THE BOOK OF HOSEA
Part One: Lesson 3
Chapters 2-3
Seeing God's
covenant with Israel in the image of exclusive and faithful married love, the
prophets prepared the Chosen People's conscience for a deepened understanding
of the unity and indissolubility of marriage. The books of Ruth and Tobit bear
moving witness to an elevated sense of marriage and to the fidelity and
tenderness of spouses. Tradition has always seen in the Song of Solomon a
unique expression of human love, insofar as it is a reflection of God's love "a love
"strong as death" that "many waters cannot quench."
CCC 1611
+ + +
Part One: Hosea 1:1-3:5
Like the Biblical prophets, God often calls Christians to undertake a difficult path to urge people to repentance and turn back to God. In the Book of Hosea, the covenant union between God and the old covenant Church is symbolized by the relationship of a marriage between Hosea and Gomer. God calling Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman highlights the paradox of divine election and condescension. Hosea's marriage is God's symbolic metaphor for His charge of apostasy against the Northern Kingdom of Israel, in which He accuses the people of lawlessness and impiety.
Hosea 2:2-25 can be divided into two sections:
Part I: The indictment/covenant lawsuit against Gomer/Israel's infidelity.
Part II: Israel's promised future restoration.
Gomer and the children still represent Israel, while Hosea represents Yahweh. Gomer's illicit lovers stand for Israel's attraction to the false gods of the pagans, like the Canaanite god Baal. Pagan gods have seduced the covenant people away from the Divine Spouse.
CHAPTER 2
His Marriage and its Symbolism (1:2-3:5)
The promise of a future reversal of the judgment and restoration of Israel and Judah
Hosea 2:1-3 ~ Promise of Future Reversal of the Judgment and Restoration
of Israel and Judah
2:1 "But the Israelites will become as numerous as the sands of the
sea, which cannot be measured or counted. In the very
place where they were told, You are not my people,' they will be told they are
Children of the living God.' 2 The
Judaeans and Israelites will be reunited and will choose themselves a single
head, and will spread far beyond their country, for great will be the Day of
Jezreel! 3 Then call your brothers, My people,' and your
sisters, You have been pitied.'"
In some translations, 2:1 is 1:10. The prophecy in these three verses for the Divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah is a reversal of the judgment in 1:2-9 and expanded to include Judah in God's future promise of restoration into one United Kingdom. These predictions are part of the pattern of reversals in Chapters 1-3 and the Book of Hosea as a whole. God's historical judgments are reversed in a future act of mercy and restoration. Yahweh intends to forgive His covenant people and help them overcome their failures.
St. Paul uses Hosea 2:1 in his apostolic witness in Romans 9:25-26, where he wrote: Just as he says in the book of Hosea: I shall tell those who were not my people, You are my people,' and I shall take pity on those on whom I had no pity. And in the very place where they were told, You are not my people,' they will be told that they are children of the living God. Paul used the history of a covenant people welcomed back by God despite their unfaithfulness to become the hope of salvation to the Gentiles. They had no claim to the Messianic feast, but because of God's generosity, they were welcomed into the covenant by Christ and His New Covenant Church.
The "numerous sands of the sea" in verse 1 is an image of abundance in the Old Testament (Gen 41:49; Josh 11:4; Judg 7:12; 1 Sam 13:5; 1 Kng 4:20) and a reminder of Yahweh's promised blessing to the covenant people associated with their ancestors. God promised Abraham and Jacob that their descendants would be as numerous as the sand of the sea (Gen 21:17; 32:13), and at Bethel, God repeated a similar promise when He told Jacob that his descendants would be like the "dust of the earth" (Gen 28:14). Then, in the days of Solomon, the narrator commented that the covenant people were as numerous as the sand of the sea (1 Kng 4:20), suggesting that God's promise to the ancestors had reached a preliminary fulfillment. Hosea's hearers would have been familiar with this expression.
1b In the very place where they were told, You are
not my people,' they will be told they are Children of the living God.'
However, where the ancestral promise concerned many
descendants, this prophecy proclaims that the future Israelites and Judahites
would be children of the "living God" (el-hay). It was a promised reversal of
the declaration that Israelites were "children of harlotry" (1:2), and a
corporate reversal of the name of Hosea's son, Lo-Ammi, "Not My People." (1:9).
The phrase "Children of the living God" only occurs in Hosea 2:1b/1:10. The
term "living God" appears elsewhere to contrast the action of Yahweh present in
history with the absence of activity of false gods. For example, the defeat of
the Canaanites is explained as confirmation that Yahweh is the "living God" in Joshua 3:10 as opposed to Baal, the false god who could not save the Canaanites.
2 The Judaeans and Israelites will be
reunited and will choose themselves a single head, and will spread far beyond
their country, for great will be the Day of Jezreel!
"Jezreel" refers to the large, fertile valley in the Northern
Kingdom of Israel or the valley's largest city. The name of the valley and city
means "God sows." If Jezreel is a synonym for Israel in a collective sense, it
is the flourishing of Israel in the Promised Land. The reference to the "day of
Jezreel" is a way to reverse the judgment announced in the birth of Gomer's first
child, Jezreel (1:4), playing on the positive significance of the name Jezreel,
"God sows" because great will be the day of God's sowing.
3 Then call your brothers, My people,' and
your sisters, You have been pitied.'
The command in 2:3 (2:1) compliments the reversal theme of
the two negative names of Gomer's children. "My people" reverses the judgment portrayed
in the name of the second son, and "You have been pitied" (also translated as "mercy")
is the emphatic reversal of the daughter's name. Yahweh intends to save the people
by extending His mercy to overcome His covenant people's failures.
The prophecy of a restored future in Hosea 2:2 is that one day the covenant people will become one nation again. Israel's unity as one nation ended in 930 BC when the ten northern tribes rejected Solomon's son as their king and formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Southern Kingdom of Judah, made up of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, remained loyal to the Davidic kings and God's Temple and liturgy of worship in Jerusalem. However, Jeroboam I, the ruler of the Northern Kingdom and his successors, rejected Yahweh's ordained priests from the line of Aaron and established a separate priesthood, a new liturgy of worship, and shrines that included the worship of pagan gods (1 Kng 12-13). In Hosea's day, the division between Israel and Judah had already lasted for two hundred years. The prophecy appeared to be an impossible hope.
Hosea 2:4-15 ~ Charge Against the Mother of Hosea's Sons
as a Sign of the Covenant Lawsuit Against Israel
Yahweh announced: 4 "To court [riv], take your mother to
court [riv[! For she is no longer my wife, nor am I her husband. She must
either remove her whoring ways from her face and her adulteries from between
her breasts, 5 or I shall strip her and expose her naked as the day
she was born; I shall make her as bare as the desert, I shall make her as dry
as arid country, and let her die of thirst. 6 And I shall feel no
pity for her children since they are the children of her whorings. 7 Yes,
their mother has played the whore, she who conceived them has disgraced herself
by saying, I shall chase after my lovers; they will assure me my keep, my wool,
my flax, my oil and my drinks.' 8 This is why I shall block her way
with thorns, and wall her in to stop her in her tracks; 9 then if
she chases her lovers she will not catch them, if she looks for them she will
not find them, and then she will say, I shall go back to my first husband, I
was better off then than I am now;' 10 she had never realized before
that I was the one who was giving her the grain, new wine and oil, giving her
more and more silver and gold which they have spent on Baal! 11 This
is why I shall take back my grain when it is due and my new wine, when the season
for it comes. I shall withdraw my wool and my flax which were to cover her
naked body, 12 and then display her infamy before her lovers' eyes "no
one will take her from me then! 13 I shall put an end to all her
merrymaking, her festivals, her New Moons and her Sabbaths and all her solemn
feasts. 14 I shall make her vines and fig trees derelict of which
she used to say, These are the pay my lovers gave me.' I shall turn them into a
jungle: wild animals will feed on them. 15 I mean to make her pay
for the feast days on which she burnt incense to the Baals, when she tricked
herself out in her earrings and necklaces to chase after her lovers, and forget
me!" "declares Yahweh.
Gomer and the children continue to represent Israel, while Hosea represents the Lord. A distinctive quality of the Book of Hosea is how Hosea transfers his emotional conflict to Yahweh and describes God as moved by conflicting emotions:
In verses 4-15, this poem explains and summarizes Hosea's message. 2:4 can also be translated, "Contend with your mother! Contend because she is not my wife and I am not her husband.... The word for "contend" in the Hebrew text is "riv/rib." Israel had sinned through idolatry, therefore, Yahweh, Israel's Divine Spouse, delivered a riv, a covenant lawsuit, against the mother, Gomer (representing His covenant people) for breaking the covenant oath they took at Mt. Sinai. The covenant lawsuit is delivered by an anguished Hosea, speaking on Yahweh's behalf, and using the children to challenge the mother/Israel with a breach of family integrity, namely infidelity to her husband, their father. The goal of the children's charge is for Gomer/Israel to put away the signs of her infidelity. Both harlotry and adultery describe her actions, symbolized by the call to remove her whoring ways from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts.
Hosea repeatedly uses the symbolic imagery of harlotry and adultery for Israel's infidelities to the covenant with Yahweh. Covenant marriage is one of the four recurring symbolic images of the prophets, with adultery representing rebellion in the covenant marriage imagery. See the chart Symbolic Images of the Old Testament Prophets or the handout for this lesson.
Question: What oath did the Israelites swear to Yahweh at Mt. Sinai? How
was their vow sealed in blood, and what did it symbolize? See Exodus 24:3-8.
Answer: Twice they swore obedience to Yahweh's commands: Moses went
and told the people all Yahweh's words and all the laws, and all the people
answered with one voice, "All the words Yahweh has spoken we will carry out!" Moses
wrote all of Yahweh's commands in the Book of the Covenant. Early the following
day, he built an altar and offered holocaust offerings (whole burnt offerings)
and communion sacrifices. Moses took half the blood from the sacrifices and put
it into basins, sprinkling the other half on the altar. Moses read the Law from
the Book of the Covenant to the people who swore: "We shall do everything that
Yahweh has said; we shall obey." Moses took the blood collected
in the basins and sprinkled it over the people, saying, "This is the blood of
the covenant which Yahweh has made with you, entailing all these stipulations" (Exodus 24:7-8).
The altar represented Yahweh. The blood on the altar and the
people united them as "one blood" in one covenant family.
Question: What was Israel's punishment for infidelity to Yahweh and His covenant?
Answer: Yahweh withdrew His divine protection over Israel's land and people.
In verse 4, the speaker begins to use first-person speech, which continues throughout the passage. On two occasions, Gomer is represented as the speaker in 2:7 and 9. Hosea/God relates the judgments against Israel in verses 5-8:
Hosea's warnings and God's judgments against Israel were fulfilled by the Assyrian invasion. They destroyed Samaria, the Northern Kingdom's capital city in 722/21 BC and sent the population of the ten northern tribes of Israel into exile in Assyrian lands (2 Kng 17:5-23). Other references to stripping and nakedness are found in Ezekiel's 6th-century BC symbolism of God's marriage to Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and Samaria of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Ezekiel 16:1-59; 23:1-49). In Ezekiel's prophecies, the harsh judgment against Jerusalem for adultery and bloodshed would cause her to be given into the hands of those false lovers who mistreat her (Ezekiel 16:38-39). The Babylonians fulfilled the prophecies, destroying Jerusalem in 587 BC. The "stripping" judgment probably was a metaphor for the humiliating punishment Israel and Judah suffered due to the conquest of the Assyrians and Babylonians, who deprived them of all their possessions.
Question: What was the purpose of Israel's punishment? See Hosea 2:9b-15.
Answer: All God's judgments are meant to be redemptive. The punishments
were intended to make the Israelites realize how lovingly Yahweh had cared for
His people so they would repent their sins of idolatry and return to their covenant
bond with Him.
Just as Hosea loves his unfaithful wife, Yahweh loves his covenant people. And just as Hosea's faithfulness will cause his wife to abandon her lovers and return to him, the Lord's faithfulness will cause Israel to renounce the pagan gods and return to the One True God.
Hosea 2:16-25 ~ Promise of the Future Reversal of the Judgment
Against Israel and its Transformation
Yahweh said: 16 "But look, I am going to seduce
her and lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. 17 There I shall
give her back her vineyards, and make the Vale of Achor, a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as when she was young, as on the day when she came up
from Egypt. 18 When that day comes, declares Yahweh, you will call
me, 'My husband,' no more will you call me, 'My Baal.' 19 I shall
banish the names of the Baals from her lips and their name will be mentioned no
more. 20 When that day comes, I shall make a treaty [berith = covenant] for them
with the wild animals, with the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the
earth; I shall break the bow and the sword and warfare, and banish them from
the country, and I will let them sleep secure. 21 I
shall betroth you to myself forever, I shall betroth you in uprightness and
justice, and faithful love [hesed] and tenderness. 22 Yes, I
shall betroth you to myself in loyalty and in the knowledge of Yahweh. 23 When
that day comes, I shall respond declares Yahweh I shall respond to the heavens and
they will respond to the earth 24 and the earth will respond to the
grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. 25 I
shall sow her in the country to be mine, I shall take pity on Lo-Ruhamah, I shall
tell Lo-Ammi, You are my people,' and he will say, You are my God.'"
The Valley of Achor was located southwest of Jericho on the northern boundary of the tribal lands of Judah. It was where the Israelite chieftain Achan and his family were stoned to death for plundering the forbidden spoils from the conquest of Jericho (Josh 7:24-26). It received the Hebrew name "achor," meaning "misfortune" or "trouble," in memory of the failure in obedience that was an act of disloyalty to God by Achan and his family that was severely punished. In verse 17, Hosea prophesied that this place of disgrace and misfortune would become a gateway/door of hope (Isaiah made the same prediction in Is 65:10).
The word "baal" in verses 10, 14, and 18 has a double meaning.1 It can refer to the Canaanite god, Baal, but it also means "lord" as in "master." A concubine called her owner "baal," meaning "lord." Only a legal wife (a woman bound in a covenant union) could call her man "husband." Hosea compares Gomer/Israel's unfaithfulness to the covenantal relationship with Hosea/Yahweh to an unfaithful wife or a concubine who is only "property." The promise of this prophecy is twofold:
The valley of Achor was the key to possessing the Promised Land for the Israelite generation in their conquest of Canaan. As the valley lying to the north of Jericho, between the highlands beyond, it was the first land that Joshua (Yehoshua) and his Israelite army entered after they crossed the Jordan River and conquered Jericho (Josh 6:1-16). That victory would be repeated not physically but spiritually by the mission of Jesus Christ. After his baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus (Yahshua/Yehoshua), the new Joshua, crossed the Jordan River into the same valley to begin His mission..
20 When that day comes, I shall make a treaty [berith
= covenant] for them with the wild animals, with the birds of heaven and the
creeping things of the earth; I shall break the bow and the sword and warfare,
and banish them from the country, and I will let them sleep secure.
The Hebrew term for covenant, berith, has its
roots in the secular world of legal political relationships. Ancient Israelites
used this word in 1 Kings 20:34 for King Ahab's political treaty with his rival,
Ben-Hadad of Damascus, and the arrangement between Israel and the Assyrians
(Hos 12:1). It was a kinship bond between two parties, with conditions and
obligations, established by oath swearing, a blood sacrifice, and often a meal to
seal the agreement, as in the covenant God formed with Israel at Mt. Sinai (Ex 24:3-11).
Although Yahweh punished Israel for her sins, He continued to love His covenant people unconditionally. He did not withhold His mercy from them. God is eternally disposed to forgive His people if they repent. This aspect of God's relationship with His covenant people was the case in the Old Covenant and continues in the New Covenant in Christ Jesus (see CCC 218 and 2380).
21 I shall betroth you to myself forever, I
shall betroth you in uprightness and justice, and faithful love [hesed] and tenderness. (2:19 in some translations).
In verse 21, the Hebrew word "hesed" is significant. Translated
as "faithful love" in the New Jerusalem version, it refers to love in the
context of a covenant relationship: Yahweh's love for His covenant people, their
love for Him, and the love between a man and a woman in the covenant bond of
holy matrimony.2 St. John Paul II wrote that it emphasizes God's commitment
to Israel: "When in the Old Testament the word hesed is used of the Lord, this
always occurs in connection with the covenant that God established with Israel.
This covenant was, on God's part, a gift and a grace for Israel. Nevertheless,
since in harmony with the covenant entered into, God had committed to respect
it, hesed also acquired in a certain sense a legal content. The juridical commitment
on God's part ceased to oblige whenever Israel broke the covenant and did not
respect its conditions. But precisely at this point, hesed, in ceasing to be a
juridical obligation, revealed its deeper aspect: it showed itself as what it
was at the beginning, that is, as the love that gives, love more powerful than betrayal,
grace stronger than sin" (St. John Paul II, Dives in misericordia, note
52).
22 Yes, I shall betroth you to myself in
loyalty and in the knowledge of Yahweh. 23 When that day comes, I shall
respond "declares Yahweh "I shall respond to the heavens and they will respond to
the earth 24 and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine
and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. 25 I shall sow her in the
country to be mine, I shall take pity on Lo-Ruhamah, I shall tell Lo-Ammi, You
are my people,' and he will say, You are my God.'"
The perspective widens to include cosmic dimensions! Even
the heavens and earth will respond to Yahweh's renewal of His covenant with Israel
and her children (the covenant people). Once again, we have the reversal of the
names of Gomer's children and the reversal of Yahweh's curse judgment against Israel:
CHAPTER 3
Hosea 3:1-5 ~ Hosea Loving Gomer Again as a Sign that Yahweh
Still Loves Israel and Judah
1 Yahweh said to me, "Go again, love a woman who loves
another man, an adulteress, and love her as Yahweh loves the Israelites although
they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes." 2 So I bought her
for fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley and a skin of wine,
3 and I said to her, "You will have to spend a long
time waiting for me without playing the whore and without giving yourself to
any man, and I will behave in the same way towards you. 4 For
the Israelites will have to spend a long time without king or leader, without
sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or domestic images; 5 but
after that, the Israelites will return and again seek Yahweh their God and
David, their king, and turn trembling to Yahweh for his bounty in the final
days."
Hosea 3:1-5 is written in the first person singular and relates how Hosea and Gomer are reconciled. At first glance, one might think God has commanded Hosea to take a second wife, but that is not the case. Some form of separation has taken place between Hosea and Gomer. The woman's description as an adulteress in verse 1 assumes that he is the wife who violated her marriage with Hosea. Perhaps Gomer had abandoned Hosea to go with her lover the way the Israelites have abandoned Yahweh for pagan gods. But her lover has abandoned her. Either he has sold her into slavery, or she has sold herself as a temple prostitute to support herself. The mention of raisin cakes could refer to a pagan offering. The term only appears here and in 2 Samuel 6:19, 1 Chronicles 16:3, and Song of Songs 2:5 (also called Song of Solomon), but the context is associated with a celebration.
Hosea paid fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley, and a skin of wine to reacquire Gomer. A homer is a substantial measure of grain, ten times larger than either an ephah or a bath (Ezekiel 45:11-14). Exodus 21:32 lists the worth of a male or female slave as 30 shekels of silver, so the silver plus the barley and wine probably made up the difference owed for her freedom or to cancel her indebtedness.
3 and I said to her, "You will have to spend a long time
waiting for me without playing the whore and without giving yourself to any
man, and I will behave in the same way towards you."
What Hosea tells Gomer in verse 3 defines her status and restricts
her activities. She must live with Hosea for some time in which she will refrain
from the actions that previously ruined their marriage. She will not engage in
harlotry nor intimate relations with Hosea. This period will be a test of fidelity
before they can resume their marital covenant.
The Explanation:
4 For the Israelites
will have to spend a long time without king or leader, without sacrifice or
sacred pillar, without ephod or domestic images; 5 but after that, the Israelites will return and again seek Yahweh their
God and David, their king, and turn trembling to Yahweh for his bounty in the
final days.
Israel will also have to demonstrate a period of repentance and fidelity, giving up a king to lead them and without sacrifices either to Yahweh or the pagan rituals associated with sacred pillars, priestly garments, or household gods. The point is that Israel will be purified, and God's faithfulness will convert His people, just as Hosea's fidelity won back his wife.
5 but after that, the Israelites will return
and again seek Yahweh their God and David their king, and turn trembling to Yahweh
for his bounty in the final days.
Hosea's message to Israel was delivered in the late 8th
century BC. God's anointed Shepherd-king, David, ruled the United Kingdom in the
11th century BC. It was a golden age for the ten tribes of Israel. Verse
5 is a Messianic prophecy of the covenant people being united under the
guidance of a future Davidic heir. It is one of several expectations concerning
the advent of a glorious ruler from David's lineage from the 8th-century BC
prophets Amos (9:11-12); Isaiah (9:1-7); Micah (5:2-5), and in the late 7th-century
BC by prophets Jeremiah (i.e., 23:5-6) and Ezekiel (i.e., 37:15-25) that filled
the covenant people with hope.
Endnotes:
1. Baal was the most important Canaanite divinity. He was
the god of rain, storms, and fertility. See Numbers 22:41;
Judges 2:13; 6:25, 28, 30, 31, 32;
1 Kings 16:31-32; etc.
2. The word "hesed" is also used for Isaac's love for his bride Rebekah in Genesis 24:67. Hosea uses hesed in 2:19/2:21; 6:4; 10:12; 12:6/12:7 and in the negative in 4:2/4:1 paired with loyalty and knowledge of God, the pillars of covenantal ethos that God desires from His people.
Questions for reflection or group discussion:
Question: The prophecy of a restored future in Hosea 2:2 was
that one day the covenant people would become one nation again. In Hosea's day,
the division between Israel and Judah had already lasted for two hundred years.
Hosea 3:5 foretells the reign of "David, their king," suggesting a restored
Davidic kingdom ruled by an heir of King David. It was the same prophecy
offered by Isaiah 11:1-5, Jeremiah 23:5, and Ezekiel 34:23-24. When was this
Messianic hope fulfilled, and who was the Davidic heir sent to gather in the "lost
sheep" of Israel? See
Matthew 1:1; 9:27; 10:6; 15:22, 24; 20:30;
Luke 1:31-33.
Catechism references (* indicates Scripture quoted or paraphrases in the reference):
Hosea 2 (CCC 218*); 2:1 (CCC 441*); 2:7 (CCC 2380*); 2:21-22 (CCC 2787*)
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