HOSEA - CHAPTER 1
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2001 James Melough
1:1.
“The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of
Jeroboam the son of Joash (Jehoash), king of Israel.”
The opening words remind us
that Hosea, like all the other writers of Scripture, was simply God’s
amanuensis: he wrote what God dictated.
His name means to save,
and is particularly appropriate since his prophecy was designed, not just to
lead the men of Israel to repentance, but to lead the men of all generations
to repent in order to escape the righteous judgment with which God must visit
rebellion (sin).
“... the son of Beeri.” Since
Beeri means “my well,” and a well is one of the biblical symbols of
God’s Word, Hosea’s being a son of Beeri should remind us that those who would
be God’s spokesmen must also be “sons of Beeri,” i.e., diligent students of
His Word, for apart from a knowledge of, and obedience to that Word, effective
service is impossible. The knowledge of Scripture, however, goes beyond
familiarity with the literal language, for woven into the fabric of the
literal is a transcendent spiritual meaning which can be discerned only by the
enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, that ministry being cut off when He is
grieved or quenched, hence Paul’s warning, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit,” Eph
4:30, and “Quench not the Spirit,” 1 Th 5:19. He is grieved when we do what
He forbids; and quenched when we refuse to do what He commands.
“... in the days of Uzziah,
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah....” Uzziah, meaning my strength
is Jehovah, was a good king during most of his long reign (c.791 to 740
BC) during which God prospered him, but in the latter years of his reign he
foolishly intruded into the Temple to burn incense, for which God smote him
with leprosy, see 2 Ch 26.
He was succeeded by his son
Jotham meaning Jehovah is perfect, a good king whose sixteen year reign
is recorded in 2 Ch 27. His successor was his son Ahaz meaning possessor,
who brought Israel to virtual ruin during his sixteen year reign by provoking
the anger of God through his evil deeds, see 2 Ch 28. He was succeeded by his
son Hezekiah meaning strengthened of Jehovah, a good king whose
twenty-nine year reign is described in 2 Ch 29-32, his righteous reforms
securing God’s blessing and the recovery of Israel from the evil brought upon
her by the wickedness of Ahaz.
Inasmuch as Judah meaning,
he shall be praised, speaks of praise or worship, and since four is the
biblical number that speaks of testing, the recorded activity of these four
kings of Judah teaches truth relative to both the blessing and the judgment of
God. Obedience, as demonstrated in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, and
Hezekiah, brings blessing; disobedience, as set before us in the evil reign of
Ahaz, brings judgment.
“... and in the days of
Jeroboam (Jeroboam II), the son of Joash (Jehoash), king of Israel.”
Jeroboam, meaning let the people contend: he will multiply the people,
reigned forty-one years in Israel (2 Ki 14:23), and did evil in the sight of
the Lord.
As to why Hosea, whose
ministry was primarily to Israel and in a lesser degree to Judah, should have
mentioned four kings of Judah, and only one of Israel, the suggestion offered
by most commentators is that God may have been indicating His disapproval of
the division of the nation into Israel (the ten tribes), and Judah (Judah and
Benjamin), His desire being that the twelve tribes should have been united
under the sovereignty of the Davidic line of kings.
Israel seems to represent the
professing, but apostate mass of the nation; and Judah, the believing
remnant. The mixture of good and evil found in the four kings of Judah
therefore reminds us that that same mixture is unfortunately found also in the
lives of genuine believers, the true Church; but the absence of any
record of good in connection with Jeroboam declares that in God’s sight there
is nothing good in the apostate travesty masquerading as the true church.
Behind its mask of religion is a mass of humanity in contention with God; and
in contrast with the few who constitute the true Church, the great harlot (Re
17:1-6) numbers her devotees in billions, for it is to be remembered that
following the rapture of the true Church there will be left on earth, for
judgment, the great ecumenical travesty composed of every false religion on
earth.
Joash means Jehovah has
become man, and Jeroboam’s being his son may point to the fact that the
great false church had a good origin: it began with those who had been
redeemed by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ Who was “God manifest in the
flesh (become man),” 1 Tim 3:16, but that first believing generation hadn’t
passed away until the apostasy portrayed by Jeroboam had already set in.
1:2.
“The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea,
Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land
hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.”
This verse prepares us to
recognize that the prophet’s marriage was to be a typological portrait of that
which existed between Jehovah and Israel, as it is written, “Surely as a wife
treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with
me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord,” Jer 3:20; see also Eze 16.
To understand the command,
“... take unto thee a wife of whoredoms” as meaning that the prophet was to
marry a woman who was a harlot, is to distort the typological picture, for
Scripture makes it clear that when Israel became the wife of Jehovah it was in
all the purity of her redemption from the bondage and sin of Egypt, as it is
written, “Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the
love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness ....
Israel was holiness unto the Lord,” Jer 2:2-3. God’s command to Hosea was not
to marry a harlot, but that the wife he would marry would become a harlot, as
had Israel spiritually.
Neither do the words “... and
children of whoredoms,” mean that the prophet was to marry a woman who already
had children as the result of a previous life of harlotry, but that some of
the children she would bear would be the result of her adultery.
“... for the land hath
committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord,” makes it clear that the
adulteress which Gomer would become was what Israel had already become
spiritually through her abandonment of Jehovah, and her turning to worship the
Baals of the Canaanites. No spiritual mind will have difficulty seeing in
Israel’s spiritual harlotry, not only that of today’s world in general, and of
the apostate professing church, but sadly also that of the true Church, for to
deny that very many genuine believers give to this present evil world love,
time, money, talent, etc., which belong to God, is to declare our own
spiritual blindness.
1:3.
“So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare
him a son.”
Gomer means completion; and Diblaim the double fig-cake.
In becoming Hosea’s wife,
Gomer fulfilled the meaning of her name, for Scripture makes it clear that the
woman as a wife is the complement or completeness of the man, see Ge 2:18
where “meet,” meaning counterpart: complement: completion, is used to
describe Eve as Adam’s bride; the Church as the Bride of Christ being also
described as “the fulness (complement, completeness) of him (Christ) who
filleth all in all,” Eph 1:23.
Her being the daughter of
Diblaim the double fig cake is also significant, for Israel is
portrayed in Scripture by three trees: the vine representing her as she was in
the past, “a vine brought out of Egypt,” Ps 80:8; the fig representing her as
she has been since AD 70 until the present, see Mt 21:19 where the cursed and
withered fig tree clearly represents Israel suffering the chastisement of God;
but see also Mt 24:32 where the fig tree beginning to bud again is also
clearly a typological picture of her ultimate and imminent restoration, the
“budding” beginning with the restoration of her autonomy in 1948, and
continuing in the return of multitudes of Jews to Palestine since then till
the present.
God’s chastisements are always
designed to produce repentance and its attendant blessing, this truth running
like a golden thread through the otherwise dark fabric of this prophecy, and
the mention of Diblaim may be the oblique announcement of that truth.
“... which conceived, and bare
him a son.” Virtually every commentator has noticed the omission of “him” in
verses 6 and 8 in connection with the births of the other two children born to
Gomer, and have construed that omission as indicating that Hosea was not the
father of those other two children. There doesn’t appear to be any good
reason to reject this conclusion, particularly since it seems to be the
fulfilment of God’s declaration that Gomer would play the harlot and thus make
herself a type of Israel in her spiritual harlotry against Jehovah.
1:4.
“And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while,
and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause
to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.”
Jezreel (known also as
Esdraelon), and meaning it will be sown of God, is the name of an
extremely fertile plain lying west and slightly south of Galilee, and
stretching to the Mediterranean Sea; and also of a town of the same name
located on the southern end of the plain. In the context of this prophecy
“... the blood of Jezreel” begins with Jezebel’s murder of Naboth so that her
husband king Ahab could have Naboth’s vineyard, see 1 Kings 21. Afterwards God
anointed Jehu to be king of Israel, see 2 Ki 9, and commissioned him to avenge
Ahab’s murder of Naboth, which he did, slaying Joram (Jehoram) Ahab’s son who
had become king of Israel following the death of his father Ahab, and casting
his body into the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth, see 2 Ki
9:24-26. He then proceeded to slay Jezebel the wife of Ahab, in Jezreel, see
2 Ki 9:30-37, and all the family of Ahab, also in Jezreel, see 2 Ki 10:1-11,
17. In addition he slew all the priests of Baal, see 2 Ki 10:18-28.
In spite of much good that he
did, however, Jehu went beyond God’s command and slew also Ahaziah king of
Judah, 2 Ki 9:27, and Ahaziah’s brethren, 2 Ki 10:13-14; and in addition it is
recorded in 2 Ki 10:29 that, “... from the sins of Jeroboam ... who made
Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves
that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan,” and in verse 31 we read, “But Jehu
took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel ... for he departed
not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.” It was for all of
this that God would “avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.
God, however, graciously
taking account of Jehu’s obedience in exterminating the house of Ahab,
promised him, “... thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the
throne of Israel,” 2 Ki 10:30, that promise being fulfilled in the extention
of Jehu’s dynasty through the reigns of his four sons, Jehoahaz, Jehoash (Joash),
Jeroboam II, and Zachariah.
We see therefore that there
was terrible bloodshed associated with Jezreel, beginning with the shedding
of the blood of righteous Naboth (including that of his sons, see 2 Ki 9:26),
that blood being avenged by Jehu’s slaying in the same place Ahab’s wicked
wife Jezebel and all his sons. But more blood was spilt in connection with
Jezreel when Jehu, without command from God, slew Ahaziah king of Judah and
his sons, and it seems that it is specifically that latter blood that is
referred to here in Hosea 1:4 when God says, “I will avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.”
Jezreel’s bloody past,
however, foreshadows what is yet to be in a day now surely not far off, for it
is in that same valley of Jezreel that the terrible conflict of Armageddon
meaning hill of slaughter will occur, see Re 16:13-16. (There is no
place known specifically as Armageddon, but most commentators are agreed that
the reference is to a place in the vicinity of Megiddo, or to the wider area
known as the plain of Jezreel, known also as Esdraelon).
“... and will cause to cease
the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The direct fulfillment of this came in
721 BC when the Assyrian captivity of Israel began, but it points also to that
which brought Jewish autonomy to an end in AD 70, both of these earlier
destructions of Israel foreshadowing the far more terrible destruction that
will come in the great tribulation.
Ironside, pointing out the
dispensational aspect of the chain of events that began with Jezebel’s murder
of Naboth, writes, “Israel, according to Isa 5, is Jehovah’s vineyard. Of
Israel therefore the vineyard of Jezreel speaks. They were ‘sown of God’ in
the land of Canaan to be Jehovah’s portion. But they hired false witnesses
against the Lord of the vineyard, the Righteous One, who would not give to the
enemy His rightful inheritance. By wicked hands they slew the Husbandman, and
claimed the vineyard as their own. Because of this the Gentile oppressor was
permitted to overturn the kingdom, and power was transferred to the nations.
The awful prayer, ‘His blood be on us, and on our children!’ has been terribly
answered, as the antitypical blood of Jezreel witnesses. In the very place
where they slew the Lord of glory their blood has been poured out as
wine bursting from the winepress, and they have been devoured by the dogs -
the unclean Gentiles.”
1:5.
“And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in
the valley of Jezreel.”
The breaking of the bow of
Israel is a poetic synonym for the cutting off of Israel, and continues to
point to the Assyrian captivity of Israel, to the Diaspora of AD 70, and also
to the now imminent Tribulation judgments.
1:6.
“And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call
her name Lo-ruhamah not shown mercy: for I will no more have mercy upon
the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.”
As noted above, the absence of
“him” after “bare” has led many to conclude that this daughter had been
begotten through adultery, and if correct, continues to emphasize that the
Israel represented by Gomer, had been guilty of spiritual adultery against
Jehovah her Husband. As this daughter therefore was the fruit of adultery, so
was the spiritual fruit resulting from Israel’s having given to the Baals of
Canaan the love and worship which belonged to Jehovah. That fruit, their
idolatry, provoked His righteous anger, and impelled Him to withdraw the mercy
He had so freely bestowed upon the ungrateful nation; and with His mercy
withdrawn, she became the prey of her enemies who proceeded to destroy her:
that destruction coming then in the form of the Assyrain captivity for Israel,
the Babylonian a few years later for Judah, those judgments being the
precursors of that which overtook a later generation of the same thankless
adulterous nation in AD 70, all of them pointing to the destruction that will
bring misery and death to all except a small believing remnant of that same
nation and of the Gentiles in the coming Tribulation.
We are missing the message,
however, if we fail to see that Israel’s history is but the prewritten history
of the professing church, for she has followed all too faithfully in Israel’s
idolatrous footsteps, the equivalent of that nation’s worship of the gods of
Canaan being Christendom’s worship of money, pleasure, ease, education, and
all the other worthless things that result in rejection of God and His
kingdom. The judgments of the Assyrian captivity for Israel, the Babylonian
for Judah, and the terrible slaughter and scattering of the nation by Rome in
AD 70, are all foreshadowings of the dreadful judgments that will ravish the
earth in the coming Tribulation, bringing death to billions of Jews and
Gentiles alike through war, famine, and plague worse than any the world has
ever known.
The contemplation of these
national and global judgments, however, shouldn’t cause us to forget that
every day God’s judgment overtakes thousands as Death stalks silently through
the earth sweeping the unbelieving into hell to await the dread final judgment
of the great white throne that will result in their being cast, body, soul,
and spirit, into the eternal torment of the lake of fire. If the men and
women of this present evil age don’t see in Hosea’s warnings to Israel and
Judah God’s warning to them to flee from the wrath to come, then they
are reading them with blinded eyes and darkened minds, the end result being
that they, like foolish Israel and Judah will find themselves suddenly
overtaken by irrevocable and eternal judgment.
1:7.
“But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord
their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by
horses, nor by horsemen.”
Judah’s day of grace had not
yet ended, for she hadn’t yet abandoned God, as had her evil sister Israel,
hence His assurance that she was still the object of His protecting care.
It is generally agreed that
the deliverance mentioned here was that of 701 BC, recorded in 2 Ki 19:35,
when the Lord, during the night, caused 185,000 of the Assyrians encamped
against Jerusalem to die in their sleep, so that the survivors withdrew
without Israel’s having to lift a sword. The same Divine power that delivered
Judah out of the hand of Assyria would have been available to Israel, but she
in her folly had forfeited Jehovah’s protection by forsaking Him for Baal, and
seeking aid from Egypt and other nations which were as powerless to defend her
as had been Assyria to destroy Judah.
He is a wise man who heeds the
command given in Pr 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean
not unto thine own underestanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he
shall direct thy paths,” and relative to the wisdom which seeks those paths it
is written, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,”
Pr 3:17. Nothing but blessing attends submission to God’s will, and nothing
but misery and ruin result from rebellion against it, for His will is “good,
and acceptable, and perfect,” Ro 12:2, as He makes “all things work together
for good to them that love God,” Ro 8:28.
1:8.
“Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.”
Many scholars, noting this
second absence of “him (Hosea)” after “bare,” as also in verse six, have
concluded that this third child was also the product of adultery, and see in
it the continued emphasis on Israel’s spiritual adultery against Jehovah.
1:9.
“Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will
not be your God.”
Lo-ammi means not my people,
and in having Hosea so name this son God continues to declare His anger
against the nation’s great sin, and His rejection of Israel as His people. It
is a fearful thing when a man or a nation exhausts God’s patience so that they
become the objects of His wrath rather than His blessing. Foolish Israel,
however, ignored the warning, as do the men of the world today relative to His
warning concerning their souls, “My spirit shall not always strive with man,”
Ge 6:3, and the further warning, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his
neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy,” Pr 29:1. As
judgment overtook an Israel that had ignored God’s warning, so will eternal
judgment the man who sins away his day of grace and passes over that invisible
line which separates God’s mercy from His wrath.
1:10.
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the
place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be
said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”
These last two verses of
chapter one are the first two verses of chapter two in the Hebrew bible, but
that is a matter of little significance. What is important is that even in
the execution of judgment God remembers mercy, and here He looks from the
generation that He must destroy because they would not repent and seek His
mercy, to another generation of that same people, the believing remnant that
will emerge alive out of the Tribulation to be the new believing Israel that
will enjoy in the Millennium the fulness of the blessings promised to Abraham
in Ge 22:17, “... I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as
the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall posess the gate of
his enemies.”
It is instructive to note that
in Genesis Abraham’s seed was to be multiplied “as the stars ... and as the
sand,” the stars representing his spiritual seed, i.e., all believers; and the
sand, his literal physical descendants. In this present verse, however, only
the sand is mentioned, so that the reference is to those Israelites, the
believing remnant, who will pass alive out of the great Tribulation into the
millennial kingdom. (It is to be noted that all, Gentiles as well as Jews, who
pass out of the Tribulation into the millennial earth, will be believers; but
with the multiplication of their descendants, the population in the Millennium
will consist of unbelievers also, for the children born in the Millennium,
like those of every age, will be born sinners requiring a new spiritual birth
to fit them for the eternal state that will continue after the Millennium will
have run its course). That rebellious generation portrayed by Lo-ammi, of
which God said, “Ye are not my people,” will yet be replaced by the believing
generation which, in the Millennium, will be called “the sons of the living
God.”
1:11.
“Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered
together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the
land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.”
In the Millennium Israel will
no longer be divided into Israel and Judah. As a nation united again, they
will be unanimous in their acceptance of a literal descendant of David as
their king, the government in the Millennium being again theocratic as in the
days of David and Solomon who reigned as God’s regents. That literal physical
descendant of David will also rule from Jerusalem as Christ’s regent in the
Millennium, while the Lord Himself, with us and the resurrected believers of
all the ages, will be ruling from the heavenly Jerusalem, which, it seems,
will be poised over the millennial earth, but not actually descending to earth
until the new heavens and earth that will follow the Millennium. That the
king ruling from the earthly Jerusalem in the Millennium will not be the Lord
Jesus Christ is certified by the fact that that king will have literal sons,
and will offer sacrifices, i.e., he will worship, something Christ does not do
for He is God, see Ezk 46.
“... and they shall come up
out of the land,” doesn’t seem to relate to the regathering of Israel into the
land in the Millennium, for clearly they are seen here as already in the
land. The explanation that seems most satisfactory is that that believing
remnant, regathered into the land, will multiply exceedingly like seed sown
and sprouting up out of the ground, see, for example, Jer 31:27; Ho 2:23, and
Zec 10:9 where God speaks of sowing His earthly people as seed, that sowing
resulting in their increase just as the sowing of literal seed produces
increase of it. The final clause, “for great shall be the day of Jezreel,” in
the present context, seems to support this interpretation, “great” being used
here obviously in a good sense of multiplication. Paul, in fact, refers to
these verses in Ro 9:25-26, “As he saith also in Osee (Hosea), I will call
them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not
beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto
them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the
living God.”
[Hosea 2]