The days of visitation will come; 20 The days of recompense will come; Israel shall know. (The people say:) “A fool, the prophet; Mad, the man of spirit." (Yes;) because of the greatness of thine iniquity and thy sin. 25 Enmity exists toward Ephraim's watchman; The prophet (finds) the snares of the fowler in all his ways; A Call to Repentance2 But to such a man as Hosea, there could be no hopeless sorrow. He cannot conceive of a God who will not forgive a repentant people. Not all the people were bent upon their own destruction. Perhaps there might be a saving number who could be turned to repentance. Thus impelled, Hosea speaks stimulating words of exhortation, pleading with the people to turn to Jehovah, while yet there is time. But even as he speaks he sees that they will not heed, and that final destruction cannot be long delayed. I Ephraim3 indeed is a heifer loving to thresh,4 And even I myself have spared the beauty of her neck; 5 Ye have plowed wickedness, injustice ye have reaped.5 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap the fruit of love; Break up your fallow ground; 10 Yet there is time to seek Jehovah, To the end that the fruit of righteousness may come to you. Strophe 3: Israel now regards the prophet as mad and foolish, but the time will come when he will be vindicated. 2 Hos. 10:11, 12, 13a, b, 14a, c, 15. 3 Strophe 1: a figure indicating that Israel's days of ease are past and trouble is ahead. 4 Loving to thresh: a much easier task than that of drawing the cart and keeping in the straight path of the plowman. 5 Strophe 2: war is coming, disaster and ruin. Because1 thou didst trust in thy chariots' in the multitude Therefore the tumult (of war) shall arise among thy peoples, 15 The mother being broken with the children. Thus will I do to you, O house of Israel; Because of the evil of your evil, In the dawn utterly undone shall be the king of Israel. Jehovah God, and Not Man3 The climax and the comfort of Hosea's message is reached in the last couplet of the passage which follows. Hosea, speaking as frequently before in the very person of Jehovah, reviews the past and yearns over the people of his choice with supreme tenderness, leaving us confident that whatever may have been the outcome of his experiment in the rebuilding of his own broken family life, in a holy God, infinitely more than man in his patience and forgiveness, love must be triumphant. When Israel was young then I came to love him, The more I called them, The farther they went away from me. 5 They keep sacrificing to the Baalim, Yets it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, And they did not know that I healed them. IO With the cords of a man I would draw them, with bands of love; 1 Strophe 3: an appeal to the people. From the fruits of their experience they see the results of their immoral lives-why not turn to righteousness, love, and Jehovah ? 2 Trust in thy chariots: Israel has placed her confidence in great armies rather than in the strength of Jehovah. The armies will come, but they will be her undoing. 3 Hos. 11: 1-7, 8a, 9b. 4 Strophe 1: although from childhood I have called Israel they are farther away from me than ever. 5 Strophe 2: though they were constantly going away from me, I have cared for them, healed them, provided for them, treated them tenderly. 6 The cords of a man: The figure changes here from that of a parent leading a child to a good driver helping his team up a steep place. And I was to them as one who lifts up the yoke' from upon their jaws, And I inclined unto him and would give him to eat. He2 must return to the land of Egypt, Or Assyria will be his king; for they have refused to repent. 15 And so the sword will whirl in their cities, And will devour in their fortresses. My people having wearied me with their rebellions, Since I have ceased to love them. 20 How3 can I give thee up, O Ephraim! How can I surrender thee, O Israel! For God am I and not man, Holy in the midst of thee and not human. Thus we see Hosea finding in the turmoil and confusion of his times the repetition of his own dark experience, and in his own love and forgiveness a reflection of what he conceives to be the divine love and forbearance of Jehovah for weak and wavering Israel. Then as now to men who obeyed Jehovah, conforming to so much of his will as they knew, a clearer vision of his character came. No longer might those who heeded the prophet conceive of their God as stern, all-powerful justice, loving and merciful only so long as their covenant remained unbroken, but rather as the Father-God, chastening his son in love, suffering in the frailties of his people, well-nigh despairing of their redemption, yet ever seeking to draw them with a love of which the love of husband and wife was but a suggestion. Hosea thought only of Israel, but he left not only Israel but all the world richer for his experience, and better prepared for the teaching of the Prophet of Nazareth in whose thought the divine Fatherhood I Lifts up the yoke: so adjusts the yoke that the oxen may eat with ease. 2 Strophe 3: he can no longer remain in his land; he has wearied me with his rebellion. 3 Strophe 4: yet, I cannot utterly surrender thee, for mine is not a love limited and human, but divine and infinite. This whole passage is full of paternal fondness and tenderness; nothing else in all prophecy so simply and exquisitely pictures the patience and love of Jehovah manifested in his dealings with Israel. reached not alone to a nation, or to men of Israel's blood, but to all who would accept his love and the yoke of his service.1 1 As we proceed with our study we begin to realize through what struggles of men and nations the religious conceptions which surround us have come into existence. Have we any right to be indifferent to these ideas? Are we not under the deepest obligation to consider them and to assume toward them a personal relation, which will influence our lives and lead us to new and helpful relations with our God? |