innocent. The LORD also had a charge to bring against them and promised to punish Jacob in harmony with his sins. The use of Jacob may have reference to the Northern Kingdom in contrast with Judah, but can also refer to both nations as Jacob’s descendents, the children of Israel. What is clearly going to be seen is that “Israel is not a ‘chip off the old block’ but a nation unlike its [namesake] ancestor, in that it refuses to acknowledge Yahweh as its sole God.” [Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, pg. 190].
Israel needed to repent and the LORD reminds them of the experience of their forefather Jacob.
II. Remembering Jacob, 12:3-6.
II. Remembering Jacob, 12:3-6.
As the ancestor of these two kingdoms, the LORD begins by describing Jacob’s nature. He grasped his brother’s heel while still in his mother Rebekah’s womb, Gen. 25:26
Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
This grasping characteristic of Jacob marked him all of his life, Gen 27:35-36
And he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.”
Then he said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”
Then later in life, he also continued to contend with God, when he wrestled with “the angel” at Peniel and prevailed over him by weeping and pleading with him to bless him. Jacob finally realized that he could not succeed simply by manipulation and trickery. He recognized his need for God’s help, turning to Him in desperation. God prepared Jacob by allowing him to experience years of conflict with his uncle Laban, Gen 31:42
“If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last night.”
Later, Jacob had returned to Bethel, where God had appeared to him in a dream before he left and met up with Laban. His return to Bethel, and the act of worship Jacob performed there, were in obedience to God’s instruction to him to go there and fulfill his former vow. By obeying the Lord, Jacob demonstrated a submissive act of obedience to the LORD, resulting in His changing Jacob’s name to Israel (“Prince with God”), blessing him yet again and renewing the Abrahamic covenant for him. Pusey, in his commentary, says...
“He found Him at Bethel” “may mean either that ‘God found Jacob,’ or that ‘Jacob found God;’ which are indeed one and the same thing, since we find God, when He has first found us.”
Bethel, the place where Jacob got right with God, is now the place where his descendents had gotten wrong with God by worshipping idols. Jacob’s example of returning back to God is a good example held before the Israelites to do the same.
It was Yahweh, the Almighty God of armies, even Yahweh who spoke to all the Israelites when He spoke to Jacob at Bethel. He spoke both to the children of Jacob’s body as well as the children of Jacob’s faith. God did this, intending that the Israelites would learn from the experience of the patriarch.
They should return to the covenant God. They should practice kindness and justice in their dealings with each other, not acting like the old Jacob. They should commit to waiting in faith for God to act for them, rather that trying to seize control of each situation—as Jacob did so many times.
III. Israel’s Need for Humility, 12:7-11.
III. Israel’s Need for Humility, 12:7-11.
Like a merchant who would use dishonest scales to oppress his customers, Israel’s own oppression of others was sourced in the pride she had in her riches. They dealt with the nations in trading contaminated by deceit.
Israel considered their wealth a blessing from God, due to their cleverness and His approval of their lifestyle. It was really due to God’s grace, in spite of their sins.
They are reminded by the LORD that He had been their God since before the Exodus. He was able to make them revert back to a humble wilderness lifestyle again. The yearly Feast of Booths was a reminder of those years, and they will return to that lifestyle again in the coming captivity of Israel.
The LORD had repeatedly spoken to them through prophets, Hosea 9:7
The days of punishment have come, The days of retribution have come; Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, The inspired man is demented, Because of the grossness of your iniquity, And because your hostility is so great.
also Hosea 11:2
The more they called them, The more they went from them; They kept sacrificing to the Baals And burning incense to idols.
So many exhortations, yet they have not responded.
The depravity that Israel has fallen into is reflected in what has been going on in Gilead, east of the Jordan River, and in Gilgal, west of the Jordan. These represent the whole of the nation when both are mentioned. Gilead is described as full of wrongdoers with bloody footprints, where even the priests are engaged in bloodshed (6:8-9); Gilgal is a site where worthless Israelites sacrificed bulls, bringing expensive offerings to the numerous altars they had built there for themselves, not God.
The number of altars there are described as a pile of stones next to a field, removed from the field by a farmer. The land is very stony ground, so each farmer would often hit stones as they plowed, remove them and pile them up beside their furrows. The altars, like the stones, were “as numerous, as profuse, as worthless, as desolate.” [Pusey, 1:124]
So the LORD will remind them that they are from humble origins; once again Jacob’s example comes into play.
IV. Israel’s lesson from history. 12:12-14.
IV. Israel’s lesson from history. 12:12-14.
The LORD says that Jacob was a refuge who migrated to the land of Aram. His mother Rebekah was given as a wife to his father Isaac, but Jacob had to work to pay for a wife. He did this by tending sheep, a very humble occupation. Jacob was in a lower position than a despised shepherd; he was the servant of his father-in-law.
Their forefathers served as slaves in Egypt until the LORD brought them out by using a prophet: Moses, cf. Deut. 18:18
‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
They, like Jacob before them, had experienced hardship while living in a foreign land. They should not have despised the prophets like Hosea that the LORD has sent to them since Moses. And the warning is to remind them that the Israelites could return to these conditions if they were not careful and turn back to the LORD.
Their God has shown Himself to be merciful, yet the Israelites had provoked the LORD to bitter anger with their idolatry, 1 Kings 14:9
you also have done more evil than all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back—
1 Kings 14:15
“For the Lord will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord to anger.
Thus, the LORD would not remove the guilt of their sins by forgiving them; He would pay them back with punishment and shame. This was the end result of their deceit, the judgment of their divine Judge.