Hosea 12:12-13:16. In this section we come to the last of the complaints which include the consequence to the actions of the Israeliltes. In Hosea 12:12-13:3 we hear from Hosea then in 13:4-14 God speaks (directly, remember that the prophet is also speaking for God). Verses 15-16 are sort of a conclusion by Hosea to this section.
Hosea ties what he has to say back to stuff that has already been said in chapter 12 by both him and God. In the first two verses Hosea compares Jacob running away from his brother and hiding out at his uncles house with his descendants running to Egypt in a time of famine. Things started out well for both but then went bad. He found a wife but was tricked into working many years for his uncle. The Israelites in Egypt started in a place of favor because of Joseph’s favor with the pharaoh but after many years a pharaoh arose who did not like the Israelites and they became slaves. In both situations eventually their host was glad to be rid of them and they left taking a great deal of wealth with them. By comparing Jacob the man with his descendants Hosea is showing us that God was taking care of both.
Next Hosea shows us a current (for his time) picture of the people of Israel (at lest the part of them living in the northern kingdom). In earlier parts of Hosea he used Ephraim (one of ten tribe which made up the northern kingdom) as an alternate name for the whole group. Ephraim was a very large tribe and was militarily powerful. They had a lot of influence in the kingdom, so in certain respects they represented the kingdom. Here in Hosea 12:14-13:2 Hosea is probably talking about the actual tribe and some of that influence. We see in verse 14 that Ephraim’s actions made God mad. In Hosea 13:1-2 we see that Ephraim had influence in the rest of the kingdom (Israel) and that they used their influence to get the people to worship the false god, Baal. They not only made the idols but pushed people to honor them. The first part of verse 1 indicates that they intimidated the rest of the people. They had power and the people were afraid not to do what they said. The end of verse 14 tells us that they were going to get what they deserved. Verse 3 uses three pictures to tell us what is gong to happen to Ephraim (remember that Hosea has liked using sets of three in his book). Their destiny will be like morning dew, tike chaff (the useless stems and leaves when wheat seeds are separated and saved), and like smoke. The point is, “Poof! Gone.”
IN verse 4 God starts talking and the first thing he brings up is the fact that he alone has been taking care of them, all the way back to taking them out of Egypt (and before actually). He brought them out of the situation of slavery in Egypt and then cared for them as they wandered around in the wilderness. It is interesting that verse 4 start out with the word “yet” or “but”. In spite of what God knows he still took care of the Israelites. And remember he knew what was going to happen later in history when he chose Jacob and when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, all of it (See Isaiah 46:9-10). Verse 6 tells us that the problem is that when things get comfy we get lazy in our relationship with God of proud and arrogant. We seem to think that we deserve the good life or that we made it for ourselves. We stop being thankful to God. IN verse 7 we have another group of three, God is like a lion, leopard, and bear (No tiger? Oh my!). We see terrible judgment coming from God, he’s going to shred the Israelites. Verse 9 puts the blame completely on the people of Israel, they were against God. If they thought Ephraim was someone to be afraid of then they should be terrified of going up against God. One other thing to notice about verse 8, earlier in the book Hosea seemed to use “Israel” as a way of pointing to the religious and political leaders of the kingdom, and to the basic system. Back in the hippie days of the 1960 the hippies liked to talk about “the Establishment” and “the Man”, referring to the established culture. That is kind of what Hosea did earlier in the book. Also Gomer seemed to represent the same thing. In contrast the children seemed to represent the actual people of the kingdom. In verse 8 when God compares himself to a bear look what kind of bear it is, one robbed of it’s cubs (children). Those kind of bears are mad and so is God in these verses. So we see a picture of God caring for his people.
There is some question as to the tense of verse 10 and some translations have it as past tense while others have it as present. If this is past tense, verses 10 and 11 echo back to other history in the nation of Israel before the split. In the book of Judges we see the nation originally governed by “Judges” leaders who would encourage the people to remember God. But we also see a history of the people constantly defecting. Then the people asked for a human king, that they got, Saul. But he did not lead the people in following God and was removed from leadership. In that case these comments point out the long history of rebellion. God is not flying off in a rage over one little thing. On the other hand if verse 10 is present tense then God is challenging them about their attitude of self-sufficiency. It’s like he’s saying, “Here I come, who’s going to save you now?” I think it could be both, that may seem weird to us but if the language is vague about the tense to modern scholars perhaps it was to the original readers and left things open for both messages.
Verses 12-14 are interesting and kind of weird. There is a box full of sin in verse 12. Then in verse 13 we see Ephraim compared to a pregnant woman in labor. This probably refers to the whole kingdom, but remember as the largest and most influential tribe we are probably talking about the culture of the kingdom rather than people. This is a lot like the example of Gomer in the beginning of Hosea. The fact that the unborn child is “unwise” is probably an idiom (local way of saying something) that means the baby is breach or sideway (not a very wise way to try to be born). When it’s time to come out it’s no time to get stuck. Often a breach baby would result in the death of both the mother and the child. Verse 14 continues the difficult passage by talking about the grave (Sheol) and death. Remember that ancient writings didn’t have punctuation so some translations have questions in the first part of verse 14 and others have statements. Since we have been getting a picture of God destroying Israel for their disobedience the questions might be more appropriate. The baby is stuck and God is asking if he should fix the mess (a reasonable question considering the continual disobedience we have seen on the part of Israel). This way of looking at the verse is supported by the end of the verse in which God will not be compassionate. On the other hand the two questions asked in between about the thorns of death and the sting of the grave seem to suggest that maybe death is not the winner in the end. Paul quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 15:55 clearly talking about the victory God will give believers by resurrecting us from the dead. Again I think both ways of looking at theses verses can be true. In the immediate situation God was in the process of punishing Israel for their continual disobedience. The Assyrians were going to scatter them through out the Assyrian empire. God would not rescue them from that, verse 16 makes it very clear that a very brutal invasion is coming and that it is because Samaria (Israel, Ephraim) had been rebellious. ON the other hand we have seen through out the book little glimpses of hope, especially for the people, even if the kingdom was doomed. And what about the box of sin? In Zechariah 5:5-11 we see a very similar picture. A woman representing evil or wickedness was thrown into a basket (ephah). The basket was then taken away to the land of Shinar (Babylon, a place associated with rebellion and evil in the Bible) where a temple was built for her. The picture is of the removal of evil to it’s own place. Also the term ‘bound up is used in 2 Samuel 20:3 to describe what was done to 10 of David’s mistresses who had had relations with his son Absolom. The were put in a sort of harem where they were cared for but never again did they have relations with a man, they were like widows until they died. This is sort of like what Hosea did, for a time, to Gomer when he took her back. In the case of Gomer it was to make sure she was faithful, but it would also prevent here from having more children with other men. The picture here in Hosea is of God purging evil and may also be of God preventing the leaders from misleading more people.
Verses 15-16 return the stage to Hosea and what he has to say is not pretty. Verse 15 seems to return to the picture of Israel’s beginnings in Egypt. In the story of Joseph (one of Israel’s sons who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers but who became a leader in Egypt) interpreted a dream for the Pharaoh or king of Egypt. The dream involved cows eating among the reeds along the Nile River. The dream indicated that there were going to be seven very good years and then seven years of drought and famine. The dream also involved corn plants with the same message. In Genesis 41:27 we see the corn destroyed by an east wind. Verse 15 is comparing Israel to this story. Israel was brought into a very good land but destruction was on it’s way, God was going to sent a “wind” from the wilderness to dry out Israel. Also in the history of Israel in Egypt it was an east wind that came and held back the water of the Red Sea and allowed Israel to escape the Egyptian army. Mostly in the Old Testament the east wind is trouble. In this case in Hosea the east wind is definitely trouble but there is an extra sting if the Israelites remember that once the east wind had helped them. It’s kind of like the story of the prodigal son and how he remembered that his dad’s servants were always well fed as he thought about eating pig food (Luke 15:16-17). According to the end of verse 15 instead of being saved they were going to lose everything.
As I said before verse 16 makes it very clear that a very brutal invasion is coming and it also tells us why. It is sad that the children will die with their mothers. It is even sadder that the Israelite people would be destroyed along with the evil culture in Israel, Samaria was guilty. In perspective though cultures are made up of people who go along with what is going on around them. In John 1:12 John tells us that as many as receive Jesus, those who really believe he is who he says he is (Yahweh) and that he is that only way back to God (John 14:6) have the right to be part of God’s family. Through out the book we have seen pictures of destruction but we have also seen God and Hosea challenging the people to return. Leaders have responsibility but we do too. We need to turn back to God, we need to stop cheating, we need to be the new leaders in our society and our world. If we go along with the flow of an evil culture we run the risk of being destroyed with it. Also we need to know that it’s ok that God gets mad. God is mad for a good reason, rebellion leads not only to physical destruction here and now, it results in eternal separation fro God and all the good that surrounds him. God wants to remove the cancer of sin from our lives so we can live forever with him. His judgment and “punishment” are carefully planned surgeries designed to give us the best chance for eternal survival.
God thank you for getting mad. Thank you for destroying. Sometimes destruction is a good thing like in 2 Corinthians 10:5 when Paul was destroying false ideas about living a God honoring life. Thank you for the weapon of truth that destroys all the lies. Thank you for the promise of restoration. Thank you for being willing to restore life to us even though we deserve death. Thank you for loving us enough to die for us. Thank you for Jesus. Help me be a good influence on the world around me.