The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 13: The One and Only

The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 13: The One and Only.

“In the past, when the tribe of Ephraim spoke, the other tribes of Israel trembled in respect; they looked up to Ephraim. But the people sinned by worshiping Baal, and for this they will die.” (Hosea 13:1).

Ephraim. Since Hosea referred to Ephraim as a synonym for Israel as well as to that specific tribe within Israel, it can be a little tricky to figure out when he was referring to whom. But in this case, there’s no question Hosea is referring to the people within the tribe of Ephraim, the most powerful of the ten tribes of Jacob dwelling in the Northern Kingdom. Hosea repeated the name of Ephraim over 30 times in his book, and this term of endearment was used over 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. Yahweh nicknamed Israel with this name because it was the most dominant and numerous of the ten tribes, and so was the most influential as well. The name Ephraim means “doubly fruitful,” and enjoys an interesting history in Scripture. Ephraim was the second son born to Joseph in Egypt, and he named his boy Ephraim because, as he said at the time, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” (Genesis 41:52). Grandpa Jacob actually adopted Ephraim later and blessed him with the prophecy that Ephraim “will become a multitude of nations.” (Gen. 48:19). So Ephraim came to represent fruitfulness, fertility, abundance and blessing, which was proven true in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. But with leadership comes responsibility, so Yahweh singled out the clan of Ephraim for their inability to prevent widespread idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness in the nation of Israel. Thus the Lord judged Ephraim’s clan and withdrew His blessing from them. This is quite the fall… going from being doubly blessed to being emptied of divine favor, from a term of endearment to a term of destruction. And why was the tribe of Ephraim as good as dead? Because they blended Yahweh-worship with Baal-worship, which led to horrific acts of unfaithfulness to the Lord’s covenant… ritual prostitution, the nation-wide presence of idols and pagan shrines, ignorance of God’s provision, sex-worship, frenzied bloodletting, and the abominable acts of worship such as child sacrifice: “… those who offer human sacrifice and kiss the images of calves.” (Hosea 13:2). The Message put this even more graphically: “Can you believe it? They sacrifice live babies to these dead gods! They kill living babies and kiss golden calves!” Yahweh had already seen this coming and established Judah, not Ephraim, as the leaders of His chosen people, as the psalmist declared in Ps. 78:67-68: “Moreover God rejected the tent of Joeph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim. But He chose the tribe of Judah as Israel’s leader, and Mount Zion as the capitol rather than Shiloh.” Baal-worship sealed their doom, they signed their own death warrant, and Hosea slips into his love of poetic word-pictures as he describes what thy became in the eyes of Yahweh… “They will vanish like the morning mist or like the dew that passes early away, like the chaff that swirls with the whirlwind from the threshing floor, and as the smoke drifting out of the chimney or window.”  Tragically, Hosea’s prophecy was fulfilled, since the people of Ephraim disappeared from the history books after the Assyrian invasion and exile.

Exclusive Loyalty is Expected. “You were not to know (‘yada’) any god besides Me! There is no Savior (‘yasha’) besides Me! I’m the only real God (‘Elohim’) you’ve ever known. I’m the One and Only God who rescues and delivers.” (13:4). Yahweh God declares His worthiness to be the one God His people can worship in truth. He will eternally reject the religious blender, He will not share His glory with another, because no other is worthy of worship. What does it mean to “know” God in the biblical sense, and what does it mean that only He can “save” us?

• “Yada” = The Hebrew word “yada” is dropped 25 times in the book of Hosea, and if we don’t understand what the Bible means by “know,” we are missing the heartbeat of our relationship with God. The Bible has a lot to say about the meaning of know, including the usual suspects: memory of a fact or event; possession of a technical skill; a perception of a piece of reality; an intuitive awareness; a mastery of a particular subject; an understanding of something; a personal familiarity with something. That’s all good. Nothing new there. But now the fun begins… The Hebraic-Christian understanding of “know” is not at all limited to an intellectual or mental knowledge. To know someone in the Biblical sense is to experience that person in a deeply intimate way. “Know” is a relationship word and involves knowledge that comes from personal experience. To know involves a deeply personal union with a truth or a person. In the Hebrew and Christian mind, we don’t really know something until it becomes a part of us, something that changes us in some way. To truly know something is to be able to live it out, to experience participation with that which is known. Knowing something involves a heartfelt focus, an intense investment. To know something is to care for it, to give oneself over to it.  To know someone in the Biblical sense is to literally participate in a profound relationship with that person, to establish an ongoing union with someone, to be personally invested to an intimate degree with a person. A spiritual relationship with God seems best understood in the context of “knowledge” in the biblical sense, a deep union involving spiritual relations between God and the believer. In the same way that Adam and Eve “knew” each other physically, God wants to “know” us spiritually, and for us to know Him at that same level. To walk with the Lord is to grow in our “knowledge” of Him, to experience spiritual relations with Him in an intimate way.  In fact, to know God in the way He want us to know Him means to have spiritual intercourse with Him, an ongoing spiritual union that involves, not “carnal knowledge,” but spiritual knowledge.
• “Yasha” = The Hebrew word that means to be rescued and set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). As our Savior, God delivers us from our inner spiritual prison, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. This salvation-word, this wide-open space, is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without God’s deliverance, we will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this soul freedom beautifully: “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room. (Ps. 118:5); “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);”The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).
• “Elohi” = Elohim was the generic Hebrew word for God or gods or great persons. It is used for the God of Israel throughout Scripture, but is also used for the gods of the secular culture surrounding the Hebrews. So when we read Yahweh-Elohim, it is read as LORD God. Yahweh is God’s personal name, His redemptive name, His name that implies relationship and covenant. Elohim is God’s transcendent name, God as universal God. So the two names together pack the powerful meaning of God as personal and relational, as well as universal and transcendent. Elohim is often shortened to “El,’ which implies a singular God of mighty power and tremendous strength. When referring to the God of Israel, it is pointing to a universal ruler with unsurpassed majesty. Elohim is used extensively in the Hebrew Bible, over 2,500 times. It is first used in the story of creation in Genesis, and is used 32 times in Genesis alone. A shortened form of Elohim was even groaned by Jesus on the Cross, “Eloi, Eloi, My God, my God…” (Matthew 27:46). Elohim was often used in the context of God’s creative power in nature. Only Elohim was mighty enough to create something out of nothing. Only Elohim contains the super-abundant strength to become the Creator of the world, the majestic sovereign of the universe. Only the one and only Elohim has the raw, unlimited energy to be the Original Initiator, the First Mover. As Rabbi Green says, “The point is that Elohim is used as a collective. All the powers that once belonged to all the deities of the pantheon – such as love, power, wisdom, fruitfulness – now are concentrated in this single Supreme Being who contains them all.” (These are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life). In Elohim, all the attributes of set-apart holiness are wrapped up in the single Source of Life… Elohim. Elohim is a collective word referring to all these divine characteristics of spiritual and material reality. In our current vocabulary, the plural nature of the singular name of Elohim is a way to emphasize superior greatness and unsurpassed fullness. It would be like saying “SuperGod.” He is the Elohim above all other elohim. The God of gods. The more-than-super-powerful God of Israel. The Super-Existent One. The One whose fullness overflows eternally. God in the singular would not do.