It’s not that we don’t love the Lord. We do. Well, some of the time, anyway. But if we’re honest, we can hear the justice in God’s complaint: “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early” (Hosea 6:4). We would hope the people we love would respond better than that; and it turns out God was hoping for better than that, too.

It would come to pass that God would let Israel be defeated by the Assyrians, and then a century later would let Judah go into Exile: none of that had happened yet, at the time that Hosea wrote. In the meantime, God used a verbal call – sometimes with very strong language – to bring people back to repentance: “Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth” (6:5).

God’s intention with these strong words was to bring people into a relationship characterized by חֶסֶד (hesed). This is a key Hebrew term for understanding the message of the Old Testament. It is sometimes translated ‘mercy,’ sometimes as ‘covenant love’ or ‘covenant faithfulness.’ Here it is best rendered as ‘steadfast love.’ “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (6:6). For us to know God, in a relationship of steadfast love: that’s what our Lord wants with us.

So Hosea issues the invitation to take God up on this relationship: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. … Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth” (6:1-3).

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O God, we are resentful and resistant when you chastise us: yet you intend to move our hearts to repentance and restoration, so that we can belong to you with steadfast love, forever. Grant us the diligence to press on to know you, O Lord, forever and ever.