You were telling me that Hosea had to buy back
his wife after she cheated on him but you never told me what his name meant.
Would you believe?...‘Jah
is help’.
Uhh, that’d be right!...if it was me I’d be
blaming God for this marital mess. Now I suppose you're going to tell me that God still loves Israel and
will graciously buy her back? I guess that wouldn’t be with military strength
and bullets.
Not long after this God used Jeremiah to declare
a New Covenant in chapter 31...
....the Mediator being Jesus?
Yes Jesus, who sealed the New Covenant with His own
blood. Hosea refers to Him when he wrote: "When Israel was a child, then I loved
him, and called my son out of Egypt", recalling the Hebrews being
rescued by God from Egypt after the first Passover was sacrificed.
…and Jesus was taken as a small child to Egypt for refuge wasn’t He?
Yes, then He was taken back to Judaea to become
the ‘Lamb of God’ sacrificed at Passover.
So the buy-back has already been paid – in blood,
nearly 2000 years ago!...but the wayward missus is not really faithful yet. All I can say is that God has a lot more
patience than me - I'd have just dragged her home and taught her a lesson long
ago.
In the meantime God has graciously included us
Gentiles but notice He declared to Hosea at the outset:
"Yet the number of the
children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or
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. 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."
and later He says:
"And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will
have mercy upon her that had
not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they
shall say, Thou art my God."
So Israel's back on the map, just like Hosea
predicted and bristling with armament. 
Well they're not out of the woods yet. Modern
Israel is just a fraction of the original kingdoms and they still survive on
their wits and fire-power. They don’t yet say:
“…Take away all iniquity,
and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall
not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the
work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” ch14vv2-3
I think you’ll find that Asshur refers to the
‘anti-Christ’ soon to appear on the scene and just while we're looking at
Hosea, probably the most well-known passage is:
"My people are
destroyed for lack of knowledge" (4: 6) Ah, so God held the leaders responsible for failing to teach the people of Israel!...but what about Christian leaders?...what have they been teaching people, especially about Israel?
Are we destroyed for lack of knowledge too?
Let’s find out.
Photo credit: acpr.org.il
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