I want to challenge y’all to try to visualize what’s going on in each chapter. That’s the fun of reading these Old Testament stories!
As Hosea is writing this book, Israel had turned away from the one true God to worship Baal, a Canaanite fertility god. As expected, God was not too pleased with Israel’s actions and decided to use Hosea to get that message across. God wants full devotion to Him and Him alone, but the Israelites had been unfaithful. Without repentance, judgment would come their way. But if Israel repented, a beautiful redemption story could be written. The same is true for us today.
Read more here…. https://www.gotquestions.org/Book-of-Hosea.html
1 The Lord gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash[a] was king of Israel.
2 When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute,[b] so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.”
3 So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son. 4 And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed at Jezreel. In fact, I will bring an end to Israel’s independence.5 I will break its military power in the Jezreel Valley.”
6 Soon Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea, “Name your daughter Lo-ruhamah—‘Not loved’—for I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them. 7 But I will show love to the people of Judah. I will free them from their enemies—not with weapons and armies or horses and charioteers, but by my power as the Lordtheir God.”
8 After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again became pregnant and gave birth to a second son. 9 And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi—‘Not my people’—for Israel is not my people, and I am not their God.
10 [c]“Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore—too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’ 11 Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be—the day of Jezreel[d]—when God will again plant his people in his land.
The nation of Israel was worshiping other gods and idolizing money, but God had a plan through His prophet Hosea. It was to marry a prostitute. Yes, you read that correctly. In the Old Testament, there is a theme that God often uses His prophets to feel and experience the weight of what they will be speaking into. This is why looking at the background of the text is so important before reading. God is using Hosea marrying a prostitute to reveal characteristics about Himself to the people of Israel but also to us today.
So, Hosea marries a prostitute and has children with her. (Some specify that the last two children mentioned in this chapter are from adultery and not Hosea, because of the names God has given them.) Either way, the names reveal to us God’s distance from His people. The story of Hosea is a metaphor or a picture of God’s love, with Hosea's love for his adulterous wife representing God's love. Hosea gives us a picture of how our sin feels to God—like the victim of an adulterous marriage. As one commentary puts it, God puts Hosea in the place where he feels what God feels—and it doesn’t feel good.
Just as Hosea’s wife will return time and time again to her sinful patterns, we do the same. We create idols of our status, our relationships, our achievements. We fall into habits of gossip, excessive drinking, judgment, and impatience. It’s easy to imagine what Hosea felt in his marriage, but it’s more difficult to imagine that we make God feel the same way. Whatever our struggle is, and no matter how many times our actions break His heart, God promises to seek us out to save us just as He sought out the Israelites.
<aside> 💡 The name “Hosea” means “salvation”.
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