1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

2 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”

3 So Hosea went and married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Name him Jezreel, for soon I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”

REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead. All our devotions this month will be written by the ministry staff and student ministers.

This month, we are going to work through the strange, disturbing, and astonishing book of the Old Testament prophet Hosea. We’ll begin today by sketching some of the background of Hosea’s ministry.

Hosea lived about 250 years after King David, long after the united kingdom of Israel had divided into the northern kingdom (also called Israel) and the southern kingdom of Judah. Hosea was a prophet to Israel in the north. Israel had just enjoyed a long period of economic prosperity. But their wealth had bred corruption, violence and idolatry. The people had turned away from their covenant relationship with God. The rich and powerful oppressed the poor and perverted justice. The priests, instead of teaching the people to know the Lord, had led them to worship the Canaanite fertility god Baal.

Israel was soon to reap the consequences of their unfaithfulness. After centuries of warnings from God, in the year 722 BC, the fearsome Assyrian army conquered the capital city Samaria and deported the people to foreign lands. From that point on, Israel no longer existed; only Judah in the south was left.

Hosea’s prophecy was a final trumpet-blast of warning to Israel in the final decades before the end. The situation was extreme, and God called Hosea to an extreme – and frankly, horrible – way of showing just how evil Israel’s sin was. He commanded him to marry a sexually promiscuous and adulterous wife who would bear children from adultery and prostitution. God tells him to name Gomer’s first child Jezreel, which would be a bit like calling your child “bloodbath.” Jezreel was a place where, in 2 Kings 9 & 10, God brought judgment through violent death on the corrupt leaders of Israel. Hosea’s firstborn was a walking announcement that God was going to judge and destroy the whole nation of Israel.

Why on earth would God put Hosea through all of that? Because sin is so much viler than we normally imagine. Unfaithfulness to God isn’t just mildly rude. It’s spiritual prostitution. That is one of the big messages of Hosea’s life and prophecy: the horror, scandal, shame and offence of rejecting God. But as we’ll see tomorrow, there’s a second big message that seems unthinkable and impossible. It’s a message of God’s irrational love, a stubborn commitment to his people that seems to defy logic.

For today, ask God to steel you to listen with a soft heart to Hosea’s message, so that you will also grasp the wonder of his grace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our senior minister.