Hosea had to buy back his wife (as if he were paying for her services as a prostitute). Hosea provides us a picture of what God does: He buys us back, using His Son, Jesus, as the price. After that, we learn that the priests in the Northern Kingdom were not fulfilling their teaching role. As God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” More than that, the priests fed on the sin of the people, confirming them in their wayward ways.
Read Hosea 4:9-14
– What will Israel’s idolatry lead to (especially from an eternal perspective)?
– What does verse 12 tell us about Israel’s (the Northern Kingdom) worship practices?
– To whom were they sacrificing and where (instead of at the Temple)? (vs. 13; see also Deuteronomy 12:2, 1 Kings 14:23, and Jeremiah 2:20)
– How were certain sexual practices incorporated in their worship of false gods? (vs. 13)
– In verse 14, whom does God say He will not punish?
– What is His rationale?
– So God is more interested in getting at what?
– Yet, “a people without understanding will come to ruin.” What is the point of this?
– What are the implications for us, especially being in the New Covenant?
Read Hosea 4:15-19
– What warning is for the Southern Kingdom (Judah)? What implication does this for the Northern Kingdom (Israel)?
Hosea then mentions two places: Gilgal and Beth-aven. Gigal was where the Israelites first observed the rite of circumcision and celebrated the Passover in the Promised Land (Joshua 5). Bethel, means “house of God.” That’s where the Lord appeared to Jacob in a dream (Genesis 28:10-22). But here, Hosea engages in “word play” and calls Bethel “Beth-aven,” meaning “house of evil.” Also, Ephraim was used as a synonym for the Northern Kingdom.
– For Hosea to tell the Israelites not to go to those places meant what was happening at those places? Besides, where were the Israelites supposed to go?
– Why were the Israelites not to say “As Yahweh lives” in that context?
Hosea uses another comparison in verse 16. Israelite farmers used cattle to pull their plows. But if the people in their attitude toward God and His Torah acted like a young, unbroken heifers, stubbornly resisting the yoke, how can He tenderly care for them the way a shepherd tends young lambs?
– What have the people of Israel given themselves to?
In verse 19, Hosea uses a double meaning to drive his point home. The Hebrews word for wind, breath, and spirit (ruach) are the same. The people would have gotten this double entendre. Instead of God’s Spirit and breath moving them as His people, a wind of idolatry, the spirit of whoredom (vs. 12), has wrapped them in its wings.
In chapter 4, Hosea admonished all Israel, especially the priests. In chapter 5, he adds a judgment from Yahweh against the royal house of the Northern Kingdom.
Read Hosea 5:1-2
For us to understand that the kings of the Northern Kingdom have been “revolters” requires us to know some of their history. Well start in 752 BC. Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam II, ruled as king for about six months. Why was this so short? A man named Shallum conspired and assassinated him in 752 BC.
But it gets worse. A month after that, a man named Menahem murdered Shallum. After Menahem’s ten-year reign as king, his son Pekahiah reigned for two years. Pekahiah’s reign was shortened because one of his military officers, Pekah, murdered him around 740 B.C. Pekah has a longer term on the throne, but about 732 BC, he is assassinated by Hoshea, the Northern Kingdom’s last ruler (2 Kings 15:8-30).
Although the Northern Kingdom still has kings, which originally descended from David, that kingly line is no more. The Messiah will come through Southern Kingdom of Judah.
– From the context, what has been taking place at Tabor and Mitzpah?
Read Hosea 5:3-7
– Discuss how “their deeds so not permit them to return to God”? What do their deeds reflect?
– Earlier, God told the Israelites not to call Him Yahweh. So, if in their heart and minds they are worshipping Yahweh, why won’t the Israelites find Him when they seek Him with the flocks and herds?
– Besides being hardened in the sin of idolatry, what other sin(s) are the Israelites committing in their worship?
– Within the context of worship, Yahweh says that they have given birth to strange, illegitimate sons (children). To what does this testify?
Read Hosea 5:8-14
What Hosea describes begins in about 735 BC. Rezin, the king of the Arameans in Damascus, and Pekah, the king of Israel, decide to rebel against the Assyria. Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, was exacting a high tribute (2 Kings 15:19-20). Yet, the only way the Israelites and Arameans could succeed was to have the other minor kings of the region join in their cause.
However, King Ahaz of Judah would not join. So Pekah and Rezin decide to attack Jerusalem and replace Ahaz on the throne (2 Kings 16:5-6). (In Isaiah chapter 7, we hear the story from the viewpoint of Isaiah, the Lord’s prophet in Jerusalem.) The Arameans and Israelites inflicted heavy casualties on the Southern Kingdom and took many prisoners (2 Chronicles 28:5-8).
But King Ahaz doesn’t believe the word from Prophet Isaiah that Yahweh will keep Judea safe. So, Ahaz sends messengers to tell Tiglath-Pileser: “I am your servant and your son. Come and rescue me from the power of the kings of Syria and of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Kings 16:7).
Tiglath-Pileser responded with three military campaigns in 734, 733, and 732 BC. He captured Damascus, killed King Rezin, and striped away the northern, eastern, and western lands from the Northern Kingdom, leaving King Hoshea, the Northern Kingdom’s last king, to rule only a few square miles around Samaria.
From Hosea’s words in this passage, it also seems that King Ahaz led a Judean army north to join Tiglath-Pileser in punishing Israel. The Judean army moved north to Gibeah, a fortress about four miles from Jerusalem, and then to Ramah a little farther north, near the border of the two kingdoms. The first Northern-Kingdom target was Beth-aven (“house of evil”), Hosea’s name of shame for Bethel (“house of God”), just north of the Judean-Israelite border. The soldiers from Benjamin (mentioned in vs. 8) would be one element in the Judean army, invading their sister-kingdom Israel from the south, while the north is laid waste by the Assyrians.
This is Israel’s day of reckoning with the Lord, who is carrying out His judgment in history through the Assyrian and Judean armies. Yet, Judah also incurs guilt by trampling the territories of her sister-kingdom.
Read Hosea 5:15
– What does God seek?
– Historically, do we know if they repented?
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