Loyal Week 2 Day 2
Hosea 2:1–3
[1] Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”
[2] “Plead with your mother, plead—
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband—
that she put away her whoring from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;
[3] lest I strip her naked
and make her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and make her like a parched land,
and kill her with thirst. (ESV)
We now have a call to action. No longer is mediocrity going to be allowed in the marriage. No longer is mediocrity going to be allowed in the worship of GOD.
From your study of chapter 1, what group do the brothers represent?
What group do the sisters represent?
In week 1, we defined the word “whoredom,” which means to pursue a faithless, unworthy, or idolatrous desire. Now, lets turn our attention to adultery which has a synonym of disloyal; showing an absence of allegiance, devotion, obligation, faith, or support. Some other synonyms for adultery are fickle, unfaithfulness, and falsity. The mother and wife, in these verses, is pleaded to put whoring from her face and adultery from her breasts. Reading these verses, we may have a mental image of a woman thrown in the middle of the town square after being caught in the act of looking for love outside her marriage. This woman represents any who are pursuing faithless, unworthy, and/ or idolatrous desires while showing an absence of allegiance, devotion, obligation, faith, and/ or support. This woman represents any who are fickle, unfaithful, and false, looking for love outside the relationship with the ONE TRUE GOD.
Does this represent Israel and Judah’s relationship with the ONE TRUE GOD?
Does this represent our or our nation’s relationship with the ONE TRUE GOD?
You may be thinking that this discipline of stripping and killing is harsh, but this is a serious offense and should be taken seriously. In exchange for being GOD’s people and receiving His protection, GOD’s requirement is that His people not share any of their affections with false gods.
Exodus 20:1-2
And GOD spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the LORD your GOD,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.” (ESV)
Hosea 2:4–7a
[4] Upon her children also I will have no mercy,
because they are children of whoredom.
[5] For their mother has played the whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
[6] Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
[7] She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.(ESV)
Draw a big box around the sin and another big box around the consequence. A mother’s role is usually to teach and raise up the next generation, influencing their morals, or lack there of. Who is the mother in a community of people? Could it be the leaders, including spiritual leaders, government, royalty, or anyone who has influence over another?
Now read through Hosea 2:4-7a again substituting “lovers” with “false gods” and while thinking of who the mother could represent. Now, circle the word “therefore”. This is the first of three “therefore" that will be used in this chapter alone, connecting sin with the consequences intended to guide back to the One True GOD.
Hosea 2:7b
Then she shall say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
for it was better for me then than now.’ (ESV)
Nothing says love like settling when all the other options have been exhausted. Who wants to be on the receiving end of a relationship like that? The LORD, our creator, is standing at the door knocking and waiting.
Hosea 2:8
[8] And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
which they used for Baal. (ESV)
It can be easy and appealing to look down on these ancient people worshipping false gods wondering “how could they?” Take Baal for instance, the false god of fertility and prosperity. Many in the community, and likely some spiritual leaders, worshipped this false god in fear that if they did not their life would be in financial ruin and their ability to have children would evaporate. The worship of false gods was possibly meshed so tightly with the worship of the One True GOD making it appear that the worship honored the One True GOD. This meshing of worship may have been done purposely out of fear, not wanting to exclude a false god or possibly allowing sin to be more palatable. Do we have a false god that we worship for security? Is there any sins that we have accepted as christians? I ask these questions to help us search for any sin or false god that we may have accepted. So again, if this does not relate to you, please do not pin this extra weight to yourself. If this is you, please stop fearing this false god and fear only the One True GOD that actually has the power.
Tomorrow, we will start with the second “therefore” and the consequences designed to lead back and the sweet reconciliation of the relationship with the One True GOD. You will not want to miss it!
Works Cited
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.
“Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's Most-Trusted Online Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
Green, Jay P. “Hosea.” The Interlinear Hebrew-Aramaic Old Testament: With Strong's Concordance Numbers above Each Word, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, MA, 1985, pp. 2075–2092.
Publishing, Rose. Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Time Lines. Rose Publishing, 2015.
Strong, James. The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of Th. Hendrickson Publishers, 1990.