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The Book of Hosea Chapter 14:1–9 14:1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for your sin has been your downfall! The Lord once again appeals to Israel on the basis of his love and the opportunity he offers for repentance and forgiveness. The nation’s downfall was not due to foreign invasion or to failure in military, or economic policy, but due to national sin and rejection of God. God’s message through Hosea is that in spite of this, he remains willing to be associated with them—he is the Lord their God, and so the door remains open for them to return.
14:2 Return to the LORD and repent! Say to him: "Completely forgive our iniquity; accept our penitential prayer, that we may offer the praise of our lips as sacrificial bulls. God calls for the nation's return to be along clear and simple lines. Clear, so that none may mistake them and simple so that none would find them too difficult. Repentance is a spiritual matter, as is prayer. Prayer involves language, a verbalising of what is in the heart. When the people repent, they are to come before God with sincere prayer on their lips, asking God to forgive their sins, accept their prayers and praises, rather than the religious ritual of sacrificial bulls (perhaps already a hint in the OT of the NT understanding that ‘the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins’—Heb 10:4). This understanding that the sacrificial system was without worth if not accompanied by sincerity of heart and repentance was certainly shared by the author of Psalm 51:16–17.
14:3 Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride warhorses. We will never again say, 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made. For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!" The prayer continues with a confession of faith and trust in God and his action on behalf of his people: ‘Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride on warhorses’. Furthermore, there is the confession of consecration to the Lord and separation from the cult of Baal: ‘We will never again say “our gods” to what our hands have made’. The reason for this separation and renewed obedience was the fact that only God loved and showed compassion to his erring and helpless people.
The similarities between the message of Hosea and that of the NT are evident, and the pattern or structure of the means of repentance remains consistent, albeit with Christ at the centre of the formula rather than God. So, the repentant come with honest and sincere prayer which expresses genuine faith. This faith and trust in God is based on his saving action in Christ on behalf of his people, who raised Christ from death for our justification (Rom 4:25). Our confession of consecration to Christ involves the confession of Jesus as Lord accompanied by our faith in his resurrection (Rom 10:9). Separation from false religious cults was compulsory in the early church, with Luke recording how those who had practised black arts burned their magic paraphernalia and teachings, and items with a street value of over 50,000 silver pieces went up in flames (Acts 19:19). Paul similarly insists that those who confess Christ and who partake in communion should not at the same time be involved in the worship of idols (1 Cor 10:21). Once again the reason for the Christian’s renewed obedience is the love of God revealed to an erring and helpless humanity when ‘while we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly’ (Rom 5:6).
14:4 "I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger will turn away from them. The result of the sinner returning to God is thought of in the same terms in both the Old and New Testaments. God receives the sinner who is repentant, and also the sinful nation which returns to him. Not only would God restore the fortunes of the nation, renewing his blessings to them (‘my anger will turn away from them’). It is truly remarkable that the curses which resulted from covenant breaking can be reversed and replaced by the blessings intended for those who keep the covenant by means of repentance (see Deut 28). The forgiveness of God completely removes the sin for which the nation faced wrath, so that it might receive blessing. For the Christian, this turning away from his anger is explained in terms of the cross. It is Jesus’s propitiatory sacrifice (a sacrifice that turns away wrath) that makes it possible for the penitent believer in Christ to be cleansed from sin (1 John 2:2). Yet not only is cleansing from the guilt of past sin promised—the words ‘heal their waywardness’ signify a fundamental change in the hearts and lives of God’s people as the result of repentance. Once again, this sentiment is expressed in the OT in various places, with the psalmist for example writing of being restored to walk in paths of righteousness (Ps 23:3). In the NT is taken as a fulfilment of the OT promise to ‘write my laws in their minds and on their hearts’ (Heb 8:8–12; Jer 31:33–34). It is the born again experience that cleanses the life in this way making all things new. It is also the trout expressed by John when he writes that for Christians who sin, but then penitent lay confess ‘he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ The forgiveness deals with the guilt of sin, but cleansing from all unrighteousness frees us from its power.
14:5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily, he will send down his roots like a cedar of Lebanon. Israel, in its backslidden state, had been pictured as a dry and barren land. But with its restoration would come what Peter called ‘times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord’. When the dew comes early on the Middle Eastern ground, it brings life, refreshing and renewing what was barren and parched. Hence the meaning here concerns the spiritual restoration of the nation of Israel. No doubt Peter’s use of this illustration on the Day of Pentecost signifies that he understood the message of salvation through Jesus the Messiah to be God’s ultimate means of restoring his people. Moreover, he saw the coming of the Holy Spirit to be the fulfilment of the promise to ‘be as the dew’ to his people. The result of the spiritual renewal of the nation is the restoration of beauty and strength: the beauty of holiness (1 Chron 16:29; 2 Chron 20:21; Ps 29:2; Ps 96:9) and the strength of loyalty to God (see Joshua 1). For the Christian, true spiritual beauty (signified by the lily blossom) is seen when the nature of Christ is
visibly reproduced in our lives. Similarly spiritual strength (signified by the symbol of the cedar of Lebanon) is found when our lives are rooted in Christ and his teaching (Col 2:6–7).
14:6 His young shoots will grow; his splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. ‘His young shoots will grow’ is an expression of new life. Do you remember how it was when you first came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? Everything was new; your new found love for Christ blossomed and resulted in acts of faith and service which you would never have previously considered to be important to your life. This was the first love he spoke of when he first redeemed Israel, the love he wished to see restored in his people. Once again the NT concept is strikingly similar. The first love we had when we first came to know the Lord is what he wants to be restored in our lives as Christians (Rev 2:4–5). His splendour will be like an olive tree. The splendour of the olive tree is its produce, its fruit. It is one thing to be beautiful and another to be useful. It is one thing to worship God and another thing to serve God, but both are equally necessary; and both would be the result in the life of restored Israel and both should be evident in the life of the Christian. Worship and service are marks of sincerity, and this truth of heart is compared to the beautiful fragrance of the cedar tree, even as the perfect and sincere life of Christ was offered up as a sacrifice of sweet smell, that is to say, pleasing to God. It is interesting to note that Paul uses the language of a sweet smelling aroma to describe the gifts sent to him by the Philippian church, meaning that they were acceptable and pleasing to God as a genuine expression—in practical terms—of their sincere heart faith (Phil 4:18).
14:7 People will reside again in his shade; they will plant and harvest grain in abundance. They will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon. Once again, it is one thing to be beautiful and another to be useful. Israel’s service would not be such that had only heavenly application but was of no earthly use. The Bible knows nothing of such a powerless piety, either in the New or Old Testaments. When Israel’s commitment to God was restored, being expressed in its worship and service, so people would gather, rallying to the flag of a nation that was right with God (Zech 8:23). The social and political ramifications of a nation turning to God are incalculable, and all of them are positive. Peace and social and political stability are among these consequences of renewal, a safe and stable society is where all rational people would wish to live (‘people will reside again in its shade’). Economic and material prosperity was another beneficial result (‘they will plant and harvest grain in abundance’). The fruit of the vine is a common scriptural picture of divine blessing and joy, and so abundant would be the blessing of a restored people that the prophet here compares it to the best wine (that from Lebanon). When one pauses to think, one may well ask that if the fulfilment of all divine blessings upon Israel are to found in the ministry of Jesus the Messiah, the surely this picture of joy and abundance (spiritual and material) should be expected in our lives (3 John 1:2). The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church is thought by some to be expressed in terms of the new wine (Luke 5:37–39).
14:8 O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me! Israel would throw its idols away – it is of note that idolatry itself has been largely absent from Jewish culture since the deportation, exile and return of the people. God would again fulfil his role as the nation's God (as is expressed by the terms ‘I will answer him and care for him’). God himself would be to them like a tree of life, as the presence of God filling the nation's life would be like the life in a tree producing its fruit, in this case the fruits of righteousness to the glory and praise of God (interesting again to see these same sentiments in the NT, fruits of righteousness through Jesus Christ are the work or fruit of the Holy Spirit residing in each believer and in the community collectively—Phil 1:11).
14:9 Who is wise? Let him discern these things! Who is discerning? Let him understand them! For the ways of the LORD are right; the godly walk in them, but in them the rebellious stumble. Those who are wise are those who are instructed by the word of God, who know God and his ways (2 Tim 3:15). The verse makes particular reference here to the ways of God in dealing with his people to grant repentance, forgiveness and mercy. The grace of God, his underserved favour resulting in undeserved blessing, and the way in which it has been demonstrated to humanity through Christ, is described in the NT as revealing to all people (and even angels) the manifold wisdom of God (Eph 3:10). Only the wise and discerning heart can see that it is through revealing his love that God reveals his nature (for God is love—1 John 4:8) and that it is in his mercy to sinners, rather than in his mighty judgments that God brings to himself eternal glory (Eph 1:6). Whatever people may think of God’s gracious forgiveness and restoration, his way is right. One may consider how even though Israel had strayed far from God, his promise to restore them is ‘righteous’ because he has not abandoned his faithfulness to them, nor would he contemplate breaking his promise to them, even if they had abandoned their faithfulness to him. For the Christian, who would count him or herself among the godly, we may consider how God has made atonement for sin so that his justification of the sinner might have a foundation which is sure and righteous (Rom 3:24–26). So we are able to walk securely in the way of salvation. Yet, how tragic that in Hosea’s day as well as today, there are the rebellious who refuse to repent and receive God’s mercy, and so leave themselves excluded from the promise of blessing. The rejection of God’s mercy in Christ is the theme of numerous prophets, but perhaps especially Isaiah who describes the coming Messiah (Christ) as ‘a stone that makes a person trip, and a rock that makes one stumble’ (Isa 8:14; see Rom 9:33), especially in terms of Israel’s rejection of him. Yet this picture of stumbling is applied by Peter to all—not just Jews—who disobey the gospel (1 Pet 2:7–8). In this book we have seen God’s faithfulness to Israel mirrored through the life of Hosea, whose marriage partner had left him and played around with other men. Even so, in a move that reflected grace rather than law, God commanded that he take her back. At the end of Hosea, even after the prediction of a period of punishment for sin, the prophet announces that God is still willing to take Israel back and restore to her all the marital (or rather covenant) blessings she had lost through disobedience. The eternal gospel could be foreshadowed in no greater way, for Christ ‘receives sinners’, calls them to repentance, and grants them a privileged place among his people.