Notes on Hosea 11 for Pentecost 10C

-revcamp

  

Dear friends I find myself looking anew at the Old and New Testaments this season of review for the prophets. There are a couple of observations I wish to make at the outset.

Some have said that the Old Testament God is a God of wrath and the New Testament God is a God of love. I have found God to be one who judges in the New Testament and loves in the Old Testament and it is for this reason I really appreciate our reading from Hosea this week.

In our text this week there are some pieces I want to lift out and posit for your review.

First, God acts in profound ways in Hosea 11:

God loved Israel and called him by name out of Egypt, claiming Israel as God’s own child (v.1)

God taught Ephraim (the Northern Kingdom) to walk; and one has the image of God lifting Ephraim up under the arm pits and helping Ephraim to stand so that he might be able learn to walk, as so many parents do with their own children. And the next image is one that seems to indicate that this learning to walk was not as an infant learning to walk, but as an adult who has lost the ability to walk and has to be rehabilitated, only to find themselves able to walk again, forgetting that someone or something helped them in the process (v.3)

God then talks of Israel as like a service animal: a camel or a donkey, or an ox; God has tied them with cords of human kindness to keep them from their animal instincts and straying from the work at hand for the Kingdom of God, and then created halters with love, to keep them close. (This in my mind recalls images of James 3:3 and the bit in the mouth to turn the whole animal). The real gift of kindness is the take the yoke from around the neck, letting the animal rest and take Sabbath. This recalls the 4^th Commandment from Exodus 20. God bends down to feed us, coming down to our level (in Jesus Christ) that we might receive the Good News. I am reminded of the image of mothers and fathers everywhere who mimic eating while at the same time feeding their infant children to help the youngster know how to eat. (v.4)

God laments the desire of the child, Israel, to run away from God, asking how God might give up, hand over, treat poorly, or make undone, instead God is stirred to compassion, rather than wrath. The wrath is what God seemed to want to do in former times as the cities of Admah and Zeboiim are named – cities that were rendered destroyed and worthless in the same breath as Sodom and Gomorrah, for their inhospitality, and great wandering from God. God is broken within, and has a change of heart, showing only love and compassion. (v.

God differentiates from human action that seeks to bear down and destroy (v.9)

God roars like a lion, offering protection, running off other predators and showing God to be the greatest of the lions (Babylonians, Assyrians and others also used the image of lions to represent their gods). In the roaring like a lion God also calls to the cubs, who return from a foreign land (the west – does this represent future Gentiles, or just those who have gone back to Egypt?) (v.10)

God settles Israel in their homes. I heard once of the former tradition among churches to offer their incoming pastor a “pounding”. This is the tradition where the new pastor is introduced to the new home with a housewarming including a pound of butter, a pound of flour, sugar, and as many things that a congregation could imagine measured out in pounds, not to mention the various furnishings. (I also hear the story of Jesus telling the Disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house – John 14) (v.11)

 

God’s actions are shown to be those of a patient and loving parent even in the midst of great misdeeds by Israel, Ephraim and even Judah. (Israel and Ephraim are often interchanged in the Old Testament, and Hosea as well does this.)

Israel/Ephraim acts poorly:

They ran further away from God. They sacrificed to false Gods, and burned incense before images (Commandments 1 and 2 are broken here). (v.2)

Did not acknowledge God’s work with them to learn how to walk breaking the 5^th Commandment to “honor your father and mother that it may live long in the land God has given you.” (v.3)

When they return to Egypt and Assyria, former slaveholders of Israel and those who had mistreated them, God seems to indicate that Israel is breaking the 4^th Commandment to keep the Sabbath, and rest. (v.5)

Israel lifts swords against each other, and break down their cities with infighting. This leads to breaking the 6^th Commandment to not commit murder, as well as the 8^th Commandment and 10^th Commandment regarding stealing and coveting, taking either in action or in one’s heart that which belongs to someone else, including God.

By talking about how Israel calls out to the Most High, they are not calling to God – YHWH, but instead Elyon (God is sometimes known as El Elyon – God of gods, The God Most High), thus committing adultery with Elyon before their real God YHWH. This breaks the 7^th Commandment. (v.7)

God offers the final indictment against Israel and the breaking of the 9^th and final Commandment to not bear false witness against ones neighbor when God speaks of not acting like humans do in carrying out fierce anger. This is not an action for humans, but for God alone, and when humans try to take this responsibility they are, in fact bearing false witness, as they have taken too much power in their witness against their neighbor to be judge, jury and executioner. (v.9)

 

Israel has proceeded to break all of the 10 Commandments and yet God has stayed fierce anger and shown compassion, hoping once again to redeem Israel. This is indeed a God of love, not wrath

Hosea 11

God’s Love for Israel

 1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

2 But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me.  
They sacrificed to the Baals
and they burned incense to images.

3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.

4 I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them.

5 “Will they not return to Egypt
and will not Assyria rule over them
because they refuse to repent?

6 Swords will flash in their cities,
will destroy the bars of their gates
and put an end to their plans.

7 My people are determined to turn from me.
Even if they call to the Most High,
he will by no means exalt them.

8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.

9 I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

10 They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.

11 They will come trembling
like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them in their homes,”
declares the LORD.

New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

 

Notes on Hosea 1:2-10, Pentecost 9C

July 29, 2007

-revcamp

 

Hosea is presented as active in the public arena for 30 years, 754-724 (750-720 BCE depending which scholar one wants to follow ) and was a contemporary of Amos. –Harper Collins Study Bible

 

Hosea was active as a prophet to the northern kingdom, Israel, during the decades before it fell to the Assyrians in 721 BC. –Chris Haslam

 

We know names are important. We want to be recognized for who we are and what names we go by. We know that another person cares about us and really does care when they remember our names, and that is ever present. The challenge before us is how to work with the names that elude us, or in the case of Hosea, are names we may not really want to take on.

 

Hosea 1

Hosea’s Wife and Children
² When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD .” ³ So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Hosea offers both a metaphorical and actual prophecy for the people of Israel. Taking a wife of whoredom, as Gomer is, means that she has lost all identity. Interestingly her father is named, though both of them carry names of foreign peoples, conspicuously Canaanite. It is thought that Diblaim is a play on the name of the Canaanite God of the Sea, “Yam”. You may recall that the “Yam-suf” is the Sea of Reeds, or the “Red Sea” the Israelites crossed as they left Egypt, crossed through Canaanite lands to return to the Promised Land. There is some linkage here to that same kind of journey for Israel, that they have been exiled by their own actions and need to cross the Reed Sea again, “Yam” and the Canaanites, to come back to God and restore the order that God initially established with the people.

⁴ Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. ⁵ In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

Unlike the following two names, the name of the first child, Jezreel (Heb: “God sows”), has a dual meaning in referring to a geographical place. This first meaning given the name (vv. 4-5) picks up the negative overtones of the Valley of Jezreel as a place of warfare and bloodshed (see The Valley of Jezreel/Plain of Esdraelon; the second positive meaning does not emerge in the text until 2:22-23). The specific reference is to the bloody rebellion launched by Jehu against the dynasty of Ahab that was still controlled by Jezebel. In 843 BC Jehu, encouraged by Elijah (1 Kings 19:15-17) and Elisha (2 Kings 9:1-13), overthrew and killed Johoram, king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel as well as Ahaziah King of Judah, with much of the battle taking place in Jezreel (2 Kings 9-10; see Chart of Israelite Kings). The following unrest not only resulted in the death of Jezebel, but a prolonged slaughter of Ba’al worshippers in the North. As positive as the decline in Ba’al worship that resulted is viewed by the biblical traditions, the mass murders crippled the leadership of the Northern Kingdom for many years.

-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright © Dennis Bratcher, All Rights Reserved

 

Such is the dilemma that Hosea begins with his own children. God provides a name for his first-born, a son, which is told to be of Hosea. The son’s name is to be Jezreel. This name means “God scatters”. Jezreel is a tangible example of the ways in which Israel has been thrown to the wind to be scattered about the world, taken from its home in the Promised Land and uprooted from the principle landmarks of the historical stories that shape the nation.

⁶ Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. ⁷ Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them-not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God.”
            Lo-Ruhamah is given an equally challenging name, “Not Loved”. What a challenge for a child to go through life knowing that she will not be loved, due to the power of her name. There are unfathomable depths that the child will traverse in her search for understanding about why her parents would disown her by her very name. And yet, as we read through the book of Hosea, we know that the names are just a part of the story, that there is still more to be learned from the prophet and from his children as they all struggle to live out the story of Israel in their own home.

 

⁸ After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. ⁹ Then the LORD said, “Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

            Lo-Ammi, the name in Hebrew means “Not my people”. One that could hold two distinct meanings. “Not my people” could be the name that God has given this child to remind Israel of the travesties they have committed against him and his unwillingness to claim them as the chosen people. The second and more difficult possibility could be the relationship that Hosea could have with his children. For we read that Jezreel was born of Hosea and Gomer, but when we go on to read about the two following, Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi, they have the intonation in the scriptures to be born from adulterous relationships. Hosea, again, decides to fight against the current of the name before him and he loves Lo-Ammi as he would any child of his, caring for Lo-Ammi and raising him in the ways of the Lord and encouraging him, along the way.

¹⁰ “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ’sons of the living God.’
            Reading now from the end of Hosea 1, verse 10, through chapter 2 verse 1. Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not my people’ they will be called the sons of the living God. The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be reunited, and they will appoint one leader, and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say of your brothers “my people” and of your sisters ”my loved one”. God reclaimed all of Hosea’s children and we are left with the image of Jezreel “God scatters”, just as the scattering of the sower in the planting of a field. There is preparation for a harvest and the festivals that come along with it. And this is where our second passage of the naming of Joseph and Mary’s baby, Jesus comes into play. We discover that the name means “the Lord Saves”, and we begin to discover the hope that prevails. We will spend some more time with this part of the story of Jesus and of Hosea next week. 

 

 

 

            There is a girl I met at camp some years back who came to camp with her friends and as the week began to wear on she began to get more and more depressed. I took the time to talk with her some and see what I might be able to discern about where this sadness was coming from. I soon discovered that she did not have a ride home from camp. I couldn’t quite get a grasp on this and so I listened some more to her story. We got to talking and she told me of her family dynamics, that her dad had just remarried and was really into his new wife, and starting to put more of a hold on her as to limit her outside activities. She didn’t like this prospect so much, so she decided it was time to move out. She decided to go live with her grandparents, and that soon went downhill. She had several friends she lived with for periods of time and one of them was the one that had brought her to camp. Well, Child Protective Services had found out about her living arrangement and were preparing to come get her from the friend’s house when she got back from camp. The friend had called CPS in an effort to get her out of the house; he too had had enough. We talked during the week and I came to understand that all she had to do to go back to be with her dad was apologize. I talked with her some more about what it was that she had to apologize for, and the more we talked about it the more the sense of utter despondency set in. The apology was ultimately for living, and that was unacceptable to her and to me. So we began the process of trying to prepare her for the foster care system and plug her into some places where she could gain support, one of those was her pastor at the time and she continued in that relationship for several months after we left camp. Where she is now I do not know, but I do know that I pray for her often, that God may continue to old her in the palm of his hand reminding her that He does love her and that there are people in the world who would take her in, not the least of which was one of the other counselors at camp who offered her home to this young lady if there was not another alternative that came out during camp. This young lady had been given a name that meant “laughter”, and the pain of living out “not my people” as told to her by her father, grandparents, and friends in their actions had begun to wear her down and out.

            Lo-Ruhamah was lucky in one sense, though her name denoted her as one who was to be unloved her father cared for his as well as he could. Step into another story that has become a contemporary classic for all those who work with youth. Imagine being given a name that means “beloved”, the most dear, and actually not being loved. Instead your very existence became a living hell, cleaning bathrooms, while a bucket of ammonia and chlorine simmered in the corner and the door locked behind you until you finished, leaving you throwing up blood and vomiting. The child’s arm was placed on a gas stove and held in place until it cooked to third degree burns. Your very mother, who was supposed to love you and protect you had come to treat you as just another object in life, hurting you mentally, by developing psychotic games to treat you as a prisoner of war, sitting on your hands with your head held high on a slab of concrete in the backyard, sent to the basement to sleep on your cot, in your clothes that were washed but once a month and new ones once a year. Your name is one that has called you the crown jewel of the family crown of children, and you have been broken down to the least of all creatures, treated less than a dog, or even a wild animal, punished for scavenging your own food when the thrice weekly meals did not suffice. In this family ultimately his mother realized the true mistake of her naming and took to calling the child “the Boy” even going so far as to tell this child, “You are nothing, you are an IT!” The child’s name is David Pelzer; many of you have read his books, starting with the first one, A Child Called “It”. His pain and suffering is one of untold inner strength and a great lesson in how the world can be manipulated when the care of others is forgotten. Indeed Lo-Ruhamah was the lucky one, though her name signified a lack of care in the family, she was given a name, and treated as loved, in opposition to the name she was given. 

            Names provide an identity, and even more so in scriptures, such as with some of our other characters, such as Bartimaeus, the blind man on the side of the road, who is given by name and then secondly we are told that he is indeed the son of Timaeus, thus Bar-Timaeus.

            What we learn from all of this is that names give us an initial sense of who and what a person might be about, but that they do not ultimately tell us what we are to become or what another will be. And sometimes we run across those whose names provide us a different sense of who they might be.