Hosea 4:15-5:15.  In yesterday’s reading we saw God start to get more specific about the problems he had with Israel.  We also saw that the description of Israel’s sin (disobedience and disrespect for God) related back to the example of Hosea’s three children.  In yesterday’s reading we saw God’s complaint tie back to Jezreel and Lo-Ammi.  In today’s reading some scholars see a connection to Lo-Ruhamah, “Not Loved or cared for”.

In Hosea 4:15 Hosea extends the warning of the disaster that is coming to Judah.  Remember that Hosea was mainly bringing God’s message to the northern kingdom, Israel, but he also give this warning to the southern kingdom, Judah.  The second part of verse 15 is a loose quote of Amos 5:5.  Amos was a southerner, He lived in the territory of Judah, but he went north to Bethel, the then capital of Israel (the northern kingdom) to bring God’s message to them.  He lived at the same time as Hosea and preached a few years before him.  Amos 5:5 is part of a sad song or poem about the destruction that was coming in the history of Israel.  Amos mentions three cities.  Bethel and Gilgal were both in the territory held by the northern kingdom but were close to Judah.  Both had been important cities in the history of the unified nation.  When the nation split into two kingdoms Bethel became an alternative center for worship of Yahweh (God).  Unfortunately this alternate worship was not approved of by God and Bethel became a center of idol worship.  In today’s reading you will notice that Hosea mentions Beth-Aven rather that Bethel.  He is playing with the quote from Amos.  At the end of Amos 5:5 Amos says, “Bethel will come to trouble”.  The word “trouble” in that verse is “aven”.  The Hebrew word “Bethel” means “house of God” (Beth=house and El=God).  So Hosea is using the ideas from Amos and sort of renaming the city.  Because of Israel’s unfaithfulness it is no longer the “house of God” it is a “house of trouble”.  From the mention in both Hosea and Amos it appears that Gilgal also had become a center of false worship too.  The third city mentioned in Amos 5:5 is Beersheba.  The name means “well of the oath”.  Beersheba was in the south of Judah’s territory.  It is clear that Hosea wanted his message to remain similar to Amos’ (maybe he wanted to keep the pattern of three going) so he makes a play on the meaning of the name of Beersheba by warning the people of Judah not to make an oath using the name of God.  The problem was not making a promise and asking God to be a sort of witness, the problem was that the people were not really taking God seriously.  They were treating him like a lucky charm or rabbit’s foot or a genie in a bottle.  So Hosea was warning the people of Judah not to follow the ways of the people of Israel.  In John 4 Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman (remember that Samaritans were the descendants of the people from the northern kingdom who married foreigners brought in by the Assyrian king who’s conquest of the land was coming very soon in Hosea’s lifetime 722 BC).  When asked about the proper way to honor God with her life, in Jerusalem or at another northern shrine near Sychar on Mount Gerizim (See John 4:20), Jesus told here that neither place was the right place.  The right way to honor God, he told her, was from her spirit and based on the truth of who God is and what he has done.  In the days of Hosea the people of the Northern kingdom were not honoring God according to the truth and Hosea was warning the people of Judah not to Go the same way.

In verses 16-19 Hosea is telling us that Israel is pretty far gone spiritually.  Ephraim was one of the main tribe in the northern kingdom and Hosea is using them here to mean the whole northern kingdom.  In Hosea 5:1 we see Hosea scolding the priests and the royal family.  In verse 4 Hosea tells us that the deeds of Israel or Ephraim will not allow them to return to God.  We need to remember that Hosea is talking more about the “religion” or “religious and political system” of the kingdom rather than the individual people.

Unfortunately it looks like Judah will not be following the advise of Hosea because in Hosea 5:5 we see Hosea predicting that Judah will be suffering judgment too.  Verses 4 and 6 both contain the idea of living for God according to his rules.  In verse 4 Hosea tells us that Israel and Ephraim do not know God and in verse 6 we see the people bringing offerings (the flocks and herds are probably referring to animals being brought to be sacrificed to God) that will not be accepted.  It reminds me of Isaiah 1:11-15 and also the words of Jesus to the woman at the well in John 4:21-24.  It is interesting in those verses in John that we see the people of Judah (who had knowledge of God) and the people of Samaria (the Northern Kingdom) both having their way of honoring God rejected.  As I said above God wants us to honor him from our heart (“in spirit”) and according to who he is and what he wants (in truth).  We also see in the verses in Isaiah that God rejects the very offerings that he commanded because they were not being offered honestly.  In Isaiah 1:13 God says he cannot stand the hypocrisy of their religious festivals when their lives are filled with “iniquity”.  That word is the same word “trouble” or “aven” in Hosea 4:15.  You might think of their actions as ones that disturbed or troubled God.

Our reading continues with more of the same ideas of how Israel and Judah have turned away from truly following God.  In Hosea 4:16, Hosea asks the question, “Can God now take they out to pasture?”  The picture is one of a shepherd caring for his flock.  We see in Hosea 5:6 that God has walked away from them.  This ties in with the name of Lo-Ruhamah, they are no longer under God’s protection and care.  Then things get worse.  In Hosea 5:10 we see God will deal with the situation.  The language here is very similar to language in Isaiah 8 which talks about an invasion by the Assyrian army.  We know from Isaiah that God used the Assyrian’s to deal with the disobedience and disrespect the people of Israel and Judah were showing to God.  Hosea 5:11 also gives us this perspective.  God is not just being mean he is dealing with disobedient people.  The picture gets even more ugly as God compares himself to a bug and to decay in a persons flesh.  Most translations call the bug a moth but it can also mean maggot (fly larva).  Since it is parallel to rotting flesh in verse 11 it probably means maggot.  Unfortunately when Israel (Ephraim) and Judah see their kingdoms being destroyed they do not turn back to God but they turned to foreign nations.  Verse 13 tells us that these foreign powers cannot help them.  Verses 14 tells us why.  Because God is behind the trouble they are in.  God has ripped their society to shreds like a lion on the hunt.

It is interesting that right in the middle of all this judgment we see some hope.  First of all in Hosea 5:8 we see three cities and there is a warning being give in all three.  The horn was often used to call people to worship and could also be used to call people to battle.  The trumpet also was used to call people to battle and an alarm was used for the same purpose.  All three cities were in the territory of Benjamin on of the northern tribes.  Notice the warning, “Look behind you Benjamin!”   Another possible point of hope is the reference to the maggots.  Most of us think of maggots as being disgusting little worms that eat rotten meat (and they are) but recently doctors have discovered in very severe cases of gangrene (a very serious usually deadly rotting of a persons flesh, like in verse 12) that they can use maggots to help a person survive.  They put maggots into the wound and seal it up.  The maggots then eat the decaying flesh and sometimes the person can survive.  So we may have a very slight picture here of healing mixed with the judgment.  Certainly the actions of God as a lion in verses 14-15 should give hope because after the lion kills he leaves.  Why does God destroy and then leave?  He tells us he is waiting until “they admit their disobedience and turn back to me.”  Notice that earlier Hosea uses terms like Israel and Ephraim and Judah and also that he uses singular pronouns with those terms.  Now Hosea changes and uses a plural pronoun “they”.  What we see here is the destruction of the old religious and political system of Israel and Judah but hope for the people who had been trapped and misled by it.  We saw the same sort of message in Isaiah judgment and punishment but also hope.  Remember that Hosea is giving these messages before the events happen.  Before the invasion by the Assyrians.  God does not just slam us out of the blue.  He warns and warns and warns.  As we saw in Isaiah he even provides the way out, Jesus and the way to live honestly with him, the Holy Spirit.  He is waiting for us to admit our guilt and to look for his face (a very personal way of describing God).  In the mean time he allows trouble and even brings it into our lives in hope that it will turn us toward him.

God thank you for loving me.  Thank you for wanting to care for me.  In reality Lo-Ruhamah was loved.  Help us all see our need.  Help us all look for an new and good relationship with you.  Thank you for Jesus and for the Holy Spirit.  Be my shepherd today.