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The first chapter is reported in the third person. And this contains God's command to
Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman as a symbol of God's own marriage with a faithless wife,
Israel. "Go, get yourself a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land will
stray from following the Lord." (1:2) So he marries this woman named Gomer and she bears
three children who have very inauspicious names. These names are symbolic of God's anger
over Israel's religious infidelity: (1) Jezreel. Jezreel because God plans to punish Jehu for
his slaughter of the house of Ahab. Even though Ahab was no favorite of God, you still should
not raise your hand against the Lord's anointed. And so Jehu will have to be--Ahab will have
to be avenged. Jehu will have to be punished at Jezreel, which is where the *** happened.
(2) Lo-ruhamah, which means "not loved, not forgiven," because God will no longer love
or forgive or pardon the House of Israel and (3) the third child's name is Lo-ammi , "not
my people," a sign that God has dissolved the covenant bond. He's rejected Israel as
his people--divorced Israel. There really could be no more stark and shocking denial
of the covenant than this. Chapter 3 contains a first person (Hosea's
first-person) account of God's command to him. There it's said that God commands him
to befriend, although he seems to hire, a woman on condition that she not consort with
others. The woman, again, symbolizes Israel, who's brought into an exclusive relationship
that requires her to remain faithful to one party in contrast to her customary behavior.
And then sandwiched between chapter 1 and chapter 3, both of which have the accounts
of these relationships that are metaphors for God and Israel's relationship--sandwiched
between them is the almost schizophrenic chapter 2. It contains, again, this sustained violent,
very violent account of the faithless wife, of faithless Israel and God's formal declaration
of divorce. "She is not my wife and I am not her husband." This would effect a divorce,
this statement uttered by a husband. We have that in verse 4. And yet, this chapter also
contains a very gentle, very loving portrait of reconciliation.
And it's in that portrait of reconciliation that we see another aspect of the covenant
concept emerge. An aspect that was, again, most pronounced in the Book of Deuteronomy.
As Israel's covenant partner God loves Israel and he actually longs for her faithfulness.
This steadfast covenantal love -- one of the words that's used repeatedly is hesed, but
it refers to a special kind of steadfast love, loyal love -- this covenantal love will reconcile
God to wayward Israel just as Hosea is reunited or reconciled with his faithless wife. And
the prophet imagines a return to the wilderness. God is imagining -- it would be wonderful
if we could return to the wilderness and covenant again, and this time it would even be a permanent,
an eternal marriage. And the three children who were cast off at birth, they will be redeemed
and accepted by their father. Those are some of the ideas contained in this passage. This
is Hosea 2:16-25, the reconciliation.