DATE: May 20, 2018 AM: Hosea 11 PM: No Service SCRIPTURE 1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 But the more they were called, the more they went away from me.[a] They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. 3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. 4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. 5 Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 6 A sword will flash in their cities; it will devour their false prophets and put an end to their plans. 7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them. 8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboyim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God, and not a man the Holy One among you. I will not come against their cities. 10 They will follow the Lord; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. 11 They will come from Egypt, trembling like sparrows, from Assyria, fluttering like doves. I will settle them in their homes, declares the Lord.
12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.[b] Main Point God does not base His affection for His children according to their faithfulness, but according to His own. Introduction As your group time begins, use this section to introduce the topic of discussion. Which TV father reminds you of your father and why? What are the key characteristics a good father should possess? Of these characteristics, which are universally challenging? The prophet Hosea began his message by picturing God as a rejected husband who nonetheless lovingly forgave and received His wayward wife back (Hos. 1-3). As he wrote, Hosea shifted his imagery of God from a Husband to a Father - a tender Father wanting His children close, not basing His affection for them according to their faithfulness, but His own. Understanding Unpack the biblical text to discover what the Scripture says or means about a particular topic. Have a volunteer read Hosea 11:1-2. Hosea depicted Israel as God s son and then told of God s nurturing activity toward him. Because of God s desire to love Israel as a caring Father toward His son, He called him out of Egypt, a reference to the exodus event. Here, the entire episode involving Moses, pharaoh, the 10 plagues, and the exodus out of Egypt is subsumed under the call of a loving Father to His son. Read Matthew 2:15. How is this verse fulfilled in Jesus? Why is Jesus the ultimate example of God s compassion? From this section of Hosea, we learn that a father pursues, even when his child rebels. God doesn t give up on us or throw us to the dogs; He pursues us with a passion that can t be matched. Despite God s relentless, loving pursuit of Israel, Hosea goes on to
note that Israel did not return His love (see 11:2). The Israelites rejected the Father and pursued other false gods. As a loving Father, God had called Israel out of Egypt. How would this loving Father respond to their rejection? How would He address their continued devotion to Baal? God pursued them. He chastised them for their sin, but He also sought to restore them. The analogy of the Husband buying back his enslaved wife (Hos. 1-3) is reinforced with this imagery of a jilted Father pursuing His wayward son (Hos. 11). Why is it so easy for us to drift away from God (think: schedules, work, parenting responsibilities, etc.)? How do you typically respond to rejection? What do these verses from the Book of Hosea teach us about how God responds to rejection? Have a volunteer read Hosea 11:3-4. God s teaching His Israel to walk referred to His loving nurture and guidance. He taught them to depend on Him and to honor Him with their lives. God called His son out of Egypt (Hos. 11:1); a former group of slaves were becoming God s people. They had to learn the very basics of worship, ritual, ethics, and covenant responsibility. God guided them. Have different volunteers read the following passages: Ex. 15:26; Ps. 78:23-25; Deut. 1:29-31; 8:1-6; Isa. 1:2; 40:29-31; 41:10; 46:3-4. Discuss how God took care of His children yet they continued to reject His love and care. Share a story of how your children or grandchildren have rejected your love and discipline at one time or another. Ask for volunteers to give examples of their own experiences as parents or grandparents. Why does God s love for us always require discipline? Is it possible for Him to love us without it? Why or why not? As a loving Father, the Lord continues to nurture us. We benefit by reflecting on how He nurtured us in the past, providing for our needs and surrounding us with loving people to share our lives. We also benefit by seeking the Lord, asking Him to reveal how He wants to nurture us today. Finally, we benefit when we remember God disciplines us as a father disciplines his son. God s fatherly discipline is always motivated by love (Prov. 3:12). Have a volunteer read Hosea 11:5-11. What does God say would happen to Israel since they refused to obey (vv. 5-6)? According to verse 7, why did God not listen to Israel when they called? According to verses 8-9, what is it about God s character that keeps Israel from being obliterated?
The Lord s anguish billowed up because Israel was doomed to suffer a similar outcome to Sodom and Gomorrah s since they sinned and refused to repent. Yet, because of His special relationship with Israel, God anguished over Israel s future.this anguish, in the form of four rhetorical questions in verse 8, pounds the reader like a drum. These questions help us understand the intensity of God s love for Israel. As a result, the Lord declared, I have had a change of heart; My compassion is stirred! What did God change His heart about? The final segment, verses 10-11, shifts the focus once again from God s anguish and compassion to Israel s restoration. God s compassion allowed Israel to follow the Lord. Hosea used a simile comparing the Lord to a roaring lion. His compassion will fill the land like the roar of a lion, and Israel will come trembling in reverence to Him. Application Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives. Do you really understand the love of God? What makes this challenging? How does your life need to change to reflect and honor the type of love God has shown you? What is one change you can make this week? Do you know anyone who would benefit from hearing about God s love and affection? Begin praying today for someone in whom you can invest and with whom you can share about the love of our Heavenly Father. Then do it. Prayer Close with prayer, thanking God for His faithfulness and love even though we repeatedly turn from His ways. Pray that your knowledge of God as a perfect, loving father would change the way your group members relate to God. Commentary 11:1. The Lord spoke in the first person through His prophet in 11:1-4. With the voice of a tenderhearted Father, God spoke of a time when the nation of Israel was like a young child. In its historical infancy, the Lord loved His people and called His son to freedom out of the slave pits of Egypt.
The inspired New Testament writer Matthew enlarged the significance of this verse by showing its prophetic fulfillment in Jesus Christ (see Matt. 2:15). He understood Jesus to be the ultimate representative of the nation of Israel - the Messiah who would save His people. To help make that point, Matthew drew parallels between Jesus life and Israel s history. Even as the nation once spent time in Egypt (see Gen. 45:9-11), so Jesus did the same (see Matt. 2:14). The Lord had called Israel out of Egypt (see Ex. 3:8), and Jesus returned out of Egypt too (see Matt. 2:19-21). The Lord God had acted compassionately throughout history to save His people Israel, and as Matthew expressed in his Gospel, God s work through Jesus was the ultimate expression of divine compassion. The image God used in this verse and the three that follow is taken from family life; here God is a caring Parent of His child Israel. This portrait complements the portrait found in the opening chapter of Hosea (see 1:2), where God likened Himself to Israel s Husband. 11:2. Unlike God s sinless Son Jesus, the Old Testament son Israel was habitually sinful. And the people s disobedience brought agonizing pain to God s heart. Lovingly, the Lord reached out to His wayward people, seeking to draw them back into a right relationship with Him. But the more He called them, the more they departed from the Lord. The Israelites didn t stray from the Lord because they didn t know where to find Him. Indeed, the Lord had made it unmistakably clear through His prophets and priests how the people could live close to His heart. Their problem wasn t ignorance; it was rebellion. Furthermore, even as God sent His servants to urge the people to repent and return to obedience, the more the people strayed. This disobedience expressed itself in daily life as the Israelites sacrificed to the Baals and offered burnt offerings to idols. 11:3. Acting as Israel s caring Father, the Lord nurtured and assisted His people in their time of great apostasy. In the Lord s own words, He taught Ephraim to walk. Teaching a child to walk naturally requires a parent s full attention - both hands, with eyes fixed on the child. Similarly, God gave Israel His fixed attention in guiding and enabling the people s development as the chosen nation. The phrase taking them in My arms draws another literary portrait of a loving Parent. The Lord encouraged His nation-child Israel and protected the people from military threats posed by surrounding nations. Whenever they were bloodied in conflicts with their neighbors, God healed them - even though they never knew it. This image brings to mind the actions of a loving parent dressing the wounds of an injured young child. 11:4. In this verse God moved from the parent-child imagery to the image of a plowman with his ox. As before, the word-picture is an extremely positive one, for the Lord portrayed Himself as One who acted with the utmost concern for the needs of His animal. He led His people with human cords, with ropes of kindness. That is, the Lord provided guidance for the Israelites and exercised authority over them. But He did so compassionately, like one who eases the yoke from their jaws. So caring was He that He did far more than provide the Israelites with food; He gave them Himself as He personally bent down to give them food.
11:5. The fact that God is compassionate doesn t mean He isn t also perfectly just. Because the people of Israel refused to repent of their sins, judgment would come upon them in the form of war. To escape the worst effects of war, some citizens would seek to flee as refugees to other countries. The Lord declared, however, that the people of Israel as a whole would never return to the land of Egypt. Instead, the aggressive kingdom from the east, Assyria (the area of modern-day Iraq), would conquer the nation of Israel and rule God s people. Some Israelites apparent willingness to flee their homeland during a time of war provided a symbolic picture of their spiritual condition at the time. Canaan was God s gift to His covenant people Israel, promised to them through the patriarch Abraham (see Gen. 12:7). The land and homes the people received were a precious blessing from the Lord, and to willingly abandon them amounted to an abandonment of the Lord. 11:6. Assyria s invasion of Israel would be devastating to the nation. Israel s leaders might try to keep the nation s citizens safe by building strong walls around the cities, but those walls would fail to provide the necessary protection. The weakest spot in the fortified walls surrounding ancient Israelite cities was the gate through which the cities inhabitants went in and out. To strengthen that weakest part of a wall, iron or wooden bars would be placed behind the door to strengthen it against battering rams. No matter how they were fortified, however, the gates would fail to keep the invaders out. Assyria s overwhelming forces would destroy and devour the bars of Israel s city gates. Chaos and terror would reign among the Israelites as the enemy s warriors swept through the cities, indiscriminately putting to the sword many men, women, and children. 11:7. In an earlier generation, the Israelites had solemnly promised they would obey the Lord. They had stood before Him at Mount Sinai and had pledged their obedience (see Ex. 19:8). Seven centuries had passed since that covenant pledge was declared. In each of those centuries the people of Israel had repeatedly broken the sacred promise made by their forefathers. Like a dissatisfied, unfaithful spouse, the Lord s people were bent on turning from Him. However, it wasn t as though the people of Israel completely discarded their relationship with the Lord. They still wanted it - so long as it was on their terms. They would live and do as they wanted. Then when they needed something from God - rain, food, protection from enemies, and so forth - they would call to Him on high. The Hebrew text of this verse allows for the possibility that the people actually referred to the Lord as God on High, a name associated with one of the false Canaanite deities! The Lord would have none of this. The Israelites might try to force the Lord to fit into their plans. They might even attempt to remold the Lord into a Canaanite deity. But their efforts would prove futile: He would not exalt them - or their efforts - at all. 11:8. With this verse we enter one of the most amazing passages in the Bible. It is the domain of divine mystery, for here we see depicted the infinitely powerful, sovereign God struggling over how to treat His wayward people. He was (and is) the God of eternal compassion (see Ex. 34:6), and He was (and is) the God of perfect justice (see Ex. 34:7). Divine justice required sin to be punished with death (see Gen. 3:2-3; Deut.
30:17-18; Jer. 31:29-30; Ezek. 18:4). At the same time, divine grace asked, How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I surrender you, Israel? Verse 9. God s actions would be guided by His compassion; therefore, He would not vent the full fury of His anger. Gentleness would prevail, although not because the Israelites deserved it. God s self-imposed restraint meant that He would not turn back to destroy Ephraim - the people of Israel - completely. To remove any lingering doubt as to why God would act so kindly in Israel s behalf, He declared the reason outright. It originated from something inside Himself, not from anything within the people of Israel. 11:10. Because of the Lord s compassion, Israel would be spared complete destruction. That didn t mean the nation would get off scot-free, however; in fact, an enemy nation from the east would invade the land and ravage it during Hosea s lifetime. Israel s citizens would be scattered, some as refugees fleeing to safe havens in Egypt or around the Mediterranean shores and to islands, and others surviving as exiles, captured and marched away to various lands under the domination of the Assyrian Empire. 11:11. The divine Lion s roar would be heard, and the Northern Kingdom s refugees also would be roused like birds from Egypt. Previously Hosea had compared the people of Israel to a silly, senseless dove (7:11). One day the Lord s call to return would be heard by Israelite doves residing in the land of Assyria. These Israelites, like the others who had left the promised land, were experiencing the divine curse of exile (see Lev. 26:38; Deut. 4:27). But the future generation of which Hosea spoke would be the recipients of God s restoration. Not only would they return to the land of their forefathers, they would receive an even more amazing gift from Him: homes. God would personally settle them in their family lands and homes, abandoned so many years earlier. Israel could count on these promises because they were the Lord s declaration. This phrase, found over 250 times in the Old Testament, was always used to indicate the trustworthiness of the divine message it accompanied.