03: Minor Prophets - Hosea 4:1-6:11

[Dunkle] All right, welcome. So this is the Minor Prophets class. We began the story of Hosea yesterday. We’re going to pick up with Hosea chapter 4. But I’ll remind us in that background, remember the first three chapters are ones where God presents this wonderful allegory. Well, maybe it’s not so wonderful if you’re the children of Israel and God is describing how you were married to me and you cheated. You committed adultery. And he uses that as a symbol of idolatry.

But along with that, though, the wonderful part is God portrays how much he still loved Israel. And we see that in the man Hosea, who loved his wife Gomer even though she had gone off and cheated on him. The love didn’t end. And we want to remember God’s love for us doesn’t end because we’re faulty and weak. So that’s the first part of Hosea. And in chapter 4, we begin a fairly long section where God is largely describing Israel’s sins and warning of the punishment that will come.

So in some ways, at the beginning of chapter 4, where it says, “Hear the word of the Eternal, you children of Israel” (Hosea 4:1), I love the phrase that Dr. Ward used to use when I was taking this class from him. He would say, this is a new prophetic utterance. Makes me sound very professorial, a prophetic utterance. But it means it’s a new set of prophecy that God is beginning here. And there are various places where we’ll see it seems like this is something distinct that he’s starting. So it’s a new prophetic utterance. And he’s going to describe a lot of the people’s sins against him.

Now, I’m not going to make a direct correlation and say he was also talking about us here today. But as he’s describing people straying and falling into sin, we might not be able to help but think about what’s going on in our nation today and around the world today. Because people are people. And the same sins keep coming up. God still loves the descendants of Israel. And certainly he loves those of us in his church. And he wants us to be focused and devoted to him.

So the times where the sin comes in, God is looking down. I wonder if sometimes looking and saying, ah, could you just get this right? Stop doing that. Now, I want to be careful. I don’t want to put words in God’s mouth. That’s not my place. But I just want to remind us as we see some of these, you know, I don’t have to tell you that that could apply today, but you might easily see the parallels.

One other thing I want to mention as we get into this is there’s a fair bit of repetition. So when I cover the prophets, I’ll make my own metaphor. And it’s what I call the skipping stone metaphor. Have any of you ever gone down to a nice pond or a creek and you find a flat stone and you want to see how many times you can skip? Well, in the prophets, because we can’t take the micro approach that we do in some of our classes, like with the epistles of Paul, you will look at every scripture, sometimes examine every word.

Well, we take more of a macro approach in the prophets. So there are times when I’ll say, now let’s skip ahead to this verse, because there’s something I want to bring out. We never want to lose sight that all of God’s word is inspired and useful for doctrine, reproof, instruction, and righteousness. But still, we’ll have to do some skipping across. And we’ll do it more in the major prophets than we do it here. Now, I just wanted to warn you, we might jump ahead at times. But for right now, “The word of the Lord against you, children of Israel” (Hosea 4:1).

Okay, he’s talking about the people of Israel, focusing on the northern ten tribes particularly here. “For the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants” (Hosea 4:1).

The Hebrew phrase there could also be referring to, like, when you’re taking someone to court. And he’s not taking them to court, but he’s making a formal presentation of Israel doing him wrong. And he’ll go on to talk about some of the things that are problems.

“There’s no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Truth or mercy, the Hebrew could also be translated to say there’s no faithfulness or loyalty. And that relates to the idea that Israel cheated on God by worshiping false gods. You weren’t loyal. You weren’t faithful to me. But God is always faithful and loyal. And there’s no knowledge of God in the land. For a moment, hold that and let’s look just down the column to verse 6, because this is a common memory scripture. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

And that doesn’t mean lack of any type of knowledge. We could say in our society today, we’ve got a lot of in-depth knowledge. We know stuff. But there’s a lack of knowledge of God. And there was in ancient Israel. And that’s the knowledge they really needed and that they needed to apply. So that’s what he means here.

Going on verse 2, of course, he talks about “swearing, lying, killing, stealing, committing adultery” (Hosea 4:2). “They break all restraint with bloodshed upon bloodshed” (Hosea 4:2). The old King James said, blood touches blood, one act of violence after another.

This is telling us that God was concerned not only with Israel sinning against him by worshiping other gods. He was bothered that Israel, the people, sinned against each other. Of course, many of the Ten Commandments govern how we’re supposed to treat each other. And God is just as bothered by us committing violence, by us lying, stealing, doing acts that are wrong to other people. He’s just as bothered by that as he is when we do him wrong.

So he’s, again, indicting them for their sins. He said, therefore, it says in verse 3, “The land will mourn” (Hosea 4:3). There’s going to be results. “Everyone who dwells there will waste away” (Hosea 4:3).

It gets poetic. So I’m going to skip down to verse 4. “Let no man contend or rebuke another” (Hosea 4:4). In some sense, he’s saying, don’t be pointing fingers at each other. You know, the old saying, when you’re pointing fingers, four are pointing back at you. I don’t have that in my notes, but it popped into my mind. You know, you’re guilty. “Your people are like those who contend with the priest” (Hosea 4:4).

They’re complaining against the priest, even though the people are sinning too. The sin is widespread.Therefore, again, verse 5 begins to bring some consequences. “You’ll stumble in the day. The prophet also shall stumble with you in the night” (Hosea 4:5). Here’s where he says the  prophet’s going to stumble.

Keep in mind what we discussed at the beginning of the semester, where there are true prophets and false prophets. And God gives us some ways to know whether a prophet is true or not. The ones that are stumbling are almost certainly the false prophets.

You know, and he mentions the priest. You’re contending with them. I’ll pause and say also, if we’re talking the northern kingdom, they’re not the true priests of God centered in the worship in Jerusalem. Jeroboam set up those golden calves, and he appointed priests from whoever he would choose.

So God isn’t necessarily saying that his priest stumbled, but the false ones did. And he goes on at the end of verse 5, “I will destroy your mother” (Hosea 4:5). Now, that’s symbolic. It’s not necessarily, I’m going to go to your house and kill your mother. Mother refers to the nation.

The nation of Israel would be punished.

And he comes back to verse 6. What’s a common memory scripture? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). And of course, we saw in verse 1 that it’s primarily the knowledge of God that’s causing them to be destroyed. They’re lacking that knowledge.

“And because you reject the knowledge, I’ll reject you from being a priest for me. Because you’ve forgotten the law of your God, I’ll forget your children” (Hosea 4:6).

Religious leaders should know better. And so God does hold them to a higher standard. And that applies to us today. Anyone who takes upon him the responsibility of getting up, you know, say behind the lectern on a Sabbath service or in this classroom, to be a teacher of God’s Word, we need to realize God holds us accountable for that.

And I don’t take it lightly. But when I see things like this, it reminds me, Frank, you better not take it lightly. This is serious stuff. So, you know, when the priests are rejected, there’s trouble.

I said I was going to skip ahead. I’m not skipping much yet. But he still seemed to be talking about the priest when in verse 7 he says, “They increased. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me. I’ll turn their glory into shame” (Hosea 4:7).

Verse 8, “They eat up the sin of my people” (Hosea 4:8). Which people wonder is that, you know, eat that up, like take it in. Or it might be a reference to the fact that the priest literally ate sin offerings.

So when someone sins, they bring a sacrifice as a sin offering. There are many of the offerings, the sacrifices, included a portion that the priest would eat. So you could say, are the priests condoning sins so that they’d come and sacrifice more and they get more to eat? I don’t know for sure that that’s happening, but it’s worth keeping in the back of our minds that that could be going. It could be some element of that. “They set their heart on their iniquity” (Hosea 4:8).

The word there that’s translated heart is nefesh, the Hebrew, which sometimes is translated as soul or just your physical life. It’s like you’re saying you set your life on this sinful practice. Your whole life is bound up in sin. No wonder God was so bothered by it.

And he’s here, he’s really calling them out. And he says, verse 9, “It’ll be like people, like priest” (Hosea 4:9). So he’s been calling out the priest for leading the people astray. Priest, you’re going to be punished just as much as the people. “I’ll reward them for their deeds” (Hosea 4:9). And he says, “They’ll eat, but not have enough. They shall commit harlotry, but not increase” (Hosea 4:10).

And it seems that he’s probably referring again to spiritual adultery. Although, let’s face it, sexual sin was a problem in ancient Israel, as it has been with mankind as long as there have been people on earth. So, you know, real non-symbolic adultery is also terrible and would be punished by God. And it’s not always clear if he means one or the other or both at the same time. But as we see going into verse 11, this could be a memory scripture. “Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart” (Hosea 4:11).

They can be addictive. You know, I’ve heard of sexual addiction. Certainly alcohol can be an addiction. It enslaves your heart. It takes over your life. And God is saying that happened there, and it’s ruining their lives. Verse 12 is starting to refer to idol worship. He’s focused a lot on other things, but he says, “People ask counsel of their wooden idols. Their staff informs them” (Hosea 4:12). So they’re looking for advice in other places that they’re not going to get real advice, because these gods are fictional creatures. They’re not real.

In verse 13, he mentions, “They offer sacrifice on the mountaintops, burn incense on the hills, under oaks, poplars, terebents, because their shade is good” (Hosea 4:13).

We should remember that in ancient Canaan, there were few temples built. The practice was to go to what they call high places. And you’ll see high places throughout the story of the period of the kings in Israel and Judah. People went to high places that seemed to them to be places where they were closer to these gods. And that’s something that was not only common in Israel, but various cultures.

And if you’ve ever done hiking where you’ve climbed up mountains, it gives you a special feeling. You feel like this is different. This is something. And so some ancient cultures misinterpreted that to think there’s something spiritual. There’s a god here, and that’s where they would go to worship. God always condemned that. He doesn’t condemn hiking and mountain climbing. If you want to go stand on top of a mountain and say, wow, this is great—

God is okay with that. He made the mountains. But don’t confuse that feeling with worshiping God. And they did that. They had these places where they would go, and they would have, you know, sometimes tall trees that would symbolize things. Therefore, at the end of verse 13, “Your daughters commit adultery. Your brides commit adultery” (Hosea 4:13). He’s saying, basically, the women are caught up in this sin as much as the men.

And in some ways he’s saying, well, verse 14, “I won’t punish your daughters when they commit adultery or your brides” (Hosea 4:14). I’m not going to punish the women any more than the men. In many cultures, sexual sin was punished more for women than men. I’m not saying that’s okay. It should be equal. But God is saying, yeah, I’m not going to hold them accountable when you men are all doing the same thing. And he says that in the latter part of the verse.

Why am I not going to punish them? “The men themselves go apart with the harlots. They offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot. Therefore, the people who don’t understand are trampled” (Hosea 4:14). Okay, I want to address the idea of a ritual harlot. In other places, you see a reference to what are called temple prostitutes. That’s something that used to just strike me as so bizarre, that people would go to a temple and the men would have sexual relations with this woman there and consider that an act of worship. Well, it is bizarre. It’s certainly not something God ever built into his worship. But I remember reading something that struck me, and I said, ah, I hadn’t thought of that.

Because in ancient times, as well as now, people had figured out that sexual relations is how you get babies. And if you think about it, that’s how new life is created. And in some cultures, they thought this is something we do that creates life. And they saw it as a connection with the spiritual, with something greater than man. And so they made a wrong connection. They weren’t correct. I’m not condoning it. But they saw this act as something spiritual that would worship their gods.

God made marriage and sexual relations for something entirely different. So we don’t want to get confused in that. But I want you to realize that’s what a lot of these cultures did. And God would get very upset when the Israelites, who should know better, would adopt that. But we see it come up a number of times. Yes, Mr. Martin?

[Martin] I was thinking probably that was another way when they get babies to sacrifice.

[Dunkle] Well, yeah, that’s possible. If you didn’t hear that, he said that might be another way they could get babies to sacrifice. We’ll talk about child sacrifice later. It became common. I haven’t read many accounts where it was purposely done for that reason, but it makes sense that if a temple prostitute gets pregnant and has a baby, they might offer it to the god.

Okay, let’s get back in here. I didn’t want to dwell on that too much. But as we go, we’re picking up in chapter 4, verse 15. “Though you, Israel, play the harlot, let Judah not offend” (Hosea 4:15). So this is a point where, you know, we’ve got the divided kingdom.

Israel is in big trouble, but Judah hasn’t gone that far yet. So we’re at a point where now Israel is due for punishment from the Assyrian Empire, but Judah is going to endure for a century or so longer before they’re conquered by Babylon.

So “Judah, do not offend. Do not come up to Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-Avon, nor swear, saying, as the Lord lives” (Hosea 4:15).

Here are some place names that are associated with the false worship that the first King Jeroboam established. Gilgal and Beth-Avon, even the calves that he set up. Now, I’ll add something that I’m not certain is absolutely true, but some scholars looking at the Hebrew, they see the word Avon. And in some cases, that’s translated as vanity or as nothing. It’s not always, because we’ve seen record that there is a place called Avon.

But as you know, the word Beth means house. Like Beth-El is what Jacob named the place where he put the pillars so he had the dream. It means house of God. Beth-Avon could be translated to mean house of nothing or house of vanity, which some scholars think God is making a sarcastic reference to this place. As in, you’re worshiping false gods. That’s a house of nothing, not a house of God. And if that’s true, we see some various places where it seems God might even be making a pun or a play on words to bring this out. I’ve never been really good at puns, but I understand God is, and he’ll do it sometimes. And sometimes I miss it, and sometimes I catch it.

But getting back to this, in verse 16, “Israel is stubborn like a stubborn calf” (Hosea 4:16). “The Lord will let them forage like a lamb in open country” (Hosea 4:16).

So remember, this is written as poetry. So we’ve got symbolic images to bring an emotional response. Verse 17, “Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone” (Hosea 4:17). Ephraim in times will be referenced representing all of Israel. And that might be the case here, Ephraim being the leading tribe.

It’s similar to sometimes God will reference some area because it’s the capital city, and it represents the whole nation. Like today in the United States, if we’re talking about the government, we might say Washington made this happen. And we mean the government that’s situated in Washington, D.C. So this might be similar with Ephraim, but it also focuses on the tribe. “He’s joined to idols. Leave him alone” (Hosea 4:17).

“Their drink is rebellion. They commit adultery continually. Rulers dishonor” (Hosea 4:18). “Wind wrapped up in their wings” (Hosea 4:19).

The scholars generally say this is an awkward translation. So they’re not sure the English comes through as well as it could. Let me present a possible alternative. Some say this could be saying Ephraim is irredeemable, should just be left alone in his excess and drunkenness. What a shame he’s going to be swept away on the winds because of his sinfulness. So I’m not saying it has to be translated that way, but that seems to be the meaning that’s coming through here. Now they’re false sacrifices. They’re getting caught up.

Take a deep breath. Move ahead into chapter 5. “Hear this, O priests” (Hosea 5:1). Okay, he’s calling them out. “Take heed, O house of Israel. Give ear, O king” (Hosea 5:1). So he’s calling out especially the leaders of the people.

“Yours is the judgment because you’ve been a snare to Mispa and a net spread over Tabor” (Hosea 5:1). There’s a reference to snares and nets seeming to represent people getting trapped or caught in a sinful lifestyle. When he’s calling out the king and the priest, the leaders that should be leading people to worship God, they’re catching the people up in this false worship, false lifestyle.

And by the way, it says Mispa and Tabor. Mispa was a town a little bit north of Jerusalem, which when we have the divided kingdom, Mispa is down here near the end of the green. So it’s the southern part of Israel, and Mount Tabor, which is way up here.

So it’s like top to bottom. In another class, I mentioned from Dan to Beersheba, meaning top to bottom. This is another version of that, but just for the northern kingdom of Israel, from one end to the other. So they’ve all been involved in it. And verse 2, “The revolters are deeply involved in slaughter, though I rebuke them all” (Hosea 5:2). Now, they’re involved in slaughter. Earlier we talked about bloodshed after bloodshed. There’s violence against each other, but this might well be referring to actually animal sacrifice.

They did do a lot of the ritual of religion, but they weren’t doing it in the right attitude or worshiping God in the right way. And actually, if you look ahead, verse 6 seems to reference that. Here in chapter 5, verse 6, “With their flocks and their herds, they go to seek the Lord, but they won’t find Him” (Hosea 5:6).

Why not? God says, if you seek Me, you’ll surely find Me. Well, not if you’re doing it the wrong way, if you’re doing it for the wrong reason. You’re doing it with the wrong attitude. And that’s what was happening here. Matter of fact, oh yeah, yeah, their flocks and herds. Oh, it’s chapter 6 verse 6, which is another common memory scripture right across the page, where God says, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice. The knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).

I’ll comment on that in a moment when we get there, but God is saying, I never wanted the animal sacrifice to be the main focus. It’s a means to teach you something. Christ would quote that later. We said, go learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. So when we come back to chapter 5 here in verse 2, they’re involved in slaughter. They’re killing a lot of animals, but they’re not drawing close to God.

And he says, “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me” (Hosea 5:3). He goes on to describe some of the problems. Verse 4 says, “The spirit of harlotry is in their midst. They do not know the Eternal” (Hosea 5:4).

Okay, they’re not worshiping God the right way. They don’t have obedience, which is better than sacrifice. And so God calls them out.

Verse 5, “The pride of Israel testifies to his face” (Hosea 5:5). This could describe Israel’s pride being a problem, but many scholars believe God is using this as a title, like God is the pride of Israel.

It’s like a name he might be given. I know for sure when I lived in central Ohio, I lived near Gahanna, Ohio, which if you’re in central Ohio, you’d know where that is. But a few years ago, in one of the summer Olympics, they had a swimmer from there win a medal. And so they put a sign where you enter the city and said, the home of such and such, the pride of Gahanna. So somebody that’s from a place that’s done something notable might be the pride of that place. And I’m saying God could be called the pride of Israel. And he wants to be their pride, something they’re proud of. Too many times, not.

So he would testify against them. And of course, at the end of verse 5, it says, “Judah also stumbles with them” (Hosea 5:5). So Judah does get caught up.

Now, I did already mention verse 6, where it says, “With their flocks and herds, they go to seek the Eternal, but they won’t find Him” (Hosea 5:6), because they’re doing it wrong. So he withdraws from them.

“They’ve dealt treacherously” (Hosea 5:7). “They’ve begotten pagan children” (Hosea 5:7). I think the old King James said strange children.

It could refer to illegitimate children, or it could also mean apostate or in false worship. So, you know, sometimes it refers to intermarriage with other peoples, which God forbade primarily because that involved taking up false religion. So he doesn’t want, God doesn’t like mixed marriages where the religion is mixed. He wants both parents worshiping him, teaching their children his way. Otherwise, you can have, what is it, pagan children.

Let’s move on. In verse 7, there’s another phrase there. It says, “Now a new moon shall devour them in their heritage” (Hosea 5:7).

So we’ve got to be fearful of the moon. The moon’s coming to get you. That was sarcasm. I’ve got to be careful how this comes across on the video recording. When it says a new moon, it’s basically referring to a fairly brief period of time. It could be saying in a month’s time you’ll be devoured, or a short time until destruction. Now, we’re going to talk about the Hebrew calendar later on here. So I’ll say, with the Hebrew calendar, months are usually 29 or 30 days. It goes back and forth. When we look to prophecy, we’ll see that generally months are counted to be 30 days.

So I don’t want to get sidetracked too much on this, but there’s a principle that comes up in prophecy called the day for a year principle. And it comes up because when God punished the children of Israel when they wouldn’t enter the Promised Land, in Numbers 14:34, it tells them, “For each day the spies were in checking out the land, I’ll punish you one year” (Numbers 14:34). So a day for a year.

In Ezekiel 4, verse 6, we see God has Ezekiel do something one day for each year of what he’s prophesying (Ezekiel 4:6). And the reason I’m telling you this is the day for a year principle is something we want to think about when we see a prophecy that mentions a specific period. It might come into play or it might not. We’ll discuss that more later. The reason I’m mentioning it here is if a month is 30 days, some people have seen this passage here in Hosea 5:7 and said, is this 30 days related to later in Daniel chapter 12, where God lists a certain number of days?

Twelve sixty days, and then this will be twelve ninety, and then there’s thirteen thirty-five. I don’t want to examine all those lists, but the question has come up. Is this related to it? Is this a 30-day period? You know, the difference between 1260 and 1290 is 30 days

And if I ask the question, is this related, my answer is, I don’t know. It might be. I’m not certain. I want you to be aware that the question exists. Some teachers would say, absolutely it’s related, and let me tell you how. Some would say, absolutely it’s not related.

So I’m going to stay in the middle and say, when Christ comes, I’m going to ask Him and have it explained very clearly. But this is one of those places I do want us to know the question exists and we might not know for sure the answer.

But it says there, “A new moon will devour them in their heritage” (Hosea 5:7).

So now, starting in verse 8, it seems it’s addressing Judah. Most of what we’ve been saying is focused on Israel, the northern kingdom, which as we all know is green. Now he’s talking to Judah, which is purple.

And he says, “Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah” (Hosea 5:8). Yeah. “And the trumpet in Ramah. Cry aloud, Beth-Avon. Look behind you, O Benjamin” (Hosea 5:8).

Benjamin is one of these places we understand. By the way, Gibeah and Ramah were both north of Jerusalem, as was Benjamin. So one of the reasons they’re mentioned, sound the alarm, be careful, is because when the invaders came, they always came from the north, traveling south. They traveled across that fertile crescent from Mesopotamia, and so they invade from the north. So the first cities to be on guard are Gibeah, Ramah, Benjamin. Be ready. Sound the trumpet.

“Ephraim is going to be desolate” (Hosea 5:9). So your neighbors are going to be conquered. You need to be on guard.

And verse 10, “The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark” (Hosea 5:10). Removing a landmark in that day basically meant committing fraud to steal someone’s land. And land was someone’s primary wealth. So if you’re moving a landmark, basically you’re fraudulent and you’re taking advantage of people, not something a prince should do. So God says, “I’ll pour my wrath on them like water” (Hosea 5:10). You know, that’s a lot of wrath coming out.

“Ephraim is oppressed, broken in judgment because he willingly walked by human precept” (Hosea 5:11). And the particular precept that Israel followed was that of Jeroboam the first.

Remember Jeroboam said, no, you don’t need to go to Jerusalem. Here, I’ll make a golden calf nearby, and we’ll have a festival in the eighth month. They followed those precepts in particular.

Therefore, God promises destruction on Ephraim. And verse 13, “Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound. Then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb” (Hosea 5:13).

So God will call out both. Both Israel the north and Judah the south at different times appealed to Assyria for military help. I’ll give you some scriptures without turning there.

In 2 Kings chapter 15, 2 Kings 15 beginning in verse 19, there’s a record of Israel starting to pay tribute. They started sending money to Assyria. Now they became a vassal kingdom. They’ve got to send tribute because they want their protection.

The next chapter, 2 Kings chapter 16 beginning in verse 5, there’s a record of King Ahaz of Judah doing that. So it says basically he took this money, he sent it to Assyria saying, come help me against the Syrians.

I got it. I’m not sure if this is a good analogy, but if you’ve ever been pushed around and someone threatened you when you were a little kid on the school grounds, you know, the big bully, and so you see somebody across there and say, hey, I’ll give you my lunch money if you’ll help protect me against this bully.

Okay, Israel and Judah did something like that. It didn’t work out well for them because then the person they gave the lunch money to came and bullied them too. But I want to see it from the perspective of God. Say, I’ve got a guy over here threatening me, and I say, oh, Matt’s a big guy. Matt, will you take care of me? Keep me safe. But say God is back over there, and God is saying, dude, I’m here. Ask me for help. You don’t have to go to Assyria or to Matthew.

Matthew’s a good guy, but look to God. He’ll protect you. I’m pointing that out here because it’s a recurring theme in the prophets where God is saying, you should look to me, not to other nations. He actually would go so far as to portray that as adultery as well. So worshiping a false god would be portrayed as adultery. Looking to other nations for protection, God would say, you’re cheating on me. I’m here for you. I will protect you. So here in verse 13, when it says, “Ephraim went to Assyria” (Hosea 5:13), that was an offense to God. He doesn’t mind being friends with Assyria, but don’t ask them for your protection.

Now, it also says, “It sent to King Jareb, yet he can’t cure you. He can’t heal you of your wound” (Hosea 5:13).

Who’s King Jareb? Well, I’m asking the question because if the archaeologists and historians studying the ancient history have not found an Assyrian king with that name, so there wasn’t a King Jareb. Some scholars think that this might be an idiom, that the word Jareb means the great king or the warrior king. So, or today we might say, you went to the big guy for help. And God is saying, you shouldn’t have gone to that big guy. You should have come to me.

And most scholars looking at the time frame when Hosea was writing think that the king that would be in question would be the Assyrian ruler whose name was Tiglath-Pileser. Now, do you need to know Tiglath-Pileser? Not necessarily, but I like to say Tiglath-Pileser. The Assyrians had some cool names to say, like Sennacherib and Shalmaneser and Tiglath-Pileser. So please bear with me. I get some kicks out of some of these things. Let’s take pleasure in words and names when we can.

But saying King Jareb, it was their ruler, like their head honcho, that God is saying, he can’t help you the way I can. Look to me. And because they looked to others, God will bring punishment that no one could stop. And he starts describing that in verses 14 and 15. “I’ll be like a lion to Ephraim. I’ll tear them” (Hosea 5:14). And at the end of verse 14, it says, “No one shall rescue” (Hosea 5:14).

God says, you cross me. Once the punishment comes, the big guy can’t stop it. King Jareb can’t interfere. “And I’ll return to my place till they acknowledge their offense” (Hosea 5:15).

Now, till they acknowledge. God is going to bring Israel to see their offense. We could draw a lesson there for us. A lot of times he’ll let us suffer till we see our offense and we turn back to him.

And he says, “They’ll seek my face. In their affliction, they’ll earnestly seek me” (Hosea 5:15).

I wish I could say I was immune to that, but I have sometimes sought God more earnestly when I was feeling afflicted, when I was hurting and suffering. And I’ll say, normally when I’m hurting and suffering, it’s been because I did something dumb. I brought hurting and suffering on myself. Sometimes God would let me hurt and suffer so that I’ll reach out to him and I’ll appeal to him, and then I would find him. And it tends to be true that way for us.

Another breath and we can plunge into chapter 6. So this seems to reflect really what chapter 5 ended with. They’ll seek me, they’ll find me. In chapter 6 it says, “Come, let’s return to the Lord. He’s torn, but he’ll heal us. He’s stricken, but he’ll bind us up” (Hosea 6:1).

Okay, when adultery comes to, when Israel comes to repentance for their spiritual adultery, God is forgiving. That allegory that’s in the first three chapters comes into play. He still loves Israel. God’s love is unfailing. So yes, God will heal. He’s stricken, he’ll bind us up.

And then there’s something intriguing in verse 2, where it says, “After two days he’ll revive us. On the third day he’ll raise us up, that we may live in his sight” (Hosea 6:2).

Okay, this is portraying Israel being repentant. If you go through the book of Judges, you could see Israel sinned and repented and sinned and repented, but this is written much later than that. Some would say this is a prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled, that it might be looking to end times when the descendants of Israel will turn to God. Notice I said some say that. There are differing opinions on this.

But the intriguing part of “after two days he’ll revive us. On the third day he’ll raise us up” (Hosea 6:2). Once again, when God lists a specific number of years or he lists a specific number of days, it’s enough to make us question, is the day-for-a-year principle involved?

Again, Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6 show us that sometimes God does give a day for a year. And I’m going to reference a number of places in Revelation when it talks about a great tribulation at the end time. It’s listed as lasting a time, times, and half a time, or three and a half years. Knowing that’s going to happen in the future, some have said, is this here in Hosea 6:2 where it says two days? Is that a day for a year? After two years? And then in the third year he’ll revive us?

Now, I’m being speculative and admitting it’s speculative, so take this for what it’s worth. Some have speculated that this is referring to that great tribulation overlapping the time of Jacob’s trouble, and have wondered, does this mean the descendants of Israel will suffer with all the world for two years? And then the third, and in the third year, God removes that from them and they don’t suffer with that.

And in that case, it might be referring to the day of the Lord being as a year. Is the day of the Lord a one-year period? I don’t know. I hope to find out, well, I find out in the resurrection whether I live through it or not. But I want you to be aware there is a connection that some people wonder if this is telling us about that. I’m not certain that it is, but I’m definitely not certain it is not. So I’d like you to mark this down and know there’s a possible connection, but don’t build a house of cards on top of it.

Don’t make a chart saying, I know when Christ will return. People get into trouble with that. But it’s not wrong to see it possibly could be telling us something about the sequence of end-time events. So we’ll move on from there. I want to drop down to, well, to verse 4.

This is one of those places that shows us some of what I think is God’s feeling. “O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you?” (Hosea 6:4).

I don’t think God is questioning like, I don’t know what to do. But it’s sort of like when you get exasperated and say, what am I going to do with you? You might have had your parents look at you and say something like that. If not, one day you’ll have kids and you’ll look at them and say, what am I going to do with you? Why would you be doing that?

I suspect it’s God like that. It’s like, what am I going to do with you? “For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, like the early dew it goes away” (Hosea 6:4).

Again, poetic imagery. A morning cloud is like when it’s foggy in the morning, and then the sun comes up and gets hot and it’s gone. Same thing with the dew. The grass can be pretty wet, sun comes up, and it’s gone. So it’s something that’s ephemeral, temporary. It’s here and then it’s gone. And he’s saying that about Israel’s righteousness or faithfulness. You’re true to me, but is it going to last? What am I going to do with you? I can’t count on you.

In verse 5, “Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, slain them by the word of my mouth” (Hosea 6:5).

Again, this is imagery. God had the prophet say the words, saying what the punishment would be. He didn’t send prophets with swords to start hacking people. The only time that happened was with Samuel when King Saul didn’t kill King Agag. I feel like I should point that out because it’s such an exception to the rule. But God is saying, I sent prophets. I pronounced the punishment. What am I going to do with you?

And then he moves into what he wants in verse 6. “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God more than burn offerings” (Hosea 6:6).

Sacrifices were a symbol. They taught the cost of sin. But God always wanted obedience. Killing animals never made God happy, and I hope you never thought that. But I’ll share this story. When I was serving as a pastor driving a circuit, sometimes on those long periods in the car I would listen to NPR radio because it’s calm and peaceful without all the commercials.

And I don’t remember which program I was listening to, but there was one where a fellow was talking about Israel’s old religion. And he said, they worshiped a God that just loved bloodletting and blood flowing. And I was listening to it and I said, that’s wrong. That’s not what God ever wanted. God doesn’t love death and blood. He says it clearly here. He loves mercy. He loves the knowledge of God more than burn offerings.

Okay. Well, I’ll share a story from when I was a kid. Believe it or not, I was a kid, and I did bad things and got punished. And I would always tell my mom, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. And there are times she had a phrase that was frustrating, but I found myself using it on my son. And she would say, I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be right. I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to not do the wrong thing in the first place.

That’s kind of what God is saying here. I don’t want the sacrifice. I want you to not sin. I want you to not need the sacrifice. And that was always what God wanted. It’s still what he wants. And I think that’s one of the reasons Christ quoted this in Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7. You probably already have it in your Bible’s margin if it has those connections. Mercy and not sacrifice. Knowledge of God more than offerings.

And of course, one of the things that comes up in the New Testament is spiritual sacrifice. God does want that. He wants the praise of our lips. In Romans 12:1, I believe it is, Paul says, “offer or present yourselves a living sacrifice.” So God wants that. He doesn’t want blood flow and death. Okay, having said that, I’m going to skip ahead because Israel did sin, and they kept bringing that on themselves.

In verse 8, “Gilead is a city of evildoers, defiled by blood” (Hosea 6:8). “As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem. Surely they commit lewdness” (Hosea 6:9).

God used those two cities for a particular reason that we might miss. The Gilead here is sometimes referred to as Ramoth-Gilead. It and Shechem were both what in the Pentateuch were called cities of refuge. So when God gave Israel its government, he had them designate six cities of refuge, where a person who, if they accidentally killed someone, they could go to the city of refuge and not have the revenger of blood kill them.

When they got there, there would be a trial, and the priests were supposed to determine if it was murder or if it was an accidental death. You know, if it’s murder, you don’t get to stay in the city of refuge. But what God is pointing out here is these were places that were supposed to be where justice was done. These were places known for proper justice. But instead, evildoers defiled by blood.

“The company of priests murder on the way to Shechem” (Hosea 6:9). So the priests and the Levites were supposed to make sure justice is done, and the opposite is happening. God was extremely bothered and upset by that, as he should be and we should be. In verse 10, “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is harlotry in Ephraim. Israel is defiled” (Hosea 6:10). “Also Judah. A harvest is appointed for you when I return the captives of my people” (Hosea 6:11).

You know, the horrible thing is the idolatry, the injustice, the bloodshed. God is very bothered by that. And I’m hesitating. You see this over and over and over again. That’s part of why we’ll do the stone skimming. You know, we won’t spend time on every single one. But as we go through Hosea, it’s the first of the minor prophets, I’m slowing down a little more than I might in others to call attention to these things.

But it shows us something about God. He doesn’t like us mistreating each other. He doesn’t like us mistreating Him. And I get the sense He doesn’t love punishing. He’d prefer to have mercy. But sometimes He’s compelled to, because when people don’t repent, He needs to punish them so that in their affliction, then they will seek Him. I don’t think we have time to start chapter 7, and that might be a good thing. So we’ll pick up there next time as we continue our way through Hosea. So I appreciate that. I’ll take questions later if you have them, but we’ll call an end to this class today.