04: Minor Prophets - Hosea 7:1-10:9

[Dunkle] Good afternoon. Welcome to everyone. This is Minor Prophets class, and we’re carrying on. We’re still fairly early in the semester. We’re in the book of Hosea, one of the two longer ones. My elaborate bookkeeping method says that we finished chapter 6. We’re beginning Isaiah chapter 7.

I’m not going to recap all of this, but remember the first three chapters deal with this pretty elaborate allegory, where God has Hosea marry a prostitute. They have children who are given names that represent God’s relationship with Israel.

I was about to say tumultuous. We’ll just say that Israel’s relationship with God, they didn’t maintain the way they should. After that, the majority of the book becomes, should I say, “normal prophecy”. I’m not sure if there’s any normal to prophecy.

What we have a lot of in Isaiah is what some scholars call an indictment oracle, which I like to say because it sounds really cool. It’s an indictment oracle. But what it really is is largely God saying, you’re sinning against Me. Here is what you’re doing wrong. And intermixed, we’ll see calls to stop doing wrong.

So if we turn to Hosea chapter 7, we’ll see that continuing. He says, “When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered and the wickedness of Samaria” (Hosea 7:1).

So healing — God wants to forgive — but we see pervasive sin. Let me say that word in English. Pervasive sin. It just seems to keep coming.

It says, “They commit fraud; a thief comes in; a band of robbers takes spoil outside” (Hosea 7:1). “They do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness” (Hosea 7:2).

So God is saying, I know what’s going on. And this seems to show why there’s not just forgiveness, why there aren’t blessings.

Now verse 3 says, “They make a king glad with their wickedness, and princes with their lies” (Hosea 7:3). The sin starts from the top. It works from the king all the way down. And in Israel, we see the king led the nation in idolatry.

That’s especially true if we look at the time the divided monarchy began, when King Jeroboam was the one. He didn’t want the Israelites going to Jerusalem to worship. So he made those golden calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan, and said, don’t go to Jerusalem.

And as I’ve said before, they would have a festival in the eighth month instead of the seventh month. So God is calling attention to that.

Starting in verse 4, we see an interesting imagery. “They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker” (Hosea 7:4).

I don’t want to read all of this, but one thing I want to say is when he’s calling the people adulterers, God uses adultery to represent two different sins symbolically. First and foremost is idolatry. You’re worshiping a false god. You’re cheating on the true God. It’s like cheating in a marriage.

He uses the same imagery sometimes for when Israel would reach out to another nation for an alliance, especially a military alliance. We’ve discussed that. They call to Assyria and say, protect us, come save us, when they should be turning to God for that.

So both of those seem to be involved here. And when he says, like an oven heated by a baker, he goes with this analogy for a bit. He talks about ceasing, stirring the fire, tending the dough, things like that.

If you drop down to verse 6, “They prepare their heart like an oven” (Hosea 7:6). “While they lie in wait, their baker sleeps all night; in the morning it burns like a flaming fire” (Hosea 7:6).

This metaphor seems to be talking about the heat of passion. If we’re comparing Israel’s sins with adultery, it’s like they’re fired up for that. There’s this passion, like heating up an oven. And if it sounds like an odd analogy, don’t take it up with me. I didn’t make it up. I will point out, though, in verse 6 it mentions the oven. It says, “Their baker sleeps all night and in the morning.”

Some scholars of the Hebrew are not certain that baker is the proper translation. Some translations have a margin note that says maybe anger is the word that should have been. That would read as their anger sleeping all night and in the morning burning like fire.

You can see where translators might say either could work in English, depending on the analogy that your making. But as I said, either way, it’s something that’s not turning out the way you want.

And in verse 7, it mentions, “All their kings have fallen” (Hosea 7:7). Again, starting from the top all the way down, it’s leading to destruction.

So I’m going to pick up in verse 8. “Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake unturned” (Hosea 7:8).

Those are a couple, perhaps, contrasting things. Mixed among the peoples seems to be referring to Israel intermarrying with other peoples. And we can see all the way back from the time God brought Israel out of Egypt, as He was bringing them into the Promised Land, He told them He did not want them marrying those other peoples.

And He always says, because they’ll turn you away from Me. Marrying other peoples was automatically marrying outside the Church in ancient Israel. Because at that time in history, there was not separation of church and state. Church was state, and state was Church. That’s the way God intended it to be for Israel. You’re My nation, you’re My people, so don’t marry outside of this church that is the nation. But Israel mixed among the peoples. 

Now, why is a cake not turned? Well, it’s an interesting analogy. In English, we use the term half-baked for something that’s not done well. We don’t do that. It makes me think of pancakes. You guys, you’ve cooked pancakes? You pour the batter, it sits, the bubbles come up, and when all the bubbles pop, it’s time to turn it over.

What if you don’t turn it over? It burns. One side’s going to burn, the other side will be raw. It’ll be inedible. Yuck. So that might be what God is saying — a cake unturned. Yeah, it’s just yuck.

By the way, that’s my word, not God’s. He’s got something more clever. He goes on, “Aliens have devoured his strength, but he does not know it; gray hairs are here and there on him, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:9).

In other words, Ephraim — and this is a leading tribe, seemingly representing the whole northern kingdom of Israel — is declining in strength and influence and not even aware of it. That stands out to me, especially in this era, because virtually my entire lifetime I’ve seen the United States fit that description.

Our peoples, the United States and our English-speaking brethren in Britain, have been declining in wealth and power and, we could say, wisdom at times, but seem to be unaware of it. I’m not certain if God was looking to the future or intending any dual prophecy in this, but anytime we see a prophecy that can apply to our peoples and our condition, it’s worth considering.

And so we’ll move on from there. I did want to note, it says, “The pride of Israel testifies to his face” (Hosea 7:10). In my edition of the Bible, pride of Israel is not capitalized. Sometimes pride will be because it is referring as a title of God — He should be the pride of Israel — and I believe we discussed that in a previous class.

But it could also, in the sense that we’re talking about Israel’s faults, be showing Israel, you’re so proud you don’t realize the gray hairs. You don’t realize the aliens eating up your strength. Either way, it works to show Israel’s decline and suffering.

And we can see a little bit of why that’s happening. In verse 11, “Ephraim is like a silly dove, without sense” (Hosea 7:11). Okay, if someone calls you a silly dove with no sense, that’s not a compliment.

And he explains some of why. “They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria” (Hosea 7:11). Here again, looking to other nations is like cheating on your spouse. God is saying, you’re looking to Egypt, you’re looking to Assyria. I’m right here. I’m the One you should be looking to and asking for help.

So they’re doing that. They’re not turning to the true God for the assistance, the protection, and the help they need.

So in verse 12 He says, “Wherever they go, I will spread My net on them; I will bring them down like birds of the air; I will chastise them according to what their congregation has heard” (Hosea 7:12).

They’re going to get punishment. And I want to skip ahead, because again, remember my skipping-stone analogy. We don’t have the time in this class to analyze every word in every verse.

God is continuing this, and then in verse 16 He points out another problem where Isreal is doing something amiss. “They return, but not to the Most High” (Hosea 7:16).

So, return, that's often the same word that's translated as repent. So, you're repenting, you're changing, but he's saying, you're not coming back to me. So, you're getting back to something else. You're trying to have a religious revival, but not turning back to the true God. And that's reminiscent of, I've got the reference here, it's in 2 Kings chapter 10. I won't turn there this time, but in 2 Kings chapter 10, God has a general in the army, a fellow named Jehu, anointed king, and he wants him to wipe out all of Ahab's family.

And so, Jehu does that, wipes out Ahab's family, and he kills a whole lot of other people. And then he says, we're going to get rid of Baal worship. And it's like, we're having a religious revival, we're going to get back to our religious roots. But the religious roots they get back to is not going to Jerusalem, and worshipping the true God at the temple, it's those golden calves that Jeroboam the first made.

So, yeah, we're returning, we're repenting, but God is saying, not to the Most High, you're repenting and turning back to the golden calves. And it's like that, I wonder if in the United States today we had a great religious revival, and everybody said, you know, let's become Christian again, but they all go join the Southern Baptist Church. And I'm not saying that because I've got something against Southern Baptists, but I don't believe they have a full understanding of Scripture the way we do.

What we would want is everyone to turn to the Bible and worship as it teaches. You know, keep the Sabbath and the Holy Days and honor God and all of those things. So, that's what's happening. And so, in verse 16, he continues saying, "They're like a treacherous bow, their princes will fall by the sword. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt" (Hosea 7:16).

It's not necessarily saying he's taking them back to Egypt, but the Egyptians might look and say, Are you kidding me? You know, God brought us to our knees and destroyed our power so Israel could do this? I'm speculating a little bit here, so don't take that to the bank, but you could kind of see how God doesn't like Israel becoming a derision when they leave him.

So, we're going to see some of the results. We move on to chapter 8 in verse 1. "Set the trumpet to your mouth" (Hosea 8:1). What does a trumpet often signify? It's often an alarm for war. If you go to when God gave Israel its organization, particularly in the book of Numbers, a trumpet could call people to worship or call the leaders for an assembly.

But in this context, it's almost certainly an alarm, a warning. And it says, "He'll come like an eagle against the house of the Eternal" (Hosea 8:1). Who's going to come like an eagle? This probably refers to the invading Assyrian army. As we see, we know in history that's what would happen, and we see references in other places.

So, the Assyrian… let me say that slowly. The Assyrian army will move swiftly and they'll bring destruction. Against the house of the Lord, so in this case, the kingdom of Israel, we believe, because they've transgressed my covenant. Israel's earned a punishment that God will now allow to happen.

And they'll say, "My God, My God, we know you!" (Hosea 8:2). Israel rejected good. So, they're calling on God when? When they're in big trouble. Yeah, now you call on me. God says that. It reminds me, actually, I am going to turn to Nehemiah chapter 9, because Nehemiah summarizes this rather well. Nehemiah 9, I'll begin in verse 27.

Nehemiah chapter 9 gives a pretty good history of Israel overall. And it's given in its form of a prayer to God. So, Nehemiah is saying to God, "Therefore, you delivered them into the hand of their enemies who oppressed them.” That’s Isreal was given into the hand of their enemies. “And in the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven, and according to your abundant mercies, you gave them deliverers who saved them from the hand of their enemies" (Nehemiah 9:27).

That could be a summary of the whole book of Judges. In verse 28 of Nehemiah 9, it says, "But after they had rest, they again did evil before you. Therefore, you left them in the hand of their enemies, so they had dominion over them" (Nehemiah 9:28).

So this is saying Israel would get in trouble, then they'd turn to the true God. Makes me wonder, how many of us did that as little kids? We might defy our parents, and then we see the paddle. Say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Or you get in trouble with something else.

You know, a scary dog is coming down the street, and the dad that you were angry at suddenly is somebody you want to be very close to. That's if you're afraid of dogs, but you see my point. So Israel calls out to God when they're in trouble, but now he's saying, no, you're finally going to get your punishment.

In verse 4, he says, "They set up kings, but not by me" (Hosea 8:4). Which they did. Israel, you know, they appointed rulers, but they strayed from the rulers that David put in place. You know, “They made princes, but I didn't acknowledge them. From their silver and gold, they made idols.” So Israel made their own false gods to worship, that they might be cut off. So he tells them in verse 5, "Your calf is rejected, O Samaria" (Hosea 8:5). That false god that they were worshipping, God is rejecting it. “My anger is aroused against them.”

Here's something I'll have to add, partly because I think it's amusing, but the Hebrew that's translated, Your calf is rejected, a literal translation could be to say, Your calf stinks. Yeah, and I think God would be willing to say that, perhaps. Your calf stinks.

You know, it's an offense in God's nostrils, he sometimes says. That's why there are other places we'll see. One of the words for idols, gillul, is sometimes used, translated as dung. So God is calling these idols human refuse. Let's just say it in a nice term. So he doesn't expect, respect, or like those things.

Verse 7, he says, "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7). You're getting what you deserve. "The stalk has no bud. It'll never produce meal" (Hosea 8:7). Israel has swallowed up.

I'm in verse 8 now. "They are among the Gentiles like a vessel in which is no pleasure" (Hosea 8:8). So you're in trouble. Why? Partly because they've gone to Assyria. "Gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey by itself. Ephraim has hired lovers" (Hosea 8:9).

Israel did try to hire Assyria as an ally. I'll give you a couple places where it's recorded in the history. 2 Kings 16:7-9 is one of those places that deals with Isreal trying to hire Assyria as an Ally. Of course God wanted them to look to him, not try to hire alliances.

So we can see more than once, Israel, instead of looking to God for protection, which is what he wanted, you're trying to hire lovers. You're hiring allies. When God would have done it for free, so to speak.

Again, we could pause and say, in modern times, I've heard some who are my elders say, that's what the United States is doing. I'm not sure if I'd make the direct connection, but for most of U.S. history, America shunned long-term alliances. They were very rare. They would make trade treaties.

It's after World War II that, because of the Cold War that developed, we bound ourselves to nations around the world. In studying the history, I'm not going to say there weren't good reasons, or that it led to bad results necessarily, but I will say, at that time in our history, the nation started drifting away from a worship of God as the people knew him.

So you could see a parallel. We're looking to Assyria. We're looking to other nations for safety, and we're drifting further away from an understanding of God and looking to him. And when I say that, it's not necessarily to say that this is a direct prophecy of that, but it is showing that people repeat the same patterns. You know, people are people, and sins will come up again and again if we're not close to God.

Let’s get back into Hosea 8. “Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin, they've become for him altars for sinning.” (Hosea 8:11) Altars, it seems to be saying, they made altars thinking as a way to worship God, but it became a means of sin. And what I would say is, we could translate that with altars or other means, but anytime we try to worship God in a way different than he intended, he'll not respect that.

We could tie that to Deuteronomy 12 and verse 29 in a sense. I turned right past it, Deuteronomy 12 and verse 29.

“When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess and you displace them and dwell on their land,” he tells them, “take heed to yourself that you're not ensnared to follow them after they're destroyed before you, and that you don't inquire…” how did these nations serve their gods? I'm going to do that. (Deuteronomy 12:29-30)

I paraphrased a little bit there, but it says, in verse 31, it says, "you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way" (Deuteronomy 12:31). Every abomination to the Lord they do. So God is saying, in a sense, I'm going to tell you how I want you to worship me, and I want you to do it that way.

Don't go looking for other ways. Don't say, well, how do those guys, what kind of altar do they have? How do they do sacrifice? Let's try that out. So these many altars for sin become altars of sin, altars for sinning.

And I'll mention in verse 13 here, back in Hosea 8, "the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them" (Hosea 8:13), nor now He'll punish their iniquity. "They'll return to Egypt" (Hosea 8:13).

Why would God not respect them, not accept their altar, their sacrifice? Well, for one thing, it seems they're doing things different than the way He commanded, and not with a proper attitude, not the way He wanted it.

Here I want to tie in Isaiah 1. God comments on this in a little longer form. Isaiah 1, beginning in verse 11. God has Isaiah tell, and this is more to the nation of Judah a little bit later but it’s a similar thought.

"to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifice to Me, says the Lord. I've had enough of burnt offerings, the fat of cattle, and I don't delight in the blood of bulls or rams" (Isaiah 1:11).

So God never wanted just blood. It's not that He delights in dead animals. It's the intent behind it. So in verse 12 of Isaiah 1, "When you come to appear before Me, who's required this of your hands to trample My courts?" (Isaiah 1:12).

You're just crowding in here for no good reason. "Bring no more futile sacrifice" (Isaiah 1:13). Okay, I'm going to stop there because I don't want to read too far, but in a sense, God is saying, if you're sacrificing an animal and burning it on the altar, but not with proper understanding and not proper intent, you might as well be having a barbecue and cooking up a steak.

No, I want you to do it in worshipping Me. Remember, Jesus Christ quoted the scripture that says, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). To obey is better than sacrifice. And I'm just pulling those out because it shows God's consistency.

He always felt that way. He did establish sacrifice and for a purpose, but it was always to draw close to Him and as a way of approaching and setting the mindset the way it should be. And when the mindset's not as it should be, God doesn't accept it.

It reminds me of a scripture I didn't look up ahead of time, but it's like what Christ would say, if you're bringing a gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, set it aside, go reconcile with your brother, then come and bring your offering.

Popped into my head, we've got a song in our hymnal that talks about that, am I right? Which I'm tempted to sing, but I don't have the tune, and you might thank me for that later, right?

So, we know that. So God, again, consistency. That theme in the Old Testament is the theme in the New. God wants true worship for the right reasons. It's funny, I said I'm going to go through this more quickly, and I am, but not as quickly as I thought we might have. Okay, so we're moving into chapter 9.

Well, actually, before we get into chapter 9, you just notice something in the last verse of chapter 8. Israel has forgotten his maker and has built temples. And that, again, is referring to the false idolatry that the northern kingdom especially set up, that the calves, you know, in temples for false worship.

It says Judah's multiplied fortified cities. So Judah is spared for now, but they're going that direction, and it's going to lead to trouble. And verse, not verse, chapter 9, "Don't rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples" (Hosea 9:1). You've got nothing to be glad about. "You've played the harlot against your God. You've made love for hire on every threshing floor" (Hosea 9:1). Threshing floor and the winepress won't feed them. "The new wine will fail" (Hosea 9:2).

There seem to be a couple things involved here. In one sense, saying you're committing adultery on every threshing floor could be referring to worshiping false gods. That's adultery by worshiping a God that's not the true God.

But there's also the literal sense of the word, because some religions at that time saw sexual intercourse as an act of worship of the false gods. Sometimes there would be a ritual, literally on a threshing floor, as a way to appeal to these pagan gods to bless the harvest.

So it's referring to fertility. We want our fields to be fertile. Again, it's totally opposed to God's way. God didn't bless it. He didn't want them doing that. But it was happening. It was fairly common. And in verse 2, God is saying, it's not going to bring the results. You're not going to have food. I'm not going to bless this harvest.

So in verse 3, he starts to describe the punishment that's going to come and their false offerings. Verse 4 says, "they won't offer wine offerings to the Lord, nor will their sacrifices be pleasing to Him" (Hosea 9:4). It's not going to be pleasing because they're not doing it properly. So you're not worshiping me. You're making offerings to other gods.

So when you do call out to me when the Assyrians show up, I'm going to say this. Talk to the hand. I don't know if anybody says that anymore, but apparently God does.

Yeah, talk to the hand. They do still say that. Okay, well, you won't find talk to the hand in Scripture, but there are places where God will say, don't even pray to me anymore. I'm not listening. That comes up in the book of Jeremiah, not particularly here, but the same intent seems to be.

And I lost track of my place. Okay, coming to verse 5, I believe, of chapter 9. "What are you going to do on the appointed day and the day of the Feast of the Lord?" (Hosea 9:5). For indeed they're gone because of construction. No, de-struction. I said it backwards. "Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them" (Hosea 9:6).

Verse 7 says, "the days of punishment have come, days of recompense" (Hosea 9:7). So we're seeing, you know, they're not keeping God's feast and certainly not properly. And so punishment will come, days of destruction.

It reminds me, in Isaiah 1, verse 14, we were reading the Scriptures before that, is where God says, "I hate your feast days" (Isaiah 1:14). God never hated His own feast days that He gave to Israel, but the counterfeit ones were ones that were an offense to Him. So again, we see some of the results.

Verse 7, "the days of punishment have come, days of recompense. Israel knows the prophet is a fool. The spiritual man is insane" (Hosea 9:7). We want to stop and realize this. God is not talking about His own prophets, in this case. Not the people that are truly spiritual. It's the false prophets, the priests of false worship. They're going crazy, you know, because destruction is coming on them and they're foolish.

Enmity is in the house of God. Verse 9, "they're deeply corrupted" (Hosea 9:9). And they seem to be referring to these so-called spiritual leaders as well as the people of Israel. "They're as corrupted as in the days of Gibeah" (Hosea 9:9). And "He'll remember their iniquity and punish their sins" (Hosea 9:9).

Okay, days of Gibeah. If I just said, of course, you know all about the days of Gibeah, you'd probably smile and nod. And so would I if I hadn't looked it up ahead of time. So this is referring to a story from Judges, and it's a pretty terrible story.

You know, at the time in Judges where it says, there was no king, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So it's in Judges chapter 19. And it's the story of a fellow whose concubine ran away from him. He goes, he gets her back, and he and his concubine and a servant are traveling to go back to a home, and they stop over at a place, and I believe Gibeah is the actual town, where…

No, Gibeah… anyways. What happens is people, this old man takes them in and gives them shelter, and the men of the village come, and they want to rape this man. And so the old man says, protect him. And so the fella sends out his concubine.

A horrible story, which probably many of you now are thinking, I've read this, and they use and abuse her all night and leave her dead. So the man comes out in the morning, come on woman, let's get going.

She's dead. He carries her home, and then he cuts her in pieces, her corpse, sends those pieces all through the land, saying, are you going to let this kind of thing happen? So the Israelites gather, and they say, where this happened was in the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjamites are guilty. We've got to punish them. And so they fight it out a number of times, and they almost exterminate the entire tribe of Benjamin.

It ends up coming to only like 600 men are still alive. When God says it's like the days of Gibeah, they're deeply corrupted. I hope when I summarize that story, you think, that's pretty terrible. That's deeply corrupted. As Hosea is writing this to the people of Israel, they know their history. So he's referring to a story they'd all go, oh, it's like that. Man, he's calling us out. He's saying we're really bad. He's going to go on to mention another story.

So in verse 10, he says, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your father's first fruits on the fig tree in his first season” (Hosea 9:10). Now, this sounds good. First fruits, it's like I've got tomatoes coming up in my yard now. I gave first fruits to our pastor, and now we've got these yellow ones. You could eat them like candy, pull them off the vine and pop it in my mouth.

Wonderful. God is saying Israel's like that. It's wonderful. When he started his relationship, when he brought them out of Egypt, and they said, yes, whatever the Lord God has said will do. We want to be his people and him our God. But the latter part of verse 10 says, they went to Baal-Pior, separated themselves to that shame. Baal-Pior, if I can… let’s go back a little bit further.

That's referring to when Israel was coming out of Egypt, and they ended up here on this side of the Jordan River opposite Jericho. And the book of Deuteronomy is going to happen. Moses will tell them about their history and reiterate God's law. But if you back up, they've reached that place in the book of Numbers. And the king of Moab is kind of scared because of all these Israelites, so he calls Balaam to curse Israel.

Well, God won't let Balaam curse Israel, but what Balaam will do is he'll tell the Moabites and the Midianites how that they can send their women to seduce the Israelite men and get them to commit idolatry, and then God will punish them. The place that happens is called Baal-Pior. So here in verse 10, they went to Baal-Pior. It's like God saying, we had this great relationship. We were devoted to each other, and then you cheated on me. You fell into the seduction of other women and worse, for God's sake, it could be worse, to other gods.

And the point I'm making here is in verses 9 and 10, God is looking back to Israel's history and pointing out two of their greatest failings. Trying to think, what in American history could we say is our greatest failings? Funny, I usually think of the good things where we do well. The Civil War? Okay, the Civil War. Yeah, we say the Battle of Antietam, where the single bloodiest day in American history. What if it's like that? And people say, oh man, that was horrible.

Trying to think of what's in Vietnam when some of our soldiers didn't act very well. Is it the My Lai Massacre? You know, where a whole village got destroyed of innocent people. So it'd be like, you've got to say, you guys are acting like you did at My Lai, if I'm saying that correct. Flower? 

Oh, the slave, yeah. Your history was slavery. You know, we've got sins that could be recounted. My point is that when God brings these up, it has an image that any Israelite will know. And we have to go back and explain it and look at the history because it's not already in our heads, but it was for them. And by the way, that fits the idea of Hebrew poetry. It's to bring up imagery, and it's often intended to evoke an emotion.

And it might not evoke the same emotion in us that it did to the original readers. That's why we want to get the historical and cultural context. Okay, at the end of verse 10, he says, “They became an abomination like the thing they loved.” God always refers to idolatry as an abomination. It's abominable to Him. And He's saying the idol that you've pursued was an abomination, and that's making you an abomination. My thought, personally, is I never want God to look at me and think of me as an abomination.

And I think we probably all would say that. Okay. Boy, it's hard to be humorous after that, which we don't have to be. They become an abomination, so verse 11, ”As for Ephriam, their glory will fly away like a bird.” (Hosea 9:11) You're going to lose your glory. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception. What? Well, for the next few verses, a lot of what he's going to say is, I'm going to reduce your population. I'm going to take away your ability to reproduce. And that's taking away some of your glory.

A nation at that time would revel in the number of fighting men it could put on the field for an army, how many people they could have out tilling the fields and raising food. So having children is a great blessing. Not able to have children, that's a great curse. So that's why it says in verse 14, “What will you give them, O Lord?” (Hosea 9:14) Well, a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. The ability not able to have children and feed them and take care of them.

Again, a terrible curse. “All their wickedness is as Gilgal,” another historical reference I'm not going to discuss right now. “For there I hated them because of their evil deeds and I'll drive them from my house.” God is bringing the punishment that people had brought on themselves. “I'll drive them away, I'll love them no more, their princes are rebellious, even if they're stricken, root dried up and they'll bear no more fruit. And if they were to bear children, I'll kill the darlings of their womb” (Hosea 9:15–16). That's dire.

Now I want to pause here and remember, God is not a monster. Remember, this is the God who could give life and take life away. It's in His power and His ultimate plan always includes a resurrection. So sometimes innocent people suffer, like little children. Those little children will be resurrected in a much better world, in a much better life.

I always stop and say that when we talk about the Israelites and coming into the land of Canaan, and He says, exterminate them all, and you think, oh, how terrible. Wipe out all those innocent people? Well, at least some of them were innocent. But God has the right to do that. But we don't want to forget, their next waking moment will be to come up in a new world where everyone knows God's way, and blessings are poured out.

You know, if I were a little child who died, you know, in infancy, but my next waking moment, suddenly I'm in paradise on earth, I might not be so angry with God about it. Now, I'm speculating here, but I want us to remember when God says, “I'll kill the darlings of their womb,” He always has that future in His mind (Hosea 9:16). So, like I said, He's not a cruel monster. You know, He's thinking, okay, my plan is to give everyone this wonderful blessing, but the parents that lose those children have a terrible punishment.

Okay, so, and they're probably not innocent. I'm dwelling on this longer than I wanted to, but sometimes if we pull a scripture out of context, it can seem really bad, and we don't want to do that.

Verse 17, “My God will cast them away” (Hosea 9:17). Why? “Because they did not obey Him, and there'll be wanderers among the nations.” And Israel would be considered wanderers among the nations for a long time. And we could turn to prophecies at other places. Perhaps we bring in the 25…2520 years, day for a year principle.

It's not necessary, but let's just say when Israel was taken captive, and then they became ten lost tribes, it's a long time before it seems that, if our understanding of prophecy is correct, that God restores the blessings that He promised Abraham, and they do rise to preeminence. Although not knowing their identity at that time. That's something we'll discuss another time.

I feel like I'm on a roll here.

Okay, Hosea chapter 10. “Israel empties his vine, brings forth fruit for himself. According to the multitude of his fruit, he's increased the altars. According to the bounty of his field, they've embellished sacred pillars” (Hosea 10:1). He goes on… I could read… Matter of fact, maybe I'll read a couple more verses, and then back up to discuss it.

“Their heart is divided. Now they are held guilty. He'll break down their altars. He'll ruin their sacred pillars” (Hosea 10:2). The “he” here we believe is God. God is going to bring punishment. They increase their altars.

As we discussed before, Israel built many altars, but they were to false gods. Matter of fact, if we go back to the instructions, when God established the tabernacle, and later the temple, he made it clear that there's one place he wanted them to come and worship. And he'll tell them, if you want to eat a steak, you could slaughter an animal to eat, but when it comes to worship, you come to the place where God puts his name.

And that's the one. So this many altars isn't something he wanted. And sacred pillars. Often we see the Hebrew word as asherah. And of course, this is a transliteration from the Hebrew, so there's different ways to render it in English. But it's typically an upright pole. Some people debate if they're always representing a phallic symbol, or if it's just representing pointing upwards to a higher spirit being. And sometimes, instead of just having the pole, it would be tall trees, whether you trim the branches off of it or not.

But these upright poles, these sacred pillars, they're images representing not God, false gods. And it's something that was fairly common in ancient Israel that they borrowed from the Canaanites and other religions. So other religions would have this, and it was very offensive to God. So, of course, he'll bring the punishment.

And in verse 3, they say, “we have no king. Why? Because we didn't fear the Lord. As for a king, what would he do for us?” (Hosea 10:3). You could say they had a king, God is going to take him away. And what could a king do for us if we had one?

It's a reminder every here and there. Sounds like… Never mind. God will make the case that you can't stop this punishment. Nobody can. No power on earth, once God decides something is going to happen, can prevent it. And people are sort of coming to that. They're starting to realize that in this case.

They've spoken words swearing falsely, making a covenant. Well, with a false God, it doesn't matter. Thus, “judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field” (Hosea 10:4). We've got an agricultural analogy of this judgment, the punishment coming up everywhere.

“The inhabitants of Samaria fear” (Hosea 10:5). They're afraid. Why? “Because of the calf of Beth-Avon. People mourn for it, and its priests shriek for it.” The calf of Beth-Avon. Now, I think I discussed this in an earlier class. Avon can mean vanity or nothing. So, we see some references to Avon as a real place. But this could be God being kind of ironic or mocking.

Because we know that one of the places that Jeroboam the first set up a golden calf was Bethel. Right? And what does Bethel mean? House of God. Perhaps God is making a case. Okay, it was Bethel, but now it's Beth-Avon. It's House of Nothing. Because you set up a calf there that's not really a God.

And it got the name Bethel because that's where Jacob had that dream that he saw a staircase going to heaven and angels and he anointed the pillar. So, it had that name for good reason. I've got a reference in my notes to 1 Kings 12:29. And I didn't explore why I put that in my notes. So, I'm going to look real quick. Oh, there it is. Yeah. When Jeroboam set up, he set up these calves. One in Bethel and the other in Dan. So, the calf was put in a place named Bethel. Now we're talking about the calf of Beth-Avon.

“And the priests shriek for it.” This is not the normal Hebrew word for priests. Just a note, the Hebrew word commonly translated as priests is koan. Which makes us wonder that koan is a common Jewish name, but that's not the point I'm making here. The word here is kemareme.

Kemareme literally could be translated as black ones, but it most often means black-robed ones. It's referring to the pagan priests who in Canaanite worship often wore these black robes. So, you've got the calf that's not something you should worship of Beth-Avon and black-robed priests that are not the true priests of God.

We can look in Exodus and see what the priestly garments were that God had made for Aaron and his sons, which were for beauty and for glory. So, it's something quite different.

He goes on in verse 5, “The glory has departed from it” (Hosea 10:5). “The idol will be carried away to Assyria as a present for King Jerab.” We mentioned King Jerab before, that doesn't seem to be a proper name. It's a reference to the great warrior king who was at Assyria at the time.

And I think I also said, that's what they would do in these ancient times. You'd fight against a nation, defeat them, and take their God. Ha! I got your God. I'm better than you. It always makes me think, have you ever talked with a little baby and you steal its nose? You say, hey, I got your nose. And if they're young enough, they might get worried. Look, he's got my nose. I'm not sure if that really relates here.

But a lot of these people would be upset. They were able to take our God. Okay, obviously he's not much of a God if he couldn't protect us. And that's where I think it's amusing. When they came to the temple in Jerusalem, they go to steal the God, and there isn't one. The Jews didn't have an idol.

Their God was the God of heaven, the God that doesn't dwell on earth. He wasn't even symbolized by some statue. God often shows his tremendous superiority to these false gods that are nothing.

So Israel is going to lose their false gods, their calf of Beth-Avon and the one from Dan, and they're going to be ashamed of their counsel. Verse 7, it says, “Samaria, her king is cut off like a twig on the water” (Hosea 10:7). “The high places of Avon, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed.”

So it's just all going to come to nothing. What happens to twigs on the water? They just get blown around. They carry on the current. They're not stable or strong.

I'm looking. There's a little bit of a pause, and I know we're coming up with a break in class. Might be good, rather, because we're going to have another reference to Gibeah and some other things. Let's do that. It's a minute or two early, but let's go ahead and take a break, and we'll pick it up next time here in Hosea 10 and verse 9.

Our next class, we might get to the end of Hosea. I know we end up rocketing through these books, but it's because there's 12 of them. Let's go ahead and take 10 minutes break, and we'll come back after that.