Hosea Lesson 6
Restoration of the Adulterous Wife - Hosea
2:18-3:5
In Hosea 2 we found the chiastic structure of this book. We’ve seen the overall chiasms and we’ve seen
the smaller chiasms in this section. In
We left off with verse 17, and in verse 18 we have the beginning of the
second statement. “And in that day,” that’s the signal that we’re now entering
the third statement, “In that day will I make a covenant for them with the
beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the heavens, and with the creeping
things of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out
of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. [19] And I will betroth
thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in
judgment [justice], and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. [20] I will even betroth thee unto me in
faithfulness; and thou shalt know the LORD.”
In Hosea 2:18, where it says “And in that day” it obviously refers to a
future time and the future time will be when the New Covenant takes full
effect. The New Covenant went into
effect as far as its legal base on the day of Pentecost for it was on that day
that the Holy Spirit came and poured out upon some men. But the New Covenant
could not take full effect, that is, the prophecy of Joel 2 could not have been
fulfilled in the day of Pentecost because the nation rebelled against the
Messiah Jesus. And because the nation
rebelled only those on positive volition, only those regenerated, were
qualified to receive the Holy Spirit. So
on the day of Pentecost instead of all the great signs that the New Covenant
had gone into effect, lo and behold it turns out that the book of Acts is only
one sign and that sign on the day of Pentecost was the sign of speaking in
other languages. Ironically this is the
only characteristic not predicted, for there were other predictions of what
should have happened on the day of Pentecost.
There’s predictions of those phenomenal catastrophes that should have
happened that day. The moon should have
turned to red; the sun should have turned to darkness, but the sun didn’t and
the moon didn’t. The astronomical
catastrophes were absent.
The prophecies of Joel were not fulfilled. Instead the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled,
a prophecy not of blessing but a prophecy of cursing. And the same old cursing upon the nation was
when you hear the gospel come to you in language that can be described as
stuttering language, that is the Hebrew designation for Gentile languages, when
you hear the gospel being preached to you through Gentile times, then know,
said Isaiah, that the discipline is come upon you, you will shortly be
dispersed to the four winds, and judgment has taken place. Tongues, then, was never a sign of blessing,
it was a sign of cursing. And that’s why
Peter makes such a passionate appeal to his country in Acts 2 and 3, oh,
Israel, if you would receive this Jewish carpenter Jesus, who is more than just
a carpenter, He’s the God-man Savior, if you would turn and come to Him, then
this disaster predicted in Isaiah could be avoided. But the nation did not turn and in 70 AD the
armies of
Now “in that day” is far, far in the future, when the New Covenant will
once again take effect. It will take
effect fully because now the nation
Turn to Genesis 9:2 and you’ll see a strange parallel, a parallel that
is word for word between Hosea 2:18 and Genesis 9:2; a parallel that goes back
on the divine viewpoint framework to the archetype of all covenants, and if you
will learn to associate doctrines with the events it will save you a lot of
hassle in understanding Scripture and here is a beautiful illustration. You’ve come to Hosea 2, you look at a
covenant, and in the back of your mind the archetype of all covenants, the
granddaddy of them all was the Noahic Covenant, the first covenant mentioned in
Scripture. And if you remember the
Noahic Covenant with whom was the Noahic Covenant made? It was made with both man and nature. And so particularly in Genesis 9:2 it says,
“And the fear of you,” that is the fear of man corporately, “and the dread of
you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air,
upon all that move upon the earth, and upon all the fish of the sea; into your
hand are they delivered.”
Now God, in Genesis 9:2, increases the curse on nature. Actually what has happened is that in the
original creation you have an uncursed situation. There was no suffering in physical
nature. There were no chromosomal
rearrangements; there were no mutations, there were no sicknesses, no death, no
disease, no sorrow. This was the perfect
creation as it left the fingertips of God.
And then came the fall and with the fall came a period in which the
universe took a less than ideal form during the antediluvian period. And during the antediluvian period you had
death, but although you had death the effects of the fall had not yet worked
fully down at the physiology of man. Man
lived an average of 930 years. You have
animals living during this period, gigantic animals, this is the age when the
dinosaurs roamed the earth, and this is the time when contrary to evolution you
had animals in almost every category of gigantic size. And the only inference
that you can draw is that the biological realm, and particularly the botanical
realm, the plant realm, must have been tremendously luxurious in order to sustain
animals that would consume tons of vegetative matter daily. So all during this time you had a different
botanical and zoological ecology than you do this side of the flood.
It cannot be stressed enough that the early ages of man, man did live in
the early ages of the dinosaurs. Of that
we have empirical evidence. We saw a
film of the dinosaur tracts at Paluxy, in the
After the flood the age of giant animals died away for the entire
ecology was transformed. In Genesis 9:2
this is an announcement that such a transformation has occurred. Now the animals are deeply afraid of man; now
there is war between man and animal. It
is here where man’s diet changed; it is here where meat is allowed; man became
carnivorous at this point. By the way,
it is said by skeptics, how can carnivorous animals have existed in a
vegetarian type system? It’s
interesting, I have in my office a picture of an experiment done by a rancher
in
Now in Hosea
And in Hosea, in one verse, we have a capsule summary of what God will
do in the future. He will, first,
retransform both the botanical and zoological realms back, to apparently
antediluvian conditions throughout the millennium. How He does it I don’t know, because prophecy
is open, we don’t know the details and it’s foolish to sit down and speculate
how He can do it; we just don’t know.
Those of you who are Christians involved in areas of zoology and botany,
this might provide you with some interesting research material; try to run
experiments and to see whether the conditions of antediluvian conditions are
still prevalent in plants and animals or whether this is going to have to
almost be a creative act of God to kind of undo all the damage that’s been
done, but somehow there’s just going to be this transformation.
But interestingly, before they can lie down safely, that’s the last of
verse 18, before the animals can lie down safely something else must be
transformed; not animals, not plants, but man, because the bow and the sword
and the battle, the war, must be done away with, and here is where war and the
military are eliminated from history.
This is the true Biblical doctrine of pacifism; it is future centered,
not present centered.
For parallel passages, turn to Isaiah 2, this is the only verse allowed
in the United Nations building; you might know they would take it out of
context. Isaiah 2:4 is the verse that you’ve heard so often in terms of the
great peace movements. “And He shall
judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples; and they shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;” this is
phrased in the language of the day and there will be economic blessings of
nations that will be fantastic, all expenses on armament, one of the greatest
items in any national budget today will be completely eliminated. That alone
would decrease taxes about 50%, an amazing expense. And this will come to pass, God has ordained
that man not forever live in an environment of war. “…nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
So military science will become an obsolete area of study.
But the context of verse, the context
of verse 4 is important. It just doesn’t
happen by man-made attempts because in verses 2-3 you have the proper context
of disarmament. Isaiah 4:2, “And it
shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above
the hills’ and all nations shall flow unto it.”
That means there will be a world capital established at
Now that was the Messianic vision of ancient
Some people say that you can’t be too literal when you interpret Genesis
9, you mustn’t take that too literally, that that really is saying that the
vegetarian era was exceeded by the carnivorous era, that then capital
punishment came to pass. But if you
aren’t skeptical toward Genesis 9, and you take it literally, do you remember
the two themes in Genesis 9? With the
transformation in the zoological and biological realm, also there was a
transformation in the political realm of man, when now you have capital
punishment and you have war and you have disaster and you have hunting. And
it’s interesting that apparently hunting was associated with war in the Hebrew
mind; it was man warring against nature.
And hunting will be eliminated, unfortunately for some, by this prophecy
in verse 18. The animals in the
millennium will not live in the fear of man.
But the theme of disarmament includes hunting in Hosea 2:18.
Hosea 2:19, now God turns to the nation, He addressed the nation in the
second person, it’s no longer “it,” it’s no longer “them,” it’s personal, “And
I will marry you unto Me forever;”
remember that this process leading to the marriage began in verse 14, it
began with the verb to seduce, “Therefore, behold, I will seduce her,” and
there were three steps to the seduction of Israel. The first step in verse 14, I will get her
attention; the second step is I will “speak authoritatively to her,” that is,
the initiator reveals Himself verbally, and then finally in verse 15, the third
thing God did to initiate love toward the woman He loved, was He acted toward
her: words and work. And that is the way
the male reveals his character to the female, through the words and the
works. You girls remember that, that’s
what you’re looking for, words and works, not a big line. You’re looking for words and works, you’re
built to respond that way; you’re made to respond to a man who is revealing his
character to you. And this is the
marriage is ordained and we are made as men corporately to respond to God when
He reveals Himself by words and works.
Well, the significance of verse 14 was very important; the significance
of verse 14 shows you the mind of God toward sin in the believer’s life because
in verse 14 God is looking forward to ultimate sanctification. He’s looking forward, past the time when you
become a Christian, past the time of all the ups and downs in the Christian
life, all the way to your ultimate sanctification in the future, and when He is
looking at Israel’s ultimate sanctification He says, even though legally He is
married to Israel, He is saying I forget that, I forget the marriage, I forget
all that has happened in that marriage that was bad, and it is as though I
start all over again, because the verb used in verse 14 was always used in the
Pentateuch and the Torah for seduction of a virgin, it is looking at that which
leads to marriage, not something in a marriage that’s already established. And this verse shows that God can not only
forgive but He can forget.
Now the grace of God is going to be so fantastic in ultimate
sanctification that we cannot comprehend it now. There’s a verse we’ll touch on before we
finish that shows you this; it shows you that in eternity the believers are
going to be absolutely amazed at God’s grace.
It is going to be so fantastic that He can look at you and overlook
every single fault, every single sin which you’ve been carrying around a guilt
complex for years, all of it’s by the board.
And here’s the wonder, that an omniscient God can forgive and
forget. Now we don’t know in the
metaphysical sense what it means when it says God forgets. It’s very hard; all we know is that God is
presented as a person in Scripture, and He is using that way of showing to us
that what corresponds to forgetfulness in us is very close to what corresponds
to forgetfulness in Him. Now God is
omniscient so in that sense He doesn’t forget, but sometimes you can forget
something and it’s still in your mind.
For example, you can concentrate on something so intently that you
forget other things. In that sense you
can forget, even though that thing for the moment, it’s still in your mind but
it’s not in the center of your conscious.
Apparently this is the same way God acts; in ultimate sanctification, if
you can draw it this way, here’s God’s field of knowledge, He concentrates, as
it were, in the depths of His personal relationship with us, on that part of
our lives that was a result of grace, and all the rest of it, all the crud He
doesn’t look at. So contained in that
one verb of verse 14 is a tremendous truth.
Now when you come to Hosea 2:19 and it says “I will betroth,” or “I will
marry,” that’s the ultimate step, when God marries Israel again, but this time
it is an eternal marriage. The New
Covenant is forever; that’s what the author of Hebrews points out. The author is saying Christians understand
that the New Covenant isn’t like the Old one, it doesn’t have an inherent
obsolescence in it, it is not going to be phased out by any future revelation,
it will be added to but the basis of the covenant remains, we have an
everlasting covenant. Same thing
here. “I will betroth thee to me
forever,” the Hebrew word for eternity.
“I will marry Israel to me,” now this looks like the New Covenant in
terms of Israel; this means the nation Israel will never disappear from
history, no matter how hard people try to destroy the Jew the Jew will survive.
“And I will betroth thee unto Me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness,” and then he lists a series of characteristics. Now since we have operated down through here
in the area of analogy, we have Hosea’s marriage, then we have God’s marriage
with Israel, notice the attributes of the marriage relationship in verses
19-20. These same attributes, that
control God’s national relationship to Israel, are also the same attributes
that are the basis for a successful marriage.
“I will marry you unto me in righteousness,” so one of the
characteristics… the word righteous means the standards of the Word of God,
that the first thing and the last thing in that marriage is that both of the
couple are intent on submitting to the standards of God’s Word for their lives
in every area, “and in judgment [justice],” here’s the idea that what doesn’t
meet the righteous standard will be purged out.
And so the couple who would have the most stable marriage will be the
couple that is intent on purging out that which does not fit the standards of
the Word. “…in loving-kindness,” now
Hosea is shortly going to demonstrate loving-kindness like no man has ever
demonstrated it. The word
“loving-kindness” is the word chesed;
there are two words in the Hebrew for love, ahav
and chesed. Chesed
is the kind of love that functions after a covenant has been made; in other
words, it is marital love, after the oath.
Ahav love is a love that
starts before the oath is made. It’s
elective love, I choose to love this woman, or I choose to love this man,
that’s a choice and a choosing; that’s ahav. But now after the oath has been made and the
second divine institution has been erected in that couples life, then the
loyalty to that prior agreement, or the oath, is expressed as chesed.
And so that will be another, third characteristic of the successful
marriage, loyalty. You’ll notice, none
of these are particularly emotional. It
doesn’t mean that emotions don’t follow in marriage, but the point is the
stability of the marriage isn’t based on your emotions. The stability of the marriage is based on the
Word, always the Word. And
“loving-kindness” means an oath was made and that oath was made before the God
of the universe, and I dare not go back on that oath.
The fourth one, “…and in mercies,” a fourth characteristic. What is the “mercies?” Grace, it’s plural, it means many, many,
many, many, many, many different acts of grace.
That is a fourth characteristic of a successful marriage. You will always have need for grace. If you don’t believe it, marry and find out.
Hosea 2:20, “I will even marry you unto Me in faithfulness,” now here’s
the word from which we get “amen,” you say “amen” at the end of a prayer, you
didn’t know that you were saying a Hebrew word, but that’s what you’re
saying. It comes from the word to be
stable, and that’s another quality of the successful marriage; again it’s not
particularly an emotional word, it just means stability. And the result, “and you shall know the
LORD.” Now look at this; let’s look
first in terms of the simple marriage relationship and then we’ll go back to
the nation. Here’s the man, he’s the
initiator, he shapes the marriage form, so he marries his right woman with these
characteristics to the marriage. That’s
what he’s seeking to bring about in the marriage relationship: righteousness,
judgment, loyalty, mercies and faithfulness.
Now the result; all this looks like a lot of work, but the result is
that the woman, she will know the man, and the word yadah means know him physically and know his soul. So the woman who knows her man has had that
man reveal himself to her by imposing this structure, the character of the man.
This is why it is foolish for some young couple to come along and when I
ask them in premarital counseling, do you know whether he/she is a believer;
gee, I don’t know, we never talked about that.
Now that is a ridiculous answer; how can you date somebody over a long
period of time and supposedly contemplate one of the greatest decisions of your
life and never talk about spiritual things?
You’re not responding to the person’s character, you can tell right from
this verse because this woman will know the man only as the man shows spiritual
leadership, otherwise she’s just responding to an infatuation, but she’s not
responding to the real man.
Now let’s look at it nationally, here is Jehovah, or Yahweh making love
to the nation Israel. He has all those
standards to His relationship with Israel.
Now the result is that when Israel sees all these things, Israel yadah’s, she knows God. And this means
she doesn’t just intellectually know that He exists, she has thoroughly
experienced Him. And there’s a
phenomenal verse coming up which shows you how much yadah means.
Then in Hosea 2:21, the last stage, the last part of the chiasm, “And it
shall come to pass in that day,” now this goes away from the covenant idea for
a moment, just like verses 14-15, it goes back to the big overall plan. “And it shall come to pass in that day, I
will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the
earth; [22] And the earth shall hear the grain, and the wine, and the oil; and
they,” the earth, the grain, the wine and the oil, “shall hear Jezreel.” Now what’s all this talking about? The word “hear,” hanah, can mean answer or it can mean respond. And what it means is that the ecology of
nature is deeply responsive to man; the ecology crisis is ended. This is what is so astounding about
Scripture, the prophecy forms a framework for even ecological matters. A Christian who is biblically thinking cannot
handle the ecology problem apart from prophecy.
And here in verses 21-22 you have a perfectly functioning system. “Jezreel” is another word for Israel, it’s a
pun and I’ll show you in a moment what it means. It’s a pun on the name Yisrael, and if you
start the verse logically in verse 22 and then back up, you don’t start at
verse 21 and read down, so the one who initiates the action is Jezreel. Who’s Jezreel? Well, they’d be Hebrew farmers, so here the
Hebrew farmers want to grow something.
What are they? They’re from man,
sons of Adam; what are the sons of Adam to do?
Subdue the earth, just like the original Adam in the Garden of
Eden. The earth is built to respond to
man, originally it was before God cursed it.
And so the grain and the things that men want to produce respond to
him. Again, I just throw this out
because some of you have scientific interests; to me it’s always been
fascination to speculate whether plants have this built-in response to people
that was residual from the point of creation and whether the curse has gone on
and it’s somehow wiped out but somehow in its very structure it’s still
there.
Here you obviously have the wheat, the wine, and the oil, olive oil, so
this is talking about the produce, agricultural produce will respond to
Jezreel. So you’ll have the grain
responding to the Hebrew farmer, at last nature won’t be so antagonistic to
man. It will be responsive and we won’t
feel frustrated. At last the earth shall
do this, and then the earth shall respond to the need of the grain, it’s a form
here where everything becomes highly personal.
It’s as though the farmer comes into the field and he talks to the grain;
I’ve heard people that say they talk to their plants… well maybe in the
millennium we’ll all be doing it. So
Jezreel talks to the wheat and it’s as though the wheat bends down and talks to
the earth. Then follow the sequence, and
the earth talks to the heavens? Why does
the earth talk to the heavens? Because
it’s from the heavens which we get the water, the nutrients. So the earth talks to heaven. And the heavens talk to God. And again please notice the tremendous
materialism, in the good sense of the word, the concreteness of Old Testament
thought; when they talked about heaven where God was, it’s the heavens that you
can go out and see at night, it’s that physical; it’s somewhere in the
blackness of outer space. The Hebrew can
see that Christ has gone there. They
didn’t think of Him going off into the nth dimension, that’s
something 20th century man imports into the discussion but not the
Jew. And here the heavens kind of shade
off into God Himself.
We know why these things become personal in Hosea 2:21-22 because
remember when we dealt with angels, and we dealt with how the fact that in
Hebrews nature is interchangeable in some forms with angels, how angels will
appear as winds and fire; we only think of angels as appearing as people but
the Bible also teaches that angels can transform themselves into physical
phenomena, not that all fire is angels, but that some fire can be angelic. Whatever these spirits are that have kind of
incorporeal, they can transform themselves into physical form. So when the heavens are speaking it also
implies that angelic powers re involved here.
And another thing we can go on and expand, but the reason why you have
nature functioning so well along with all the angelic agencies involved in this
chain, however many there may be, is because all the evil angels have been
removed at the beginning of the millennium.
The demon powers are removed and since the demon powers are removed now
the elect angels, the good angels, have complete reign in the cause/effect
relationship. So everything is a harmony
here, and this is the goal of history, this is the place where the western
world originally got its concept of progress from. Remember, until the Jews came along
everything was cyclic in history.
Hosea 2:23, “And I will sow her unto Me,” now that’s a pun on the word,
and this is another truth, one of those little truths that come from one little
Hebrew word, but this is one of those truths that again, applies to the
Christian life. Here’s the word Jezreel;
here’s the way it looks in the Hebrew.
Here’s the word Israel and here’s the way it looks in the Hebrew. That funny ending on the end, that’s the end
of the word, that’s “el,” God, the
word for God. And this is Yzr, kind of a hard “a”, this is the word to sow, and so
Jezreel means God sows, and [can’t understand word; sounds like: yashar] is the
word for prince, “prince of God,” Jacob.
Now if you pronounce these in the Hebrew they sound much the same, so
where it doesn’t look the same in the English, here’s the way it sounds in the
Hebrew. In the Hebrew Jezreel sounds
like {?}; Israel sounds like Yisrael, so it’s a pun on the sound of the two
words, and God calls Yisrael Yisrael when He wants to stress two things. He calls Israel by a name that can mean
cursing and by a name that can mean blessing.
In the very first of Hosea we went through this before, in Hosea 1:4,
“And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel,” one of the sons of Hosea,
“call his name Yisrael,” “call his name Jezreel,” because, “he says, I will
avenge the blood of Yisrael upon the house of Jehu.” In other words, Jezreel means God sows, and
when the ancient farmer sowed in the field he didn’t have a nice little seeder
that he pulled behind his tractor, he sowed, reached in a bag and flung the
seed out, that’s the way he sowed the land.
And it’s a picture of God picking up Israel and flinging her to the four
winds. And so this word means I cast
Israel out, I sow her to the wind.
But back in Hosea 3:23, taking the same word, God says now I want to
show you what else this word means. “I
will sow her,” there’s the verb that you see in the first part of this word,
“sow” is this one, these four little things here, “I will sow her,” and here it
isn’t a reference to the farmer reaching in his bag and flinging the seed out,
but here’s the picture of the seed reaching the ground for which it’s intended,
where it takes root. And so “I will sow Israel unto me in the earth,” I will
plant her, in other words. “…and I will
have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy,” see this goes full cycle back
to those three children of Hosea, “and I will say to them who were not my
people,” Lo-ammi, remember him, “thou art My people,; and they shall say, Thou
art my God.”
This reviews the doctrine of sanctification, for what is the aim of
sanctification? Loyalty to God. So should it surprise you that when
sanctification is over and done with and finished what is the sign that
sanctification has been done? It’s when
we can say with all our hearts, “You are my God.” Now until we are ultimately sanctified,
there’s no one here, no one will ever be who can ever say Jesus Christ is my
God fully, because we all have hearts that border on idolatry. And to a degree, that is to the degree that
we are not fully sanctified, we are disloyal traitors to God; we are not loyal
to Him in the depths of our heart.
That’s what it means to be cursed creatures; regenerate yes, but
regeneration and sanctification are not yet complete. “Thou art my God,” that’s when it’s finished.
Now in Hosea 3 we have just five verses and this completes the first
section of Hosea. Chapter 1, chapter 2,
chapter 3. Chapter 1 was an order to
Hosea; chapter 2, also part of a chiasm, an amplification of God, and now
chapter 3 God orders Hosea to do something else. The prophet must suffer; he has to live out
in his own life the agonies that his God lived in history. And as I have said again and we’ll say again
and again as we study the book of Hosea, there is not one book in the Scripture
that shows more the true personality of God Himself. You don’t have a big ideal “it” in the
Bible. You have a God who reacts to
us. He gets angry at us; that may sound
trivial until you think about it, but if you are so significant that something
you do in space/time history can cause anger inside the infinite personal God,
don’t you see what that says about how responsible you are and how significant
you are. That’s the Bible’s message; man
is that significant that he can irritate the God of the universe. That’s good news for 20th century
man; man is not an IBM number or a social security card; he’s an individual
person that can irritate the God of the universe, or can cause the God of the
universe to be joyful.
In Hosea 3:1-5 we read what God told Hosea. You see, in Hosea 1 what did he tell Hosea
to do? Go out and find a professional
prostitute, her name is Gomer, and I want you to marry her, even though she’s a
woman, it says in the Hebrew, “of fornications,” plural, which means it’s part
of her inbred nature to fornicate, she is a professional at it, nevertheless,
Hosea, Gomer is your right woman. Now
Christians have this thing that if they trust God with their life God is going
to give somebody ugly pills and then bring them to you, and if you trust God
you’re going to get faked out because He’s going to find the worst person
imaginable just for you; you think He hunts the universe to make you miserable,
He has an ugly contest and you get the winner.
Now that’s the picture that some believers have of God. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but nevertheless
that is the picture that we have of God.
Now if there was one man who might have a claim to that it was Hosea, so
there is never a believer here that will suffer like Hosea. Hosea finished that assignment so since God didn’t
call you to be a Hosea relax, there won’t be any Gomer for you.
Hosea 3:1, “Then the LORD said unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of
her friend, y et an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the
children of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine [cakes of
raisins]. [2] So I bought her for myself
for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of
barley. [3] And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt
not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man; so will I also be
for thee.” Hosea is instructed at this
point to take Gomer back… to take her back.
Now this obviously implies that between chapter 1 and chapter 3 she’s
taken off. We can guess toward what! This woman has –R learned behavior patterns
in her soul that you can’t believe.
They’re ingrained all the way from the toe to the top of the head. She just responds automatically and yet God
has said that woman is your best woman for now Hosea, I picked her out, and
whether you like it or not, that’s your assignment.
So God says, now Hosea, go again, that’s what it means; “go again,”
initiate again, and “love a woman” and he calls her, that’s why it’s “a woman”
here, it’s a title for Gomer and it’s a title to bring out a truth that is now
going to be an astounding picture of God’s love for believers. “…Go yet, love a woman, beloved of her
companion,” literally, and the word “beloved” is put in the participial form
and the participial form in the Hebrew means continuous action. This shows you what a fantastic man Hosea
was. What this is meaning is that God is
saying Hosea, go bring her back, the woman that you love, because the companion
is Hosea, that’s the companion, the woman who right his moment is beloved of
you. No matter what has happened in that
marriage, no matter how bad it’s gotten, Hosea still loves her. This is why he was one of the most phenomenal
men of history. If you want an expert on
marriage it’s Hosea. The woman is
constantly being loved, even though Hosea was not around her physically, he
loved her in his soul. That woman was
constantly loved; in the Hebrew it’s very strong, “love a woman constantly
being loved yet constantly committing adultery,” it’s this constant action and
it’s taken two participles and they’re slapped together with a tremendous
conjunction of contrast between the two.
So you have two parallel lines, while that woman is actively committing
adultery after adultery after adultery after adultery Hosea actively loves her,
loves her, loves her, loves her.
Now God says it’s time that Gomer is going to come back to you. But the parallel is carried explicitly in
verse 1 because the last part of Hosea 3:1 says, “…according to the love of
God, or “the love of Jehovah toward the children of Israel,” and the verbs
“look” and “love” in verse 1 are also participles, so it should read,
“according to the love of Yahweh toward the children of Israel, who are right
now looking to other gods, and are right now loving cakes of raisins.” I don’t know how they ever got flagons of
wine out of this, this is raisin cakes and I’ll explain why in a moment. The “looking to other gods” has reference to
conditions between 800-721 BC in the northern kingdom. All during this period of time apostasy
increased and increased and increased until the northern kingdom went into the
fifth degree of discipline. They hit
theirs with the fall of Samaria in 721 BC to the Assyrians whereas the southern
kingdom hit theirs in 587-586 BC with the fall of Jerusalem to
Nebuchadnezzar. They had reached the
fifth cycle but even during the process, when they were piling up all their
sins, all their negative volition, rejection, rejection of the authority of the
Word, over and over and over again, God says I still love Israel. I still love Israel!!! A picture of fantastic stability.
Now why does God still love Israel.
All right, we come back to the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election has five
points. The doctrine of election starts
with the divine viewpoint foundation; you can’t understand election without the
divine viewpoint foundation of creation and fall; in creation we understand
that God is sovereign; in the fall we understand that man is fallen, so
therefore God does not have to elect anyone.
In fact is, we’ve all disqualified from His kingdom at the point of the
fall, for the very fact that God elects anyone is a sign of grace. So if you look when it says “according to the
love of the LORD” it means the sovereign elective love of God. God has chosen Israel, period, and He doesn’t
go back on His choice. Now do you see
the parallel? Why was it that Hosea was
such an illustration of marriage?
Because the woman that he married was his right woman regardless of what
happened; she could go out and commit adultery, fornicate or whatever she
wanted to do, that didn’t change God’s will.
It didn’t matter, she was Hosea’s right woman period, regardless of
anything else.
The doctrine of election also says that election is God’s basic eternal
promise…eternal promise! It means that
once that promise is made God doesn’t change the promise, so nothing in history
can change an elective choice of God.
This is why the Puritans were such strong people, when they believed
that God had chosen them to do something they didn’t care if hell or high
water, because God had chosen it.
The third thing in the doctrine of election is that it’s God’s 100%
certain promise. If God makes a promise
it’s 100% certain; nothing is going to change it. It means that God is totally free; God when
He made it wasn’t having His arm twisted, you’ve got to love Israel. Nobody twisted God’s arm, He didn’t have to
love Israel, and at this point in the marriage idea of ahav love nobody twists the arm; the picture in marriage is the
couple chooses, it’s their free choice, they made the choice and that’s
it.
And finally, the heart of election is a loving relationship. All right, the doctrine of election is the
basis for this love that you see in Hosea 3;1, that’s why the love is
stable. So Hosea, in his marriage has to
duplicate the stability of God’s love.
So all during the time that Gomer is playing games Hosea is stable,
stable, stable, stable, nothing rocks him because God has decreed. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have feelings, it
doesn’t mean that at times there weren’t tears, it doesn’t mean that at times
Hosea felt stabbed in his heart; it doesn’t say that. But it says in spite of all those things
Hosea was stable, he made it.
The last one, the “cakes of raisins,” the significance of this is that
these were special cakes that were made in heathen ceremonies, they were also
used sometimes in legitimate ceremonies in the Old Testament, but the reason
why they are mentioned here is because these cakes were apparently very
delicious to the people of that day, and it speaks of satisfaction in your soul
that is only superficial. To catch
what’s happening here we’ve got to go back to the doctrine of man. In the Bible man’s soul is made up of several
parts. We have the fact that man has a
body, and this is the Hebrew way of thinking, you go back to Genesis 2:5; in
the simple picture of Genesis 2:5 what happens?
God, it’s just like a man would work clay, He works man’s body up out of
the ground. So the first thing you have
is a body, then God… and the picture is very graphic, He breathes into his
nostrils the breath of life. And with
that we have the spirit and body together which is then called soul; man
becomes soul. Now that means when you
read the word “life” or “soul” for the two English words translated from nephesh, when you see this word in your
Bible, think of it from both sides. Soul
can mean that which is in your body, for example, the soul hungers for food,
obviously that’s talking about your body.
So you can have the soul from the body side hungering or you can have
the soul from the spirit side, either way.
This is why you can be depressed and it can be due to organic causes and
not be spiritual at all. You can have
all the symptoms of carnality and it might be low blood sugar or
something. Now don’t use that as an
excuse. But that’s a possibility and you
might as well think of it. Now if you
slug somebody or something don’t say pardon me, that was my low blood
sugar. But you can have problems and
they not be spiritual at all and if you don’t go to a doctor and have these
things straightened out you’re going to walk around with a big guilt complex,
why am I so carnal, why am I out of it, see a good doctor, he might solve what
you think is a spiritual problem and it isn’t, it’s a medical problem. Do you know why? Because Christians have so emphasized the
platonic idea of the soul that we think all spiritual problems are due to
spiritual reasons; that’s not true. You
can have bad emotions and your mind can’t think or something, it might just be
because you haven’t gotten enough sleep, it’s nothing spiritual.
So your soul comes from both sides.
Now the raisin cakes and similar things, see that’s just used as part
for the whole, that was used for many of the things they had, they had some
alcohol and a few other things that made things click at some of these feasts,
and this was things that your soul would feel as pleasurable, but it was from
the body side. That’s why he’s saying look, they go to other gods and they love
the joy that comes through the religious celebrations of Baal but the joy that
is coming is only coming into their soul from one side. It’s not coming from the other side, that’s
the point. He’s not being against
material fleshly pleasure, he’s just saying that that’s not all to life and you
people are stupid to go to these [can’t understand word] and you think you’re
filling up that void in your soul by getting bombed out of your mind or
something else. You’re not filling
anything, that’s his point.
Hosea 3:2, “So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, I
bought her to me for an homer and a half of barley,” the homer and a half
amounts to 15 ephads, 15 ephads equals 15 shekels at this time and so 15
shekels, which is the silver pieces mentioned here in verse 2, plus the 15
shekels worth of barley equals 30. Now
turn to Exodus 21:32 and let’s see what that 30 means. It tells a lot about what happened to
Gomer. [“if the ox shall push a
manservant or a maidservant, he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of
silver, and the ox shall be stoned.] Exodus tells us that thirty shekels equals the price of a slave,
and that shows you what happened to Gomer while she was trotting around. She got herself in debt, and she had to
indenture herself to some family and she couldn’t’ get free. Apparently even at this point physical
degeneration had set in so she couldn’t even go into the prostitute business
and make money to become free again; she had experienced such a
deterioration. The woman must have been
a mess and furthermore in verse 2 it shows you how degenerate things had become
because only half the price is paid for in silver, the other half is paid for
in barley. And when you read in the
ancient world the one food that was like spinach is to kids, barley was to the
people in the ancient world. Nobody
wants it. So the very face he paid half
the price in barley shows you that this is a most unwanted woman… anything to
get rid of that mess. So he said I had
to redeem her with 15 pieces of silver and 15 shekels of barley.
And then he gives her a strange command, and this command in Hosea 3:3
has within it the entire history of Israel, from this point to the
millennium. “And Is aid unto her, Thou
shalt sit [abide] for me many days; and you will not play the harlot, and you
will not be for a man,” it says in your King James “another man,” huh-un, “be
for a man” means no sex, he puts her in quarantine and says you are going to
stay in my house, I am going to lock the door, you’re not going to have sex
with me or any other man, that’s the significance. “…so will I also be for you,” it doesn’t mean
he’s going to be for her as a husband, it means I will be to you as I expect
you to be for me, no sex. This is a time
of complete abstinence for you.
Now why this strange thing and what does it mean? Explanation: Hosea 3:4-5, “For the children
of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and
without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without
teraphim,” that summarizes Jewish history to our present era. The Jews lost their king in 586 BC, they’ve
never had a king again. Jesus never got
to be enthroned. So they’ve never had a
functioning king. Have they had a
prince, no, unless you say some of the latter Jewish leaders in the Maccabean
revolt acted as that. Have they had
sacrifices? No, the sacrifices were
generally phased out, they had some in the post-exilic period but ever since
then no sacrifices. Have they had… this
is the image in the sense of the ephod in the temple, it’s not a bad image in
the bad sense of the word; have they had that?
No, the functioning high priest is gone.
And so what has happened? Let’s
go back to our parallel; here’s the marriage of Hosea, here’s the history of
the nation Israel. In Hosea’s marriage
you have the covenant that defines the marriage relationship but the center of
the marriage relationship in sexual intercourse is eliminated and postponed and
forbidden; you have the form but you don’t have the reality. And so Israel’s history will be that she will
be locked in and plagued with this Torah, this Law that sets her apart from
every other culture but she no longer nationally enjoys the deep communion that
comes from God; it’s all gone, and it’s never to come back until the last of
the days. Israel has gone through
nationally the quarantine that Gomer had to go through.
And then afterward God says in Hosea 3:5, “Afterward shall the children
of Israel return, and eek the LORD their God,” but only afterward, only after a
long, long time of national quarantine.
This is the axiom, by the way, of election. You wonder why God bangs you over the head, the
fact you’re elect, if you saw Fiddler on
the Roof where he says God, I know we’re the chosen people but couldn’t You
choose somebody else once in a while… that’s very sound, sound Biblical
response to election because election implies God cares so much for you that
He’s going to keep after you and keep after you and keep after you and keep
after you and keep after you and keep after you. And you get miserable because He’s chasing
you. And He’s chasing you because He
loves you and afterwards you’re going to have the same response Israel
has. “Afterward shall the children of
Israel return, and seek the LORD, their God,” see, she will be allured and
there will finally be a response. And
apparently we’re to infer in the marriage of Hosea and Gomer, that woman was
finally able to respond to him, but only after a long time of quarantine to get
her out of her –R learned behavior patterns of fornication, after all that
quarantine, then and only then could she physically respond to her husband.
And now in verse 5 the nation responds to God, “and seek the LORD, their
God, and David, their king,” for David was always the model of
sanctification. Other verses that show
that apparently along with this verse David may be, and this is just a guess,
but David may be when he’s resurrected, made in his resurrection body assume
leadership of the nation, Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23 and Ezekiel 37:24. Those passages all emphasize David, so
apparently although Jesus Christ returns David himself will take the leadership
of the nation.
And now the last one, and here’s one of those great, great truths that
applies to us as believers comes up.
Remember the analogy, just as Israel has its ultimate sanctification we
have ours. “…and they shall fear the
LORD,” that means to revere, to be in awe.
Now there’s two words used in the Hebrew for fear; one is used in
Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and I said that
meant respect for authority. This word
doesn’t carry respect for authority, this word carries more the sense of being
in awe of something, you just look at it with your mouth open, that kind of
thing. That’s the picture behind this
word for fear; Israel, when they finally come to ultimate sanctification will
be thoroughly amazed at the essence of God Himself, and one particular part of
God’s character is going to amaze them more than any other part, and in the
Hebrew when they wanted to emphasize something like this they listed the
general and then in apposition to it they’d list the specific.
So notice how the sentence is constructed; “they will be in awe of
Jehovah,” that means His whole character, “and in particular His goodness,” and
apparently if we are to kind of read between the lines here and put it in the
perspective of Scripture, when God finally finishes His work the one thing that
is going to strike you, if you are a Christian and you wind up face to face
with the Lord in eternity and the whole sanctification program is finished, the
one thing you can predict right now that’s going to be the center of amazement
for you is God’s goodness; not His justice, His goodness toward you. You can see a little bit here, that He loved
you through thick and thin. Now we can’t
see this, and we might as well be honest, we don’t right now, as believers,
when the disasters hit and when all the pressure comes into our lives, “why do
you let this happen to me,” that’s the usual response. But in eternity it’s going to be different. In eternity in some way God is going to show
us what He was doing at those times in your life; when you thought He abandoned
you, when you were crying because you felt there was never an answer to prayer,
He is going to show you what He was doing at just that moment and you’re going
to back off with your mouth open of all the things that God has done because He
was good to you.