The Twelve Minor Prophets: Hosea
Dr. James Smith
Hosea
2 September 2005
If I asked you to open your Bibles and find the Old Testament books of Obadiah or Hezekiah, could you do it? I’m sure many of you would find Obadiah sooner or later, but you would look in vain for Hezekiah, simply because it doesn’t exist.
How is your knowledge of the Old Testament? And when was the last time that your read and studied the Old Testament prophets?
This morning, we begin our new fall sermon series on the 12 minor prophets and I confess that it has been some time since I’ve made a systematic study into this important collection of Old Testament prophetic writings.
Many Christians have been under the mistaken impression that the 12 minor prophets are somehow minor in significance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was the great church father, St. Augustine who first called this collection, “the minor prophets,” not because it was insignificant, but only because “minor” in Latin means small and you will notice that each book in this collection is relatively short in length.
The Jews of Jesus’ day referred to it as “the book of the 12” because all 12 of these short prophetic writings could fit on one long scroll which was roughly the same length of one of the major or longer prophetic writings such as Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel.
And over the course of the fall, all the way until Advent, we will take a look each week at a different minor prophet and I want to strongly encourage you to read each book in preparation for each Sunday message.
This morning we begin with the Book of Hosea, which with its 14 chapters makes it one of longest of the minor prophets.
Hosea is an interesting figure who lived in the 8th century B.C., which was a tremendously difficult time in the history of Israel.
David’s kingdom had long split into two, with the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
The northern kingdom of Israel was weak and suffered from economic abuses, social inequities and political strife.
All of this was exacerbated by the rise and expansion of an ancient near eastern empire called Assyria, which was known for its brutality.
The Book of Hosea, reflects upon these problems and their spiritual implications for God’s people.
Chapters 3-14 are a collection of prophetic oracles or pronouncements that were given at various times by the prophet and later collected together into the present book that we now have.
But it is chapters 1-3 and in particular, chapters 1 and 3 that are best known, because they represent one of the strangest episodes in all of Old Testament prophetic literature.
Now over the years, I have heard all kinds of strange things that different Christians have said that God told them to do.
One of the most common ones I have heard is when a young Christian man tells a young Christian woman that God revealed to them that they were supposed to get married.
Usually the Christian woman is both stunned and terrified, to which my counsel usually is, “Tell that nut that when God tells you the same, you’ll consider it.” And then I tell her that she should run as far away as she can get from that clown.
Well, here we have a genuine example of, and occasion when, God asked one of his prophets to do something highly unusual.
In Hosea 1:3, we are told that God commanded Hosea to go and marry what the old timers used to call, “a woman of ill repute” or “a woman of easy virtue.”
And I think those old Victorian terms are probably better than some of the English translations offered.
The NIV says, “marry an adulterous woman,” while the NRSV says, “take for yourself a wife of whoredom.”
This is all a bit ambiguous in the Hebrew. Are we talking about a woman who had been married before and committed adultery or are we talking about a prostitute?
At any rate, Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, was a promiscuous woman whom Hosea took as a wife.
This is not the only strange command that God gave one of His prophets in the Old Testament. You may remember other such bizarre commands such walking around naked for a few years or laying on each side for a year.
On occasion, the Lord speaks in unusual ways, but there is always a greater message contained within the prophetic act.
What was the reason for such a shocking command given to the prophet Hosea? Hosea 1:2 “The land of Israel is guilty of the vilest adultery by forsaking the Lord.”
To be a prophet of God in the Old Testament was never an easy task. Men and women rarely ever chose to become prophets and prophetesses, but rather were chosen in strange and mysterious ways by God.
It was a difficult and lonely calling and frequently entailed intense suffering and sometimes ended in death.
Perhaps you have watched our known people who have experienced the agony of having an unfaithful spouse, but what about enduring years of such abuse?
Contrary to popular opinion, infidelity is never simply about “consenting adults.” Its consequences always ripple out and create disaster and upheaval in families.
We notice in chapter 1, that Gomer bore 3 children during her marriage to Hosea. We are not sure if she had previously had children and more significantly, there is a kind of ambiguity about exactly who the father was of Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi.
Kids are always caught in such marital crossfire and rarely escape undamaged.
If Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was a graphic reminder of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, then these 3 children represent the deteriorating relationship between God and Israel due to infidelity.
Jezreel represents the political brutality, bloodshed and intrigue that so frequently occurred in the royal courts of the kings of northern Israel.
Lo-ruhamah is related to the Hebrew word for both pity and womb. It is the kind of compassion and love that a mother has for her child.
Here, we are told that God will no longer have compassion on the kingdom of Israel. It is now full-grown and must answer for its own sins and crimes.
Lo-ammi literally means “not my people” and represents the last straw of God’s longsuffering and amounts to being completely disowned by the family as well as being stricken from the family inheritance.
These 3 children represent the utter ruin that will come on northern Israel at the hands of brutal Assyria.
The Book of Hosea teaches us a number of important spiritual lessons.
First of all, it reminds us that “talk is cheap” and that we need to “walk our talk.” It is not enough for a Christian to say that he or she loves God, but then to go on “sinning like the devil.”
God’s Word must be accomplished by our actions as much or more than by our words. Words are “a dime a dozen” in many Christian circles, but what is needed now more than ever in our post-modern world is for Christians to radically live out their promises to God.
Secondly, we should keep in mind that God sometimes calls us into strange and unique situations that require us to obey Him without exactly knowing His reasons.
The experience of Israel in Hosea’s day is a graphic reminder of that “the wages of sin is death” and that to rebel against God is simply to become a slave to something else.
Hosea was called to a unique and terrible situation. He had to drink a bitter cup and bear an awful cross in his life. His heart suffered and his home became his Gethsemane.
But through it all, He was not left without hope, because he would experience the redeeming love of God and become a graphic and prophetic illustration that God was preparing the way for His Son who was to be the very embodiment of His Love for unfaithful humanity.
Let’s Pray
