The Past Relived
Hosea 11 begins with God reminiscing about the past of the Hebrew
people and how much it looks like their future.
God called Abraham out of Ur. In
Canaan, He developed His people. When
there was a famine, He provided for His people in Egypt.
Unfortunately, they stayed there.
They learned the Egyptian customs.
They forgot God. They fell into
bondage. God rescued them. The relationship with God was restored as the
people came back to the Promised Land.
This time, they were large enough to take the land, not just dwell
within it. But even there they fell
away. They failed to remember who it was
that brought out their nation and made them strong. They began to only remember themselves.
Along comes Assyria. The
Hebrew people will go back into bondage.
The people of Israel will fall to Assyria. Because they will not call upon the Lord and
turn to Him, they will fall to the power of the world. The hedge of protection God placed around
them will be removed and they will feel the consequences of their actions.
Relenting
After pronouncing judgment, we see one of the most profound
glimpses into the heart and mind of God.
God unleashed a string of rhetorical questions. He evaluates His own decision. In a moment of divine brilliance, we see into
the mind of God that is constantly wrestling with the fragility and
imperfection of the human heart. In few
other places in scripture do we get this kind of insight into the mind and
passion of God.
Judgment will come, but the people will not be destroyed. Punishment will follow, but it will not be
complete. God’s grace shall win out over
His wrath. Righteousness will be served
in both Law and Grace. Holiness will
shine forth as the people are judged and spared.
We should be careful here, though.
It is easy to focus on the grace of God.
We focus there because that is what we want to see. I think this is why Hosea ends the chapter as
He does. Hosea reminds us that even
though God will not destroy them completely, they have not yet changed. They have not yet repented. Although God has determined that people shall
be spared utter destruction, they will not be spared destruction completely. Even as God’s mind turns to grace the Hebrew
people are still continuing in their rebellion.
Judgment will come. The people
will fall. It is only in the after
effects of the fall that the people will learn to repent and see God’s grace
beginning to unfold on the horizon.
Parallel to Jacob and Esau
In Hosea 12, God uses the twins Jacob and Esau as an analogy to
Israel and Judah. Remember, technically
all of the Hebrew people are from Jacob as the people of Esau became Edom. But as an analogy, God does something really
neat here.
Jacob was known for grabbing His brother’s heel as he came out of
the womb. Jacob was known for always
wanting to steal his brother’s thunder because he didn’t like being
second. Jacob was known with not
humbling himself before God and instead wrestling with Him. Jacob’s name even means “deceiver.” In this light, God compares Israel to Jacob.
Hosea tells the people of Israel that they are like Jacob. They have always resented the fact that the
temple – God’s dwelling place – was in Jerusalem in the land of Judah. So they created their own places of worship
in order to rival the people of Judah.
They have wrestled with God and tried His patience again and again. They think that they can deceive God with
shallow praise and other words uttered upon their lips.
Yet, as they wrestle with God – undergo captivity under Assyria
and then Babylon – they will find God.
As they wrestle with God’s ways and His punishment of them, they shall
return to the Lord. As Jacob eventually
finds God and God changes His name to Israel, so too will the Hebrew people of
the northern kingdom eventually turn and find that the nature of their
relationship with God has also been changed.
As we ended chapter 11, so we also end chapter 12. Israel will learn their place with God. But judgment must come. The people must see the error before they can
repent and be restored. So judgment will
come. Wrath will happen. They will fall into captivity and serve
foreign masters.
But it will not be the end of the story.
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