The prophet Hosea lived in the waning years of the northern kingdom, Israel: his ministry ran from ~750 BC to ~730 BC, apparently ending a few years before the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom culminating in the capture of Samaria in 722 BC. Israel was still there during Hosea’s ministry, \though the kings were not faithful to the Lord, and financial ruin, injustice, and idolatry were the day-to-day life of God’s people.

God gave Hosea the hard task of living out a visual parable. It seems a strange thing to us, but he was not the only prophet who did this. Isaiah was commanded to go around naked for three years, as a sign that Egypt and Ethiopia would not rescue Israel (Isaiah 20:1-6); Ezekiel was commanded to carry baggage with a blindfold on his face, symbolizing the Exile of Judah (Ezekiel 12:1-12). And Hosea was commanded to marry a prostitute, Gomer daughter of Diblaim, as a visual demonstration of God’s love for Israel, despite its faithlessness (Hosea 1:2-3). The children born to this union were given prophetic names, including Loruhamah (Not Pitied) and Loammi (Not My People), indicating that God would no longer have mercy on Israel or consider it his special nation (1:6-9).

The stark imagery of Hosea’s prophecy would have been highly shocking in 8th century BC Israel (just as it is today): “I will strip her naked and expose her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no pity, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully … I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand” (2:3-5, 10).

We can see God’s extreme distress over Israel’s unfaithfulness, proclaiming that they will feel shame and lostness over forgetting the Lord and worshiping Baal instead (2:13). All of Hosea’s listeners would have readily understood that a cuckolded husband would express such rage.

It’s what comes next that is really surprising, as the harsh language turns quickly in another direction: we find that God’s intention is not Israel’s destruction, but their restoration. This is symbolized by a renewed love between husband and wife, by the reestablishment of a covenant of peace, and by the children of Israel recovering their identity as the people of God once again (2:14-23). Wait, can this marriage be saved, when the wife has so flagrantly betrayed her husband? Yes. In the end, I will find the way to make this relationship stronger than ever, says the Lord.

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O God! When you command Hosea to act out this parable, it becomes so painfully real for us: we never imagined what our cavalier devotion would be like for you, how it would feel when we glibly offer our allegiance to other loyalties and other gods. Grant us repentance, we pray: that we may love you, heart and soul and mind and strength, forever!

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