THE BOOK OF HOSEA
Part Two: Lesson 7
Chapters 8-9
Sacrifice gives you no pleasure, burnt offering you do not desire. Sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a broken, contrite heart you never scorn.
Outward signs of worship, to be genuine, must be expressions of spiritual sacrifice: the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit and a contrite heart (cf. Ps 51:17). The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were only outward acts and not from the heart or coupled with a love of God and neighbor (CCC 2100). Therefore, Yahweh announces through Hosea that Israel needs to be purified, hence the threat that they shall return to Egypt (Hos 8:13); the point is that their judgment will be to become enslaved once again.
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The Northern Kingdom is Swallowed up by Foreign Nations (continued)
(Hosea 7:8-9:9)
CHAPTER 8
Hosea 8:1-7 ~ The Broken Covenant and the Omen of the Shattered
Calf
1 Put the trumpet [shofar] to your lips! Like
an eagle, disaster is swooping on Yahweh's home [literal Hebrew is the house of
Yahweh]! Because they have violated my covenant and been unfaithful to my Law, 2
in vain will they cry, My God!' In vain, We, Israel, know you!' 3 Israel
has rejected the good; the enemy will pursue them. 4 They have set
up kings, but without my consent, and appointed princes, but without my
knowledge. With their silver and gold, they have made themselves idols, but
only to be destroyed. 5 I spurn your calf, Samaria! My anger blazes
against them! How long will it be before they recover their innocence? 6 For
it is the product of Israel "a craftsman made the thing; it is no god at all! The
calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces! 7 Since
they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind; stalk without ear, it will
never yield flour "or if it does, foreigners will swallow it.
[...] = Hebrew term. The shofar was a ram's horn trumpet.
The last oracle (7:13-16) provided an overview of what happened before in Israel's history when the people acted without considering their covenant with Yahweh and how they came to disaster through their unfaithfulness and idol worship. The oracle in 8:1-7 addresses Israel's repeated cycle of disloyalty that will also result in divine judgment. The accusation is that Israel rejected the covenant, the Torah, and the good that Yahweh provided them with a godless monarchy and idolatrous cult.
Unlike the command in 5:8, verse 1 is addressed to an individual. Yahweh commands Hosea to act as His herald by figuratively blowing the trumpet (the ram's horn shofar) to warn of impending danger. Trumpets announced the order to break camp in the Exodus journey or to call the tribal leaders to assemble (Lev 10:1-4). When accompanied by a battle cry, they announced that the community must break camp on the Exodus journey or that the enemy was about to attack (Josh 6:20, etc.). Two silver trumpets also announced the festivals and the call to attend the liturgical worship service on the Sabbath (Lev 25:8-9; Num 25:9; Josh 6:5; Ps 81:3, etc.). Also, when a new king was announced or the army had to retreat, the military commander had a trumpet sounded (2 Sam 2:28; 18:16; 20:22; 1 Kng 1:34; 2 Kng 9:13; cf. Judg 3:27; 6:34; 7:18).
In the same verse, God explains the danger: disaster, like an eagle or vulture (the same Hebrew word refers to both birds), is swooping over the "house of Yahweh." This is probably a reference to the shrine at Bethel ("house of God"). It was formerly devoted to Yahweh, but since the division of the United Kingdom, it had become a pagan shrine dedicated to golden calf worship (Gen 28:10-22; 35:6-7; 1 Kng 12:26-29). The formula statement "violated (transgressed) my covenant" occurs only in Hosea 6:7 and a href ="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/hosea/8?1">8:1b.
In verse 2, the people respond, "My God!" They say He should hear their cry for help because they acknowledge Him as their God: "We, Israel, know you!" However, through the prophet, the Lord says that acknowledgment is not enough. Israel does not "know" Him in the obedience of faith and loyalty in the bond of covenant union because they have rejected the good. Therefore, their enemy will pursue them (verse 3).
The prophet denounced two sins the people committed:
6 For it is the product of Israel "a
craftsman made the thing; it is no god at all! The calf* of Samaria will be
broken to pieces! * or "calves."
According to the Book of Kings, Jeroboam I had set up
images of a golden calf at Bethel and Dan. They represented Yahweh in a visible
form: This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!
(a href ="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1kings/12?28">1 Kng 12:28b), in violation of the first two of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:3-5; Dt 5:7-9). This false god would henceforth be "the god of Israel" ""the
calf of Samaria" (Hos 8:6) "embodying the "Yahweh of Samaria," known from the inscription
archaeologists discovered and dated to c. 800 BC.1 In Jeremiah 48:13, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, the House of Israel was shamed by Bethel
in which they put their trust, referring to the veneration of the calf god at
Bethel as an aberration of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Then, quoting a short proverb, God said through His prophet: 7a Since they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind, followed by what punishment awaits them. 7b stalk without ear, it will never yield flour "or if it does, foreigners will swallow it. The land will not yield its produce, and what little it does yield will be devoured by their enemy. The judgment pronouncement in verse 7 has already fallen upon Israel according to the first verse of the second stanza of the oracle in verses 8-14.
Hosea 8:8-14 ~ Israel's Judgment to be Lost Among the Nations
Because of False Altars
8 Israel has himself been swallowed; now they are lost among
the nations like something no one wants, 9 for having made approaches
to Assyria "like a wild donkey, all alone. Ephraim has rented lovers 10 and
because he has rented them from the nations, I am now going to round them up;
soon they will feel the weight of the king of princes! 11 Ephraim
keeps building altars for his sins; these very altars are themselves a sin. 12
However much of my Law I write for him, Ephraim regards it as alien to
him. 13 They offer sacrifices to me and eat the meat; they do not
win Yahweh's favor. On the contrary, he will remember their guilt and punish
their sins; they will have to go back to Egypt. 14 Israel has
forgotten his Maker and has built palaces, while Judah keeps on building fortified
towns; but I shall send fire down on his cities to devour their citadels.
Including the pagan shrines in Bethel and Dan, the first king of the Northern Kingdom set up shrines on the high places and appointed priests from ordinary families who were not of Levitical descent ... he offered sacrifices on the altar which he had made at Bethel; he instituted a feast for the Israelites and himself went up to the altar to burn the sacrifice (1 Kng 12:31-33; 2 Chron 11:15).
The impending judgment announced in verse 7b is lamented in verses 8-14, with a repeat of the same catchword "swallowed" in verse 8 (see "swallow" in 7b) as though it had already happened. However, the prophecy would not be fulfilled until 722 BC, after the end of Hosea's ministry. It is characteristic of Hosea to revert from a threat to a lament (cf. 5:9, 11; 4:5b, 6). Then verse 10 states a new threat and the purpose of the judgment (10b), also characteristic of Hosea (cf. 5:11a, b, 12-15, 15b; 4:6; 7:8-12).
The subjugation by Assyria mentioned in verse 9 corresponds to 5:13a. The prophecy that Israel would be given over to a powerful enemy was also expressed beginning in 7:8. Hosea presented Israel's breach of the covenant as the cause of the catastrophe. This oracle probably dates to 732 BC, after Tiglath Pilesar III's successful military conquest of the northern territory of Israel. The invasion occurred after King Hoshea ben Elah (r. 732-724) failed to pay tribute to the king of Assyria and sent messengers to make an alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt (2 Kng 17:1-4). In the Assyrian's fiery conquest that year, Israel lost the entire northern tribal lands, including Galilee, resulting in the loss of the calf sanctuary at Dan (1 Kng 12:29).
Instead of repenting and returning to Yahweh, the Israelites kept building altars to pagan gods (verse 11).
13 They offer sacrifices to me and eat the meat; they do
not win Yahweh's favor. On the contrary, he will remember their guilt and punish
their sins; they will have to go back to Egypt.
The Israelites offer communion sacrifices to Yahweh, hoping to win
Yahweh's favor in their illicit offerings. Instead, God remembers their guilt
and punishes their sins. They will return to the enslavement from which He
liberated them in Egypt, but this time the enslaver will be the Assyrians.
14 Israel has forgotten his Maker and has built palaces,
while Judah keeps on building fortified towns; but I shall send fire down on
his cities to devour their citadels.
Instead of seeing to the people's spiritual needs,
Israel's rulers build palaces for themselves. The Kingdom of Judah built
fortified towns to protect themselves against the Assyrians instead of repenting
and calling upon Yahweh to defend them. Their fortresses did not save them.
According to the Assyrian archives discovered by archaeologists in the Assyrian
capital of Nineveh, the Assyrian army destroyed 46 fortified cities in Judah (2
Kng 18:13-17; 2 Chron 32:1).4
CHAPTER 9
Hosea 9:1-9 ~ The Days of Punishment Have Come
1 No merrymaking, Israel, for you, no rejoicing like other peoples,
for you have deserted your God to play the whore, you have loved the fee of
prostitution on every threshing-floor. 2 The threshing-floor and winepress
will not feed them; they will be disappointed in new wine. 3 No more
will they live in Yahweh's country; Ephraim will have to go back to Egypt and
eat polluted food in Assyria. 4 No more will they pour libations of
wine to Yahweh, and their sacrifices will not win his favor but will be like
funeral fare for them: whoever eats them will be polluted; for their food will
be for themselves alone, not being offered in Yahweh's home. 5 What
will you do on the solemn feast-day, on the day of Yahweh's festival? 6 What
a scene of devastation they have left! Egypt will round them up, Memphis will
bury them, nettles will inherit their fields, and thorn bushes invade their
homesteads. 7 The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution
are here; Israel knows it! The prophet is mad and the inspired man a fool!'
Great has been your guilt "all the greater than the hostility! 8 The
watchman of Ephraim is with my God: it is the prophet "and a fowler's trap is
placed on all his paths, and in the shrine of his God, there is enmity towards him.
9 They have become deeply corrupt as in the days of Gibeah; he will
remember their guilt, he will punish their sins.
Hosea mentions Egypt 13 times (Hos 2:17; 7:11, 16; 8:13; 9:3, 6; 11:1, 5; 12:2, 10, 14; 13:2, 14). Five of those recall the beginning of Israel's history (2:17, 11:1; 12:10, 14; 13:4). In the rest, Egypt either stands alone or is associated with Assyria.
Chapter 9 addresses:
The first verses in this oracle are linked to the previous chapter dealing with the theme of Ephraim/Israel's symbolic return to slavers without a homeland, like their condition in Egypt (verse 3). The warning about not rejoicing in verse 1 is about the harvest festivals that pagan peoples celebrated with fertility rites (like at Baal-Peor in Num 25:2-3), which Hosea condemned as "harlot's hire" (verse 1). Those acts were an abomination to God and would cause Him to expel Ephraim/Israel from "the land of the Lord" (verse 3).
In their exile in a foreign land (Assyria), the Israelites will not be able to make offerings to Yahweh on His feast days (verses 4-5), which they left behind in His land.2 The Assyrians completed their conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel with the fall of their capital city of Samaria in 722 BC. Some people escaped to Egypt, but most of the population was sent into exile to Assyrian lands in the north and east. Then, the Assyrians imported five groups of pagan peoples into the vacated lands of the Northern Kingdom. They became the Samaritans (2 Kng 17:5-41).
In verses 7-9, Hosea is abused and persecuted; the people he is trying to warn call him a mad fool (verse 7). But Hosea is not deranged "he is God's appointed watchman who announces Ephraim/Israel's approaching doom. Like Amos and Jeremiah (two centuries later), Hosea was a victim of the people's hostility. They rejected his message and refused his call to come to repentance and renew their covenant relationship with God.
The Past Brings Judgment on the Present (9:10-10:15)
Verses 10-17 express how deceived God felt by the people who had sworn to love and obey Him (Ex 24:3-8). These verses are a dialogue between God (verses 10, 13, 15-16) and the prophet (verses 14 and 17). The passage suggests that Israel inherited the people's past sins and shared in their guilt in Hosea's time. In 9:10-14 and 15-17, Hosea reminded the people about their ancestors' egregious sins at Baal-Peor and Gilgal.
Hosea 9:10-14 ~ Punishment for the Sin at Baal-Peor
10 It was like finding grapes in the desert when I found Israel, like seeing early fruit on a fig tree when I saw your ancestors; but when they reached Baal-Peor they devoted themselves to Shame and became as loathsome as the thing they loved. 11 The glory of Ephraim will fly away like a bird: no giving birth, no pregnancy, no conceiving. 12 If they rear their children, I shall take them away before they grow up! Woe to them indeed when I leave them! 13 Ephraim looked to me like Tyre, planted in a meadow, so Ephraim will present his children to the slaughterer. 14 Give them, Yahweh "what are you to give? "give them wombs that miscarry and dried-up breasts.
In 9:10-10:1, Hosea uses a sequence of agricultural comparisons:
He was creating a pattern of affirmation of the goodness and fertility of Yahweh's blessings that would be followed by an indictment against the people for their transgressions and the loss of divine blessings.
In verse 10, Hosea combines a metaphor with historical typology, comparing God finding the covenant people to the delight of finding fruit in the wilderness. Yahweh found Israel's ancestors and joyfully made them His covenant bride (cf. Ezek 16:6-8). Then the verse abruptly changes to reviewing Israel's shameful past behavior.
In verses 10-14 and 15-17, Hosea reminds them about their past sins at Baal-Peor and Gilgal. The event at Baal-Peor was the next step of Israel's religious infidelity after the sin of the golden calf forty years earlier (cf. Num 25:1-5; Jer 11:13). It was a test the new generation of Israelites failed. While encamped at Shittim, the men of Israel engaged in sexually immoral acts with the women of Moab during a fertility festival honoring the god Baal. Baal of Peor was one of the leading gods of the Moabites. As a result, Yahweh brought a plague on Israel in which 24,000 died. This judgment only ended when Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, killed a prince of the tribe of Simeon, committing a sexual act with a Midianite woman inside Yahweh's Sanctuary (Num 28:18). These acts of ritual intercourse yoked the Israelite men to the pagan god, thus breaking the covenant with the God of Israel, and degrading the sexual union between a man and his wife that was a holy act and not to be abused.
11 The glory of Ephraim will fly away like a bird: no
giving birth, no pregnancy, no conceiving. 12 If they rear their children,
I shall take them away before they grow up! Woe to them indeed when I leave
them! 13 Ephraim looked to me like Tyre, planted in a meadow, so Ephraim
will present his children to the slaughterer. 14 Give them,
Yahweh "what are you to give? "give them wombs that miscarry and dried-up breasts.
Earlier, Israel was compared to a senseless pigeon that
would be brought down by Yahweh's net (7:11-12). In verse 11, the comparison is
to a bird in flight. Ephraim/Israel's glory (the glory of Yahweh) will depart
abruptly, like a bird flying away, leaving devastating consequences for the
people. In 23b, Hosea pronounces a "woe" lament for the people when the glory
of Yahweh departs Israel.3 The judgment reverses the nation's covenant
promises of fertility and prosperity.
Verse 13 related that to Yahweh, Ephraim/Israel wasn't any more to Him than the pagan city of Tyre that offered their children in human sacrifice. The contrast between Tyre planted in a meadow and Ephraim's children may be a pun: "in a meadow" (benaweh) sounds like "his children" (banayw), both of which are the last words in their respective clauses.
In verse 14, Hosea speaks to Yahweh in apparent frustration concerning his hostile treatment and the lack of the people's receptiveness to his public message. Like Jeremiah, two centuries later, Hosea feels grim resignation that judgment is inevitable.
When the tribe of Joseph was divided between his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, he sought blessings of "the breast and womb" (Gen 49:25). In verse 14, Hosea uses the same two nouns. Breasts that fail to give milk and barren wombs, therefore, represent a future with no children.
Hosea 9:15-17 ~ The Wickedness at Gilgal
15 Their wickedness appeared in full at Gilgal,
there I came to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds, I shall drive
them from my home, I shall love them no longer; all their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is blasted, their root has dried out,
they will bear no more fruit. And even if they do bear children, I shall slaughter
the darlings of their womb. 17 Because they have not listened to him,
my God will cast them off, and they will become wanderers among the nations.
In verse 15, the terms for evil/wickedness (ra'a/ roa) are general and probably refer to political rebellion, social unrest, violence, and cultic impurity. Hosea uses the term translated as "princes" (sarim) several times; it can also mean "officials" or "rulers," referring to descendants of the royal family who have administrative duties in the kingdom (cf. Hos 3:4; 5:10; 7:3, 5, 16; 13:10). He may be making a pun with the similar sounding plural participle for "rebels/rebellious" (sorerim). The princes/officials are rebels because they do not abide by Yahweh's command to care for the poor and do not adjudicate for the orphan or the widow.
The Hebrew word gilgal means "circle of stones." In the Old Testament, it likely refers to two locations and is mentioned as the location of several significant events:
The "wickedness" at Gilgal may refer to when King Saul failed to destroy the flocks of the Amalekites after his victory over them as God commanded (1 Sam 15:12-13) and when he took upon himself the role of a priest and offered an illicit sacrifice (1 Sam 13:8-15). These acts of disobedience caused God to reject Saul as Israel's king.
The word "hate" in verse 15 is hyperbole. God, the very definition of "love" (1 Jn 4:7-8), is incapable of hate. However, as a holy and just God, the Israelites' acts of covenant betrayal severely damaged God's love relationship with them. He would no longer bless their fertility in bearing children; the children they did bear would die in the coming conflict with Assyria. Just as God condemned the first generation of the Exodus to wander in the wilderness until they died (Num 14:33), His judgment for the faithless people of the Northern Kingdom was to become wanderers among the Gentile nations where they would be taken into exile (2 Kng 17:5-6). The ten tribes of Israel taken into the Assyrian exile would never return as a people to the Promised Land. However, at Jesus's command, His disciples and Apostles would seek them out among the Gentile nations and call them to salvation in Christ's New Covenant Kingdom of the redeemed Israel of His Church (Mt 28:19; CCC 877).
Because of their evil deeds, Yahweh will "drive them from His home," the Promised Land, and no longer show them His hesed, faithful covenant love. The language of "hate" (sana) refers to a range of both emotions and actions. The use of the word may refer to Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9. Hate describes the reaction to the attitude and actions of an enemy. That God "hates" the perpetrators of evil at Gilgal means their actions identified them as His foes, and He rejects them.5 There might also be a reference to the Deuteronomic Code where hatred is a reason for a husband to issue a certificate of divorce against his wife (Dt 22:13-21; 24:1-4) as Yahweh has issued His riv/covenant lawsuit against Israel. Driving out the evildoers from His house and no longer loving them seems to suggest the dynamic of a failed marriage between Yahweh and Israel.
16 Ephraim is blasted, their root has dried
out, they will bear no more fruit. And even if they do bear children, I shall slaughter
the darlings of their womb. 17 Because they have not listened to him,
my God will cast them off, and they will become wanderers among the nations.
Verses 16-17 use three terms of destruction/abandonment: blasted,
slaughter, and cast out. The ultimate judgment is for the Israelites to become "wanderers
among the nations," a condition that will last until the disciples of Jesus Christ
use the Gospel of salvation to call their descendants out of the Gentile nations
to become citizens in the New Covenant Kingdom of the Church.
Endnotes:
1. Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2018, page 36.
2. See the chart on Yahweh's seven sacred annual feasts, and the list of the weekly, monthly, yearly, and periodic feasts and their sacrifices in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28-29.
3. A cry of distress ( oy in Hebrew or woe in the translation) is the response when one faces devastation and destruction, sometimes as a lament and other times as a judgment (1 Sam 4:7-8; Is 3:9-11; 6:5; Jer 4:31; and in the New Testament see Jesus's seven "woe/alas" judgments against the Pharisees and scribes in Mt 23:13-32.
4. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 1969, page 288: "As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and the countless small villages in their vicinity and conquered (them) using well-stamped (earth-) ramps and battering-rams...." From the Bull inscription published by George Smith, History of Sennacherib (London, 1878).
5. For hate/rejection with God as the subject, see Is 1:14; Jer 12:8; Amos 5:21; 6:8; Zech 8:17; Mal 1:3.
Questions for reflection or group discussion:
Question: When a long time has passed since an unconfessed sin, does God forget that transgression?
Question: What about repentance that is only lip service and not from the heart with the commitment not to repeat the offense? Is the insincere expression of repentance a sin in itself?
Question: Hosea was the forerunner of many saints who followed him in salvation history and whose message was rejected by those they were sent to warn concerning God's judgment. What is the message concerning our call to preach the word of God and Jesus's gift of eternal salvation (Mt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8) to our modern world?
Catechism references (* indicates Scripture quoted
or paraphrases in the citation)
The definition of sin (CCC 1849, 1850*)
The reality of sin (CCC 385-387)
The root of sin (CCC 1853*)
Ways to uproot sin (CCC 943)
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