December 18, 2000
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January 28 Lesson
___By Dan Gentry Kent
God's every action still speaks love everlasting
___Hosea 11:1-11
___1"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to Baals and they burned incense to images. 3It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. 4I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
___5"Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 6Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. 7My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he 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 Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man--the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. 10They will follow the Lord; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. 11They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes," declares the Lord.
___What is the final thought, the last word? With the Lord it is love. His heart full of love is always yearning to bring us back to him.
___Hosea was the broken-hearted prophet called to proclaim this message to Israel, even as it fell. The message of God's love is fully as important to us today.
___The last prophet to Israel, with God's last word
___Hosea followed Amos up in the northern kingdom of Israel. The day was even farther gone. In fact, Hosea may well have preached right up until his nation's final days.
___One new commentary called this chapter a good place to begin the study of the message of Hosea. It is a love chapter. It is the 1 Corinthians 13 of Hosea. It reveals the Lord's profound love for Israel as strongly as any passage in the Hosea material. It is a summary of the book's message. Here we penetrate more deeply into the heart and mind of God than anywhere else in the Old Testament. If we read it correctly, this chapter takes us as near to the Father as it is possible to get without the direct leading of the incarnate Son.
___So this week we study about love. You may have heard, as I did when I was growing up, that only the New Testament speaks of the Lord's love. That is not true. The Old Testament does too. In fact, the first Bible translation, the Septuagint, used the famous Greek term "agape" in translating this chapter.
___The Old Testament also speaks of the Lord as father, the Lord as parent. Hosea 11 does. There is so much love in this chapter that Hosea came up with a second illustration of that love relationship. Up to this point he had been using the analogy of husband and wife (1:1-9). Here, he begins to speak of father-son, or perhaps even mother-child.
___The better commentaries say that the form of the chapter is a legal complaint made by parents against a rebellious child. The loving parent, but the rebellious child. There is a lot said here about the Exodus experience. There is a lot about history here, because throughout history the Lord had revealed himself and had repeatedly demonstrated his love and care.
___We are in the pattern of historical retrospective. This time, the geographical location is Egypt, because in Egypt the Lord began to show his grace, and he never stopped doing so.
___The picture in this chapter is the climax of a chain of images. The figure of speech turns personal: The Lord the parent is grieving over his rebellious child.
___Love and ingratitude (11:1-4)
___You will remember that Matthew quoted Hosea 11:1 in reference to the holy family taking the child to Egypt (Matthew 2:15). However, the original application was to the nation of Israel. The Lord called Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus. It was an indication of his love.
___"Called" is an election term, by the way. The Lord's call created those people as a nation. He called them out of the bondage of Egypt, and he called them into covenant relationship with him. And he continued to call them through the centuries.
___However, the more he called, the more they turned away. This caused many people to think of Jesus' famous story of the prodigal son.
___The more the Lord called, the more attention the people paid to the Baals. They responded to his call with ingratitude and unfaithfulness. What did Shakespeare have King Lear say? "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."
___Hosea 11:3-4 may be some of the most important verses in the Old Testament for our understanding of the character of the Lord. Verse 3 is another parent verse. You will be able to see the mother there. "I taught Ephraim to walk." Some people think that the verb means "to nurse." I carried him around in my arms. I took care of him and healed his hurts, but he did not know that I was the one who did it.
___"I led him with cords of compassion," 11:4 says, with "bands of love." Love is repeated and love compounded in this chapter. In 11:1-4, you have love expressed three times and spurned three times.
___The metaphor apparently changes in the last part of 11:4, though some disagree. It seems to me to be a picture of owner and animal there. However, the meaning is the same--compassionate care.
___The word for "compassion" is the plural of "womb." It is the feeling of the new mother for her infant child. This passage talks about the motherliness of God. Only women and the Lord know mother love. No wonder one of our old hymns says, in part, "As with a mother's tender hand, He leads his own, his chosen band: To God all praise and glory!"
___Love and rebellion in conflict (11:5-7)
___So love and rebellion are in inevitable conflict. The Lord's case against the wayward son (vv. 1-4) issued in a guilty verdict. Then the sentence was pronounced. Back to captivity, Hosea said. Back to bondage in Egypt. Only this time Assyria will be Egypt. Assyria will be a worse Egypt. There is no hope.
___The last phrase in 11:5 says that not even these warnings made any impression on the people, not even the specific threat of destruction in 11:6. "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it," another hymn says, "prone to leave the God I love." "Take away our bent to sinning." This is in 11:7. The Lord's people were bent on turning away, so their destiny was a permanent, eternal yoke.
___The Lord is like a loving parent, but a loving parent must discipline. This leads us to reflect on the terrifying fate of abandonment. How strange it is that those who want to be free from God, who want nothing of his loving care and concern, find that judgment comes in the form of his granting their terrible wish.
___The Lord's love and the Lord's anguish (11:8-9)
___Because of the Lord's love, we also see his anguish. Here is the verse that I describe as mixed emotions. "I will send you back to Egypt" in 11:5. "I will consign you to the yoke, to bondage," in 11:7. "But how can I do it?" in 11:8. "How can I hand you over?"
___Admah and Zeboiim were cities of the plain destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 10:19; 14:2-8). "How can I make you like Admah and treat you like Zeboiim? I can't do that. My heart recoils within me. My compassion glows warm and tender."
___"I cannot do it," 11:9 says. "I simply cannot do it. I will not execute my fierce anger. I will not destroy Ephraim," another name for the Northern Kingdom.
___A while back, a leader of a group of Baptists here in Texas said that God is male. He needed to read Hosea 11:9. Our God is neither male nor female. He is not human at all; he is God.
___But 11:9 is a wonderful verse. "I am divine and not human. I am the Holy One. I am not like you are. I am not like anyone else." And that explains it all. The Lord may punish, but he does not cease to love.
___There is another wonderful duality in this verse: "The Holy One in your midst." If we were in a theology class, we would talk about transcendence and immanence, right here together, both in the same phrase. Here we have all the power, glory and awesomeness that Isaiah sensed at his commissioning (Isaiah 6:3). Yet that Incomparable One is present and at work among his rebellious people, disclosing to them his innermost feelings, pledging his compassion (11:8).
___No hope in 11:5. It's done. It's all over. But hope in 11:8-9. That is typical of Hosea. The Lord may give us up to follow our own ways, but he never gives up on us. Sometimes the Lord has to send judgment, but his judgment is always redemptive. Its purpose is to reclaim and restore and renew. Its purpose is to bring us back.
___Wrathful love, loving wrath (11:10-11)
___There is wrath in the Lord's love, but there is also love in his wrath. This is why, in 11:10-11, love led to the renewal of commitment. Hosea 11:10 sounds more like Amos than Hosea: The Lord as a lion roaring. But the people will follow him. They will tremble, but they will come back. Love will win the victory.
___These verses seem to be the clear promise of restoration, of return from exile. They form first stage in that hopeful future.
___Perhaps here we can talk about the Lord's stubborn holiness, his stubborn grace. He loves us, and he simply will not give up.
___In the past, at many times and in various ways, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, among these is the prophet Hosea. And how he spoke, and still speaks.
For thought and discussion
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