The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 11: The Heart of Father God

The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 11: The Heart of Father God.

“When Israel was a child, I dearly loved him…” (Hosea 11:1a).

From Husband to Father. The prophet Hosea, inspired by the mind of Yahweh, gives us another peek into God’s compassionate heart. There are two great love chapters in Hosea, and they are very different. In Hosea 3, Yahweh speaks as a betrayed husband whose wife has proven unfaithful. In Hosea 11, Yahweh speaks as a rejected father to a wayward son. Just as the heart-broken husband is poised to forgive and forget to redeem the marriage if at all possible, likewise the heart-broken father will not even consider giving up on his rebellious son. Our understanding of the father in the Prodigal Son parable in Luke 15 is much-deepened if we read these two passages together… Hosea 11 and Luke 15. Studying the two stories together provides us the profound privilege of reading the mind of the prodigal’s father as he stands there on his dusty village road waiting for his wayward son to return from the far country. Just as Jesus wanted more than anything in His parable to reveal the heart of Father God, Hosea yearns to reveal Yahweh’s heart as He waits for Israel to return to Him.

“… and out of Egypt, I called My son.” (Hosea 11:1b).

From the Exodus to Jesus. It seems that most of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible considered Israel’s exodus from the slavery of Egypt to be their birth as a nation. Hosea is no different as he begins Israel’s history with their departure from Egypt. In chapter 11, it looks like Yahweh adopted His people out of sheer love for them, for no apparent reason other than the fact that He is Love and has a Plan. It appears that Yahweh did choose Abraham and his bloodline to represent God’s presence in the world, but God seems to have officially signed the adoption papers and confirmed the old covenant while in the process of delivering them from Pharaoh. The word for “called” is more like “summoned,” like when a father whistles loudly for his children to come home for dinner. Like many of the prophecies in the Jewish Bible, Hosea’s words here turned out to be a two-stage rocket… one meaning when first uttered, and another entirely different meaning further down the line. Sure enough, St. Matthew chose to quote this verse in his account of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus being called out of Egypt to settle down in Galilee. So it turns out that Hosea’s words were, unbeknownst to him, a direct foreshadowing of Matthew 2:14-15. And the “son” Israel in Hosea was fulfilled in the “Son” Yeshua. The Holy Spirit prompted Hosea to utter one truth that eventually became another truth altogether.

“Cords of Love.”  “Yet I taught Ephraim how to walk…” In 11:3-4, Yahweh sounds like an endearing good ol’ Dad as He recounts how He taught Israel how to walk in the wilderness, how He carried them in His arms and cared tenderly for them even though they never fully acknowledged Yahweh as the One who was their healer along the way. Father God continues in this trip down memory lane by commenting on how He gently pulled them to His heart with “cords of affectionate kindness.” He told Israel that He showed them the same kind of tender love as one who picks up an infant and holds him to his cheek. Since the same Hebrew word is used for “infant” as “yoke,” some Bible versions focus on an image from the farming world, in which Yahweh told Israel that His love for them was like the good-hearted farmer who takes the yoke off the shoulders of a beloved animal so that it can more freely be able to eat to its heart’s content. In this case, God is like the farmer who uses light cords of love to guide the animal to its food.

• Ephraim = Hosea repeated this synonym for Israel 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 living in the Northern Kingdom, 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 Ephraim for their inability to prevent widespread idolatry and covenant unfaithfulness in Israel. So the Lord judged Ephraim’s clan and withdrew His blessing from this entire tribe of Israelites. This is quite the fall… going from being doubly blessed to being emptied of divine favor.

“My Heart is Churning Within Me!” After sadly commenting that Israel nonetheless deserted the Father when they were called away by other gods, that they have continued to live hell-bent on running away from their Father God (vs. 2, 7), we are treated to some of the most poignant words every spoken by Yahweh in His Word… “Ephraim, how could I ever give up on you? Israel, how could I ever let you go? … My heart is churning, turning over within Me in protest to the very thought! I can’t even bear to think about the idea of disowning you. All my tenderness is stirred within Me, and My compassion rekindles a deep love for you within Me!” (11:8). Here we see the heart of the father waiting for the prodigal son to return home, we are witness to God’s heart being overwhelmed with irrepressible love for His wayward people. His human-like outpouring of emotion is not, of course, by accident. Yahweh wants to keep reminding Israel the difference between His heart and the lifeless and empty heart of Baal that they seem so enamored with. See the difference, Yahweh is asking? Baal will give you nothing like this, nothing like my bottomless sea of love for you! God’s threatened punishment that is certainly coming soon seems to be already present in the tender heart of the Father, as if He is crying out words we’ve all heard before at home… “This is going to hurt Me more than it will you, My child!”

Justice in the Flow of Mercy. “I will certainly not punish you in my burning anger, nor will I turn around and destroy Israel again, for I am God and not a mere human being. I am the Holy One in the midst of you. I will not come to you in My wrath.” (11:8-9). When push comes to shove in God’s heart, justice may call out for destruction and damnation, but mercy has a louder voice and calls out for forgiveness and redemption. God’s anger is temporary, and thank the Lord, “His mercy endures forever.” In a sense, God has voluntarily shackled Himself with the handcuffs of compassion, and so His love restrains Him from obliterating Israel (and all of us) even though we all undoubtedly deserve it. Yahweh has already weighed His eternal love versus Israel’s blind ingratitude, and guess which one is heavier in the scales of God’s justice? The Hebrew for “the Holy One” is actually “The Holy,” and Yahweh makes it perfectly clear that His transcendence is best expressed in His compassion, that His holiness is best demonstrated by His forgiveness. Talk about Saving Grace!

• When we read “the Holy One” in Hosea, the literal translation is “The Holy,” and the “One” is assumed. Yahweh God, the Lord of the universe, is The Holy. It’s not that God is merely in another category by Himself, it’s that God can’t be categorized. There is no comparison to God in this world, there are no parallels. The Lord is utterly distinctive, set apart in every imaginable way, and then some. Because God is Wholly Other, He is worthy to receive one-of-a-kind honor, respect, reverence, and adoration. He is completely separate from any taint of sin, any meager hint of evil, and He has perfect freedom from anything that would compromise His character. God is Truth dwelling in his sacred Spirit. He is comprised of uncreated light. God is high and lifted up, above and beyond comprehension and imagination. Yahweh God has no personal shape or form, and yet remains a Person, Someone in whose image we are all made. God is the source of whatever holiness exists in the world, so God is the only Being for whom the word holy truly applies. When Isaiah 6:3 is recited in the Jewish daily liturgy, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might! Heaven and earth are full of your glory!“ it is customary for the worshippers to stand on their tiptoes and stretch upwards three times. This is a wonderful picture of our rising up to grasp at the unreachable holiness of God. (Rabbi Arthur Green). In the universe, on the one hand there is The Holy, and then on the other hand there is everything else. To describe the indescribable Holy One is like a slug attempting to explain how a human brain functions.

Home at Last! “When I, Yahweh, roar like a lion, My people will march behind Me. Indeed, when I roar, My children will come trembling in reverent fear as they gather around Me. They will return like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from Assyria, and I will settle them in their homes. I, Yahweh, have spoken!” (11:10-11). The Lord wants the true believers in Israel to rejoice in hope! Some of His chosen people will indeed eventually return to the Promised Land in Judah as a remnant of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Unfortunately, no mention is made of the nation of Israel after the Assyrian conquest, including the lost Ten Tribes. Judah remained in relatively good shape for another 150 years after Israel fell, and so Judah assumed many of the exiled Israelites who chose to return to Jerusalem.

• The Dove (‘yonah‘). In biblical terms, the dove wins the prize for the most-mentioned bird in Scripture, over 50 times. The term for the common turtledove (“tor”) is apparently interchangeable with the term for pigeon (“yonah”). Sometimes when we see the word ‘dove’ in one translation, we can easily see the term ‘pigeon’ in another translation. The most common “yonah” in the Middle East is the rock pigeon, also known as the rock dove. These doves are still called carrier pigeons and homing pigeons, because they are able to fly very fast over large areas, and can find their way home from virtually anywhere. These rock pigeons have been easily trained for thousands of years to carry messages over long distances. Both versions of doves in the Middle East mate for life, with the male and female establishing themselves as life partners, and thus became a symbol of faithfulness. Doves were renowned for being innocent creatures, harmless, without a hint of aggressiveness. Many thought, then, of the dove as being particularly vulnerable to anything that would wish it harm.

Jeremiah Echoing Hosea. About 100 years after the prophet Hosea operated in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah was ministering in the Southern kingdom of Judah. Yahweh powerfully duplicated His thoughts through Jeremiah and underlined God’s unconditional love for Israel… “Is not Israel still My dear son, My very precious child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him and punish him, I still remember him and continue to love him. That is why my compassion for Israel is like a deep gut-punch and my heart continues to yearn for him. I will certainly have mercy on him, says Yahweh, a womb-love that is deep and tender.” (Jeremiah 31:20).