First Mennonite Church
August 18, 2024
Deeds Speak Louder Than Words
Hosea 1:1-11
As I said last week, one of the goals for this series on the Minor Prophets is for us to visit this section of the Bible which is often overlooked. The book of Hosea might be one of those overlooked books in the Old Testament.
This book might not be the favorite reading for most Christians. Although the root word of the name “Hosea” is from the Hebrew word for salvation, which is similar to Yeshua or Jesus, the book is about the troubled marriage between Hosea, the prophet, and Gomer, his wife. This troubled marriage serves to illustrate the breached covenant between Yahweh and Israel. Let me say here that in the biblical tradition, various metaphors are used to describe the relationship between God and Israel. In some instances this covenant is described as a relationship between a king and his servants, or as a lord and his vassals, or as father and son, and even as a mother and child. However, Hosea is the first book to use the metaphor of a husband for God and an adulterous woman for Israel. Therefore, the book is indeed a story of passion, in many ways. It reveals the anguish experienced by a husband because of his wife’s infidelity and the passion of a woman chasing after her lovers. It tells the passion of an angry man who lashes out against his wife wanting to punish her to make her come back to her senses. But it also shows the passion and joy experienced by couples who truly reconcile and recommit themselves to one another after a painful break.
We must remind ourselves that this story reflects the historical situation of ancient Israel where gender relationships were unbalanced: men had a more privileged position in society and where women were subject to men. With this in mind, we should not conclude that men are by nature faithful and women unfaithful, or that men are representatives of the divine, while women are inferior by design. This book should not be used to justify domestic violence against women.
Also, in the context of ancient Israel, marriage arrangements were patrilocal—that is, the young woman had to leave the household of her birth and enter into an unfamiliar household, which was not always welcoming. There, she would have to adjust and in some cases suffer abuse without anyone to defend her because even her husband would be subject to the head of the household—her father-in-law. The woman would only be considered a full member of the household until she gave birth to a son, who would continue the patriline. Love and romance were not major factors in marriages. Fathers often used the marriage of daughters to forge or strengthen alliances with other households or larger clans. It was within this cultural context where Hosea carried out his prophetic ministry.
In summary, the book of Hosea is a vivid metaphor for the troubled relationship between God and Israel. Israel was tirelessly chasing after other gods, while God pleaded for her to return; God punished her with exile, and although the book speaks about a reconciliation Israel never returned to their homeland after they were carried away by the Assyrians. The Samaritans occupied the territory that was once the kingdom of Israel.
If you want to know more about the background of Hosea’s prophetic ministry, read 2Kings 14:23-17:41. The kingdom at this time had already been divided between the northern kingdom, which was called Israel, and the southern kingdom, which was called Judah. Hosea’s ministry was focused on the northern kingdom, or Israel. During this period, Israel had six kings of which five died violent deaths. That in itself tells of the violent condition in Israel.
Read Hosea chapter one.
Hosea chapters one to chapter three are perhaps the most famous in this book. In them, we see the intensity and seriousness with which Yahweh describes his covenantal relationship with Israel in the marriage of Hosea and Gomer. Yahweh is figuratively married to Israel. In that light, God’s love is revealed in that he chooses to marry someone who has already been defined by her own actions. She is a promiscuous woman, says the text. To make the point visible to Israel, God orders Hosea to marry a woman of bad reputation. One would wonder, why would God make such a shocking command to his prophet? The prophet readily obeys and marries Gomer and in the course of their marriage, Gomer bears children to Hosea. Each of the children’s names is symbolic of the deteriorating state of the nation of Israel. The first child is called Jezreel. The Valley of Jezreel was a place where tragedy had occurred more than once. It is there where one of Israel’s kings, Zachariah, was killed only six months after he was crowned. It was there where Naboth, a poor farmer was killed by King Ahab so that he could take away Naboth’s little plot of land (1Kings 21). It was there where Queen Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, was thrown off from the rooftop window and because she was so hated, no one recovered her body; thus, street dogs ate her remains (2Kings 9). Hosea’s son, named Jezreel, became a living reminder of the violence that had taken over the land of Israel. But then, another child was born. This time it was a girl, whom God ordered Hosea to call her Lo-Ruhamah, which means “not loved” or “not cherished.” And she became the living reminder that God had forsaken Israel. God’s rejection of Israel was not because he could not keep his promise, according to the covenant. It was because a covenant demands the two parties involved to comply with the conditions within it. God’s love for Israel was conditioned by Israel’s obedience to Yahweh. However, Israel assumed that God’s love was static—that is: involuntary and unconditional. Israel thought that forsaking God by going after idols would not affect the covenant relationship with God.
What is striking is that even after God had pronounced harsh judgment coming upon Israel, he made promises of restoration. “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel,” God promised. In the end of chapter two and the beginning of chapter three, we find God’s tenderness to Israel. God reverses what he had said about the judgment.
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
Let us glean some lessons from this passage.
First, it is best to understand the marriage and the naming of the children metaphor as a category of prophetic symbolic action. Some prophets were asked by God to relay his message by enacting it in their own lives. When words become ineffective, deeds often speak louder, as we say it does. The prophet Isaiah was commanded by God to walk naked and barefoot in the city of Jerusalem for three years, as a sign and warning of doom coming upon Egypt and Ethiopia (See Isa 20). Jeremiah was commanded by God to put a yoke around his neck to symbolize the slavery the Babylonians will subject Judah, as God’s punishment (Jere 13:1-11). Isaiah also used the names of three children to help him communicate his message (chapters 7-8). Therefore, the story of Hosea’s marriage and family should simply remind us that there is a message from God behind or through it. The message is the most important issue which is clearly communicated through Hosea’s marriage experience.
Secondly, Gomer is referred to as a “wife of whoredom” in the KJV. That word, even in our postmodern world does not sound pleasant. And, although we might think of prostitutes as a profession some use to earn money by working at the lowest levels of human existence, in the context of Hosea it was a different situation. Ba’al worship included ritualized prostitution as a form of worship. Thus, Gomer’s way of life was perhaps part of a “respectable” religious and social responsibility, since it was supposed to ensure the fertility of the land, livestock, and people. It was not so much a profession as it was a way of viewing life. And that was exactly what Israel was trying to achieve by worshipping idols. Ba’al worship made sense to an agrarian society that depended on the cycle of the seasons. Ba’al was considered the god that controlled the seasons and fertility. Rain secured life. Rain made the fields grow and produce. It also secured an abundance of livestock. Tribal or the clan’s security depended on the size of its population. Therefore, Ba’al worship made sense (read chap. 2). And Israel succumbed to the temptation of finding security as their neighbors did. Instead of trusting God to provide for them, to care for them, Israel gave themselves to Ba’al to the point of sacrificing their children. In 2Kings we read:
They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger (2Kings 17:16-17).
Last Sunday, I said that we trust what provides us security—even if temporary. We trust what we have control over. Modern idolatry is the reliance on things that give us a sense of security.
But let me conclude by revisiting the purpose of God’s use of Hosea’s marriage and family to communicate his message to a rebellious Israel. Deeds, as we say, speak louder than words. In the case of Hosea, reenacting the message of God through his own marriage, as painful as it was, was a powerful message hard to resist.
Today, God is calling us to not only speak his message but to embody it through our lives. Peter says that we “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1Peter 2:9). We are to declare God’s love, peace, justice, and holiness but our message will be more powerful when it becomes visible through the way we live. In John 3, Jesus said, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. We are glad the Lord did not give us a message of condemnation to proclaim, nor one of judgment, as he gave Hosea. We are called to proclaim the good news of God’s love for the world. Therefore, when we speak kind words even in the face of unkindness, we enact the message of God to the world. When we live non-anxiously, we make visible our trust in the Lord. When we show concern for the weak, we enact God’s compassion. Deeds speak louder than words. Let us, therefore, communicate God’s message through the way we live. Amen!
Pastor Romero