3.04.2018 AM: Hosea 1 PM: No Worship SCRIPTURE Hosea 1 1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash[a] king of Israel: Hosea s Wife and Children 2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord. 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel s bow in the Valley of Jezreel. 6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means not loved ), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them. 8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, Call him Lo-Ammi (which means not my people ), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.[b]
10 Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, they will be called children of the living God. 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.[c] MAIN POINT A jealous God rightly demands and deserves the attention and affection of a fickle people. INTRODUCTION As your group time begins, use this section to introduce the topic of discussion. What is your favorite fictional love story? What do you love about it? Could that love story ever happen in real life? Why or why not? How is the love of God we read about in Scripture different from Hollywood portrayals? In the Book of Hosea, one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament, we learn about a prophet of God, commanded by God to marry a prostitute. As we will see throughout this study, God used Hosea s relationship with his wife, Gomer, to demonstrate His love and desire for relationship with us. God loves us an unfaithful, promiscuous people with unconditional and uncommon love. UNDERSTANDING Unpack the biblical text to discover what the Scripture says or means about a particular topic. Have a volunteer read Hosea 1:1-3. What did God reveal about His heart by even bothering to say anything about the broken relationship? What was Hosea obviously going to experience in this marriage? Why would God use the sacred institution of marriage to present an object lesson? In this analogy, Hosea, the good man, represented the Lord. Gomer, the bad wife, represented ancient Israel. Gomer also represents each of us, since we are all Gomers on occasion. Hosea s goodness is implied in God s action of selecting the prophet to represent Himself in the analogy. How bad was Gomer? Hosea 2 tells of her
promiscuity and adultery (2:2), of her shameful behavior in bearing children of promiscuity (2:4-5), and of her pursuit of lovers (2:5b,7). How are our actions and relationship with God similar to Gomer s actions and relationship with Hosea? Despite Israel s unfaithfulness to God, He still pursued them. In what ways has God shown His pure devotion to us? An incredible detail in this story is that Hosea obeyed God. We don t have any record of God telling him exactly who to marry, so Hosea must ve found a local prostitute, Gomer, and took her for his wife. That began the demonstration of God s unbelievable love through the heartache and obedience to follow. Have a volunteer read Hosea 1:4-9. God commanded Hosea to name his first son Jezreel. Jezreel means may God scatter, and he was given that name to represent what God would do to the children of Israel. Several generations before, Jehu purged Israel of the pursuit of Baal, but they d returned to pagan worship and longed after false gods. God desired to use Jezreel to show Israel the consequences for their disobedience. Why do you think scattering the people was the consequence God would use to rebuke Israel? What does this tell us about the nation? Why is it so easy to live as if the consequences for sin don t apply to us? What does this reveal about our nature, and our relationship with God? Scripture says that Gomer had another child, and God told Hosea to name her No Compassion. The reason for this particular name is bound to the proclamation of divine judgment coming on Israel just like the name Jezreel. God declared he would no longer have compassion on the house of Israel. God s compassion had provided sustenance and protection through the years of the Northern Kingdom. The return to Baalism resulted in God s removal of His divine protection. How have you seen God s compassion in your life recently? In what ways might your life look differently if God stopped showing you compassion? After No Compassion, Gomer had another child. God told Hosea to name him Not My People. God wanted to make a statement to the Israelites: Because of their disobedience and return to Baal worship, God would no longer be their God, and they would no longer be His people. Based on these verses, how seriously do you think God takes spiritual infidelity? What is the lesson for us? How do you think all of this impacted Hosea s family, both internally and in the community?
Taken together the three names, God scatters (Jezreel), No Compassion (Lo-ruhamah), and Not My People (Lo-ammi), paint a portrait of doom for the kingdom of Israel. God declared He would bring judgment on them. The three names could be seen in a causeand-effect relationship. God would scatter them because He no longer had compassion on them because they were not His people any longer. They were no longer His people because of their devotion to Baal, a false god. Why does God discipline His children? What is the relationship between God s discipline and grace? Read Hebrews 12:12 and 13. What is the end result of God s discipline? What does this look like in your life? In contrast, words of hope conclude the first section of Hosea s prophecies, as the judgments expressed in the children s names are reversed: Israel will once again become God s people (see 1:10); the day when God scatters will be a great day (see 1:11), and the nation s citizens will receive divine compassion (see 2:1). God would have to discipline His children to remind them that He deserved first place in their lives. That discipline would be harsh, but it would be yet another example to them of His unfailing love. APPLICATION Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives. Why is God s discipline an example of His love? Do you think you are feeling any evidence of God s discipline right now? What is the proper way to respond to that discipline? Where specifically do you see yourself in the story of Hosea right now? What action is God calling you to take given where you are? PRAY Pray and thank God for His unending love that motivates Him to take drastic measures with His people. Praise Him because He is worthy of all our adoration, and pray that your life would not provoke His jealousy. COMMENTARY
1:1-3. The Book of Hosea provides us with an amazing gift: the word of the Lord. The Lord created the universe with His spoken word (see Gen. 1). When God spoke to human beings He changed the course of human history: He spoke to Noah, and humankind was rescued from annihilation (see Gen. 6); He spoke to Abram/Abraham, and the nation of Israel was born (see Gen. 12); when He spoke to Moses, slaves were set free (see Ex. 3). We aren t off base, then, to expect significant changes were about to occur when the Book of Hosea opened with a declaration that the Lord s word came to Hosea son of Beeri. Of the five writing prophets to the Northern Kingdom, perhaps Hosea s message was the most personally demanding. For when the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him: Go and marry a promiscuous wife and have children of promiscuity. The Creator who instituted the sacred bond of marriage between one man and one woman (see Gen. 2:18-24) ordered one of His devoted servants to marry a promiscuous woman. From as many as eight different proposed interpretations of the phrase a promiscuous wife, two seem more likely. One of these views holds that Hosea s wife had adulterous tendencies, and these tendencies grew into immoral actions after the couple was married. A second position holds that the Lord directed Hosea to marry a woman already engaged in promiscuous behavior probably the immoral sexual behavior associated with Baal worship and who continued her immoral ways after their marriage. Why did God ask Hosea to marry a promiscuous wife? The Bible doesn t provide us with a full explanation, but it does provide a key insight. God asked Hosea to marry Gomer because the entire nation was committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord. The Lord gave the prophet a rare and costly gift: the opportunity to experience as much as a human being can the grief, pain, and sense of betrayal that God experienced in His relationship with the people of Israel. Their unfaithfulness to the Lord was spiritual, but would have involved such activities as kissing idols (see Hos. 13:2) and worshiping at pagan sanctuaries (see 10:8). While God s directive to Hosea was extremely unusual, it conveyed needed truths to a desperately needy people. The phrase when the Lord first spoke to Hosea marked the beginning of God s dealings with Israel through Hosea. The divine instructions were clear and the prophet responded in obedience. He went and married Gomer daughter of Diblaim. Gomer had a name and was a real person though she was a sinful woman. She conceived and bore him a son. The birth of Hosea s first child gave the marriage a sense of legitimacy and normalcy. Hebrew families valued the firstborn son as the one who would carry the family name and continue in the father s business. 1:4-5. God interacted with Hosea from the very start of his family. When the prophet s first son was born, the Lord instructed Hosea to name him Jezreel, meaning May God sow. The name might seem odd, leaving us to ask, what does it have to do with the message of Hosea? First, the name draws attention to the sowing of seed. The major form of spiritual adultery God confronted in Israel through Hosea was Baalism. This religious cult worshiped Baal as the god who made the land fertile and who provided
crops. By naming his son Jezreel, Hosea reminded his peers God was the true source of their harvests. The name Jezreel also can be rendered God scatters referring to the method of spreading seed. In this case, the idea of scattering would refer to the scattering of the people of Israel in exile. Second, Jezreel was the name of a town and the valley surrounding it. In this area, Jehu, a general, purged Israel of Baal worship in 841 B.C., almost a century before Hosea s son was born. Jehu s purge included the killing of king Joram, the remaining descendants of Ahab s family, and all the priests of Baal (2 Kings 10:11). Jehu became king in Joram s place. Hosea s prophetic ministry occurred during the reign of Jehu s great-grandson, Jeroboam (Hos. 1:1) and his messages date mostly to the last three decades of Israel s existence. Thus by the mid-eighth century B.C. Israel had returned to full engagement with the Baal cult, prompting the Lord to view His people as a wayward wife. God s promise to avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel underscored the impossibility of a dynasty that came to power by eliminating a false religious cult being able to survive after returning to the same cult years later. God was pleased with Jehu s elimination of the Baal cult (2 Kings 10:28-30). Unfortunately, Jehu s descendants returned to their spiritual adultery. Divine judgment on the house of Jehu resulted in the end of Jehu s dynasty and the eventual demise of Israel as well. In graphic terms, the Lord swore to break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. The broken bow represents the defeat of the entire army of Israel and the end of Jehu s dynasty. The prophecy was fulfilled with the assassination of Zechariah, son of Jeroboam, Jehu s last descendant to sit on the throne. 1:6-7. Gomer then conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. The Lord instructed Hosea to name his daughter Lo-ruhamah, meaning No Compassion. The reason for this particular name is bound to the proclamation of divine judgment coming on Israel just like the name Jezreel. God declared he would no longer have compassion on the house of Israel. God s compassion had provided sustenance and protection through the years of the Northern Kingdom. The return to Baalism resulted in God s removal of His divine protection. The Northern Kingdom would fall to foreign armies due to their unfaithfulness. At the same time, the Lord promised to have compassion on the Southern Kingdom, the house of Judah. Historically, the Southern Kingdom lasted an additional 135 years after the fall of Israel in 722 B.C. One aspect of God s relationship with Judah was the connection between His compassion and His deliverance. God promised to deliver them by the Lord their God. The verb to deliver means to save from distress or calamity. The one who delivers is then regarded as the savior. In this instance, the Lord Himself is put forth as Judah s deliverance. 1:8-9. After Gomer weaned No Compassion, she conceived and gave birth to another son. The Lord directed Hosea to give this child a particularly telling name, Lo-ammi, meaning Not My People. The prophetic aspect of the name is explained by God s statement to Israel, you are not My people. The other side of the same coin is the Lord
will not be your God. Such strong terms of separation were intended to bring into sharp focus the deteriorated condition of the covenant relationship between God and Israel, the Northern Kingdom. God declared His rebellious people were no longer worthy to be called His people. While the prophetic aspect of Not My People is clear, the text does not inform us specifically if Hosea was declaring this child (or two or all three of them) was not his.