Hosea Chapters 12,13,14: Commentary

Hosea Chapters 12-14

12:1 “Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind continually”: “The wind is a figure for what is empty, vain, or of no real worth or practical benefit.

To feed on wind is to take pleasure in or draw sustenance from what can really afford neither” (Smith p. 270). Are we feeding on the wind, that is putting a lot of time and energy into things that have no worthwhile purpose? “And oil is carried to Egypt”: Instead of trusting in God, Israel was placing her trust in human alliances. Yet the covenant made with Assyria was not meant to be kept, for while in the process of making such a covenant, Israel was also sending olive oil to Egypt in an effort to buy their help. Hence, the nation is very devious and dishonest.

12:2 And neither is Judah innocent. God’s judgment is never excessive; rather, nations and individuals only reap what they have sown (2 Corinthians 5:10).

12:3 Apparently the example of Jacob is presented to remind the nation that like Jacob had at one time been deceptive, the nation was being deceptive, but Jacob changed and hence the nation can still repent. Hosea does agree with the details given us concerning the birth of Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:23-26).

12:4 Jacob actually did wrestle with an angel (Genesis 32:22-30), and the book of Genesis is historically accurate. “If we have any misgivings over treating the early stories of the Bible as texts for today, this chapter should dispel them. It reads almost as sermon notes on the life of Jacob and on the Exodus from Egypt” (Kidner p. 106).

12:4 “He wept and sought His favor”: Jacob did not beat the angel; rather, the outcome was that Jacob finally changed and repented. Jacob finally realized that he couldn’t live by his wits any longer, that he desperately needed God and God’s protection and favor. Jacob was so intent to receive God’s blessing that he wept and begged for it. Are we this desperate and eager to be right with God?

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Do we long for God’s favor and His truth so much that we cry out for it? The point is that in like manner, the nation of Israel needs to cry out for God’s favor and repent. In Jacob we see a man whose arrogance and self-sufficiency is broken but not his earnestness, his early aggression and “will to win” have not been replaced by an equal energy and will towards God. 12:4 “He found Him at Bethel”: Later at Bethel, the site of his dream years before (Genesis 28:10-22), God appeared to Jacob again. God changed his name of Israel, blessed him, and renewed His covenant promise (Genesis 35:1-14).

“There He spoke with us”: The promises given to Jacob still applied to Israel and the people of Hosea’s time. God was still willing to be their God if only they would repent.

12:5-6 Like Jacob, the nation needed to repent of their deceitful ways and return to God with tears and prayers. Genuine repentance would involve a commitment to love and justice (Micah 6:8), as well as dependence on the Lord rather than on herself. To wait for your God continually means to “hope patiently and trustingly for the Lord’s help in every time of trouble instead of placing your hope on yourselves or other nations” (Laetsch p. 97).

12:7 “Degenerate Israel was not better than a Canaanite (cf. Ezekiel 16:3). Israel was a deceiver whose highest aim was to become rich. In whose hands are false balances. The Canaanites were the merchants of the ancient world. Apparently they had a reputation for dishonestly” (Smith p. 272). Israel, instead of being a light to the other nations, had conformed to the low moral standards of the cultures that surrounded her. The term a trader here brands the Israelites as the true successors of the old corrupt inhabitants of the land.

12:8 Israel did achieve wealth, but the people thought that such wealth came solely as the result of their own labors. “No iniquity, which would be sin”: The nation had the attitude that such shady and dishonest practices did not involve sin. “Apparently they had devised loopholes in the law to justify what they had been doing” (Gaebelein p. 217). “In cold print, his bland assurance that his extorted riches carry no guilt—or none to speak of—and even put him above the law, is patently absurd. Yet human attitudes, which venerate success and, at a safe distance, admire the clever rogue, still help to build up this cocksureness in the man who sells his soul to the present” (Kidner p. 110). Here is a classic expression of situation ethics. Such practices had resulted in tremendous prosperity for the nation, therefore they were justified. Today people argue that the end justifies the means, or something sinful cannot be that bad or at least that 2

bad, if it is creating results and material success. People feel that there isn’t anything wrong with telling a lie to someone who doesn’t deserve the truth, in cheating someone who is cheating others, or in taking advantage of people who are dumb.

12:9 Israel is not dealing with man, rather the nation must deal with God, and His laws cannot be manipulated. In addition, Israel had not earned such wealth independently of God; He had been taking care of the nation since Egyptian bondage. Hence, their claims of not needing God, of “doing it all by myself”, are the height of ingratitude. “I will make you live in tents again”: “The wilderness experience, which the people commemorated in the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:33-43), would be realized once more in the Exile” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p.

1404). It is as if God is saying, “Did I really go through all this trouble to deliver you from Egypt just so you could live like a bunch of Canaanites?” “And secondly: ‘When you re-live the exodus each year, camping out as your fathers did, is it only make-believe? Or is it to re-learn the lesson of those days, that man does not live by bread alone?’” (Kidner p. 111).

12:10-11 Though God had repeatedly communicated His will to Israel through the prophets, the people had rejected His messages. Here is one more reminder that , “God, not man, is the fount and origin of prophecy” (Kidner p. 112). This is another proof that God had been their God since the Exodus. He had shown continual care for the spiritual welfare of the nation. Gilead was the eastern half of the nation, and from this verse if appears that this part of the nation was filled with moral decay. Gilgal, where they had crossed the Jordan with God’s help in Joshua’s time had become a shrine for false gods. As a result, these idolatrous altars will become stone heaps, as piles of rocks in a field.

12:12-14 God’s past goodness is again recalled. Going back to Jacob’s experience once more, Hosea reminded the people of their humble beginnings. Their famous ancestor was once a refugee who had to tend sheep in order to acquire a wife. Later Jacob’s descendants served the Egyptians till God delivered them from Egypt and protected them through the prophet Moses. Truly, without God, this nation would have perished or would still be in bondage. But because of the continual and excessive sinning in the nation, God would leave the people in their guilt, and bring the nation once again to very humble circumstances.

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Chapter 13 13:1 In former years when the tribe of Ephraim spoke, the other tribes listened with respect. This tribe had often asserted leadership in prior days (Judges 8:1-3; 12:1-6; 1 Kings 12:25), yet now this tribe was taking the lead in moving people away from God and into idolatry. This prominent tribe was as good as dead.

13:2 The worship of Baal was not a passing fancy, but was a continual apostasy in the north, which had only led to the introduction of other idols. False religion will only beget more false religion. A tremendous amount of effort and been put into the construction of such idols, but God didn’t look at them as “art”. It appears that an element of worship including either kissing the idol itself or to kiss the hand toward the idol. “Men, rational beings, professing to worship Jehovah, kiss, adore, worship, expect help from calves, irrational brutes, dead idols! What foolish, stupid wickedness!” (Laetsch p. 102).

13:3 As a result the nation would quickly disappear. Four symbols are given to describe Israel’s rapid dissolution.

13:4 In contrast to such idols the Lord remains the only true God. From Egypt onward He had taken very good care of this nation. The idols they worship cannot deliver them for God is the only Savior (Isaiah 45:5-6, 20-22).

13:5 In the wilderness Israel depended wholly upon God, and He provided for them (Deuteronomy 8:1-4, 15-16; 32:7-12).

13:6 They repaid His faithfulness and generosity with ever-increasing disloyalty and arrogance (Deuteronomy 32:15). “In their prosperity they forgot God. This tragic example has been emulated many times since by the people of God’s favor” (Hailey p. 180). Ingratitude, thinking that we don’t need God or His word for everything, thinking that the Bible is outdated or that man has surpassed his need of God are attitudes that lead to apostasy (See Romans 1:18ff).

13:7-8 Therefore God, instead of being their shepherd, has become their enemy.

The thought is that the Lord was waiting the moment to pounce against His people in judgment. The judgment that would strike them would not be mind.

“With the strength of the lion, the swiftness and cunning of the leopard, the fury of a mother bear robbed of her cubs, the eagerness of a lioness seeking food for her young, so the Lord will meet His apostate people. When a nation (or an individual) deliberately and persistently rejects God’s mercies, there is left for it 4

nothing but God’s wrath (Deut. 32:21ff; Hebrews 10:31; Romans 2:1-4)” (Laetsch p. 102).

13:9-10 Israel can only blame himself for his destruction. By departing from the will of God they had deliberately made themselves the enemy of God (James 4:4). But opposing God means opposing the only one who can deliver and save you! “That He is the only Helper is proved by the inefficiency of their rulers whom they had preferred to God” (Laetsch p. 103).

“It need hardly be said that the childishness that make up most of human jealousy has no place in God: only a fiery concern for what is precious to Him. It is as far from our envy, hatred and malice as it is from cool indifference. Equally, there is nothing arbitrary in His judgments… The rest of the book must be allowed to put to us the other side of it, showing us not only the logic of our spiritual sowing and reaping (8:7), our deafness to reason and appeal (8:12), our obstinacy (4:16), evasiveness (7:13) and wantonness (5:4), but supremely the deep reluctance of God to resort to judgment (11:8), and His longing that at last it may bring His people to their senses (5:13-15)” (Kidner p. 116).

13:11 “I gave you a king in My anger”: Early in their history, the Israel had clamored for a king like all the nations around them (1 Samuel 8:4,5). At the division of the kingdom He had given them Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim (1 Kings 12:20). Instead of leading them in the way of truth, Jeroboam and his successors had led the nation into idolatry and rebellion against God. “God punished the desire for a king and princes by giving the people exactly what they wanted…The imperfects denote an action that is repeated again and again.

God permitted them to have kings, then punished them through those kings.

During the twenty-one decades of northern kingdom history there were nine dynasties. Bloody regicides and civil wars were the rule in that kingdom. This political turbulence was viewed by Hosea as the divine punishment for the rebellion of the northern tribes” (Smith pp. 276-277). “The mood in which Israel had demanded a king is quite familiar to us: a compound of reasonable grievances (1 Samuel 8:1-5), ideas of grandeur (give us a king like all the nations), and trust in the seem rather than the unseen (that he may go out and fight our battles, 1 Samuel 8:20)” (Kidner p. 117). God is not against kings and human government, what God commended at this time was the arrogance and unbelief and moved the people to ask for a king.

13:12 The sins of Ephraim are bound up, that is wrapped up and securely reserved. Literally the text says that Ephraim’s sin was hidden away, i.e., 5

carefully preserved so as not to be lost. At times it seems like people think that God is going to forget their sinful actions and attitudes in the past and that God isn’t really going to remember everything that they did.

13:13 Israel had not responded to God’s call for repentance during the period of grace He had extended. The procrastinating nation was compared to a baby that does not come out of its mother’s womb despite her strenuous efforts. Such a delay will only result in death for both mother and child. The nation is called “unwise” because even under the chastening judgment he still delayed his conversion and would not let himself be born again.

13:14 Even though the nation would go into captivity, God would rescue the humble and contrite. Their restoration would be a rebirth or a resurrection from the dead (Ezekiel 37). Here is the resurrection of a people. Of course the ultimate resurrection, or when death will be completely conquered, is when Jesus returns and all the graves are opened (1 Corinthians 15:51-58).

13:14 “Compassion will be hidden from My sight”: Or, repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. God will not change His mind, He will redeem the nation after it is punished.

13:15 Ephraim, whose name means “double-fruitfulness”, would become fruitless. An east wind (Assyria), would sweep them away just as fierce east winds from the desert often dried up and destroyed the fields and orchards of His people. Everything that the nation counted as precious would be removed and taken by the Assyrians.

13:16 The coming judgment would be without mercy. The Assyrian soldiers were extremely cruel and human life was viewed as being very cheap. Israel had adopted a very callous attitude toward the rights of others and the nation that God used to punish her would treat her likewise in a very hard-hearted manner.

What God said would happen, did happen. Hence, all the warnings in the New Testament about hell and its terrors are real!

Chapter 14

14:1 Sin is here represented as a false step.

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14:2 “Take words with you”: “Not empty, half-hearted words, but words expressing the deep penitence of the heart. Their words should be pleas for forgiveness, such as express the fervent desire that Jehovah will accept their plea as genuine” (Hailey p. 182). See 2 Corinthians 7:10-11. “A major contrast in this book if between articulate, meaningful encounter and the mere formalities and offerings which people try to substitute for it (5:6). These words are to be without reservations or excuses. God has spoken of ‘your iniquity’ (14:1); man must accept and echo that (14:2), not jib at it or play it down as he did in 12:8” (Kidner pp. 121-122).

14:3 True repentance must involve a complete dependence upon God, which means admitting the fact that alliance with other nations and all other false sources of confidence cannot save. Every human object of their trust must be renounced. For in God alone do the helpless find deliverance and mercy. Since God can deliver the helpless and lowly orphan, clearly, God can deliver Israel!

Once and for all, the nation needed to give up all and every source of false confidence.

14:4-5 If they repent, God is willing to heal them. People need to realize that only their own selfishness stands between them and God’s favor. If they repent, God will be to the nation like dew, which will cause the nation to blossom like a lily. The only security is found in turning to God, and if this happens then the nation will become like one of the majesty cedars of Lebanon, which has deep roots, luxuriant growth, and a wonderful aromatic smell.

14:6 Not only can God bring any nation down, but God can also bring a nation back from the brink of ruin (Jeremiah 18). Sadly, people think that only by conforming to the world can they become popular, but by conforming to the world, Israel would only become an object of shame in the ancient world. If she repented, she once again would become attractive and beautiful, and once again would she be respected and admired (see Deut. 4:6-8). “Without laboring the details, we can gain from this three-fold impression of Israel revived and reconciled to God. First, freshness (dew, flowers, fragrance, beauty, shade); secondly, stability (rooted like the poplar); thirdly, vigor (the spreading roots of new growth)” (Kidner p. 124).

14:8 Idolatry had been Israel’s besetting sin. In God’s sight idols are absolutely nothing, and so they shall be for Israel. God answers the prayers of Israel, God provides for Israel and not any of these idols. To Israel, God is like a luxuriant cypress, all her blessings come from Him. The fruit that God supplies to nourish 7

the spiritual life of His people is only found with Him (John 15; Ephesians 1:3; 2 Peter 1:3).

14:9 The moral of the entire book is summed up in this verse. Wise and understanding readers would easily discern it. Note, the clear proof that a person is wise in whether or not they embrace God’s will (Matthew 7:24ff). The real test for wisdom is a person’s reaction to Scripture. God’s ways are right and righteous people will walk in them. But people who are selfish, dishonest and looking for something else, will stumble over Scripture and reject it.

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