The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 14: Grace and Wisdom

The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 14: Grace and Wisdom.

“Return, O Israel, come back to Yahweh God (‘Elohim’), for you have stumbled because of your iniquity (‘avon’). Your sins have been your downfall.” (Hosea 14:1).

In Other Words. God is making His last-gasp effort, His final passionate appeal to Israel for their repentance. Please, I beg you, change your mind, He is saying. Do an about-face. Stop and change direction. Turn completely around and follow Me. 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 Creator God. So the two names together pack the powerful meaning of God as personal and relational, as well as universal and transcendent. There are many Hebrew words for ‘sin‘ in the Hebrew Bible, about eight in all. Hosea was inspired to use “Avon” in this introductory thought to his profound conclusion. Avon specifically means to intentionally make crooked, to consciously bend what is right, to distort what is good on purpose, to warp what is true. So “iniquity” means something very particular to Hosea… a deep moral failing because of an inner, twisted heart. Yahweh is pleading for a sincere confession of their deliberate sinfulness, their twisting of pure God-worship by blending Yahweh-worship with Baal-worship, and in the process losing any sense of a moral compass. And after you change your mind and heart, come and follow Me, says the Lord.

“Take words with you and return to Yahweh…” (Hosea 14:2a).

Logos. So Hosea implored the Israelites to take their own words personally to the Lord and turn to Him thoughtfully. This involved heartfelt words, as opposed to empty ritual, or vague feelings, or abstract ideas about God. The Hebrew word for “words‘ implied a sincere message from the heart, bringing genuine words of repentance to the Lord. But this gets even more interesting when “words” is taken from the Greek Old Testament, which is also considered inspired along with the Hebrew Scriptures. The Greek version of the Old Testament was translated for Greek-reading Jews in the 3rd century BC, and was quite popular during Jesus’ day. In fact, three-fourths of the OT quotes in the New Testament were directly from the Greek OT and not the Hebrew. Matthew especially liked to quote the Greek OT in his Gospel, and Paul used the Greek OT almost exclusively in his OT quotes in his epistles. The inspired Greek word for “words” in this Hosea passage is “logos.” The Greek term logos was used literally hundreds of times in the Greek Old Testament, and could mean truth, message, and commandment. Logos often implied meaningful thought and a well-planned message, and was also used to highlight the Word of God. Logos implied a person’s genuine self-expression, but also God’s self-expression, whether in creation, in a prophet’s message, or in the Torah itself. When a prophet declared “the logos of the Lord,” the prophet’s words were considered coming from the mind and mouth of Yahweh Himself. The Greek Bible translated the term “the Ten Commandments” (Deut. 5, Ex. 20) into “the Ten Logos,” the Ten Words.” That’s why so many refer to the “Decalogue” when referring to the Ten Commandments. So to the Greeks reading this passage in Hosea, it could legitimately have meant to take their truthful, well-prepared and sincere message from the heart to the Lord.

“Say this to Yahweh… ‘Lift up and bear away all my guilt, forgive my iniquity; receive us graciously and accept us, O Good One. We will repay You by offering the calves of our lips. Assyria will not be our savior. No longer will we trust in our military might again. We will not call our handmade idols ‘our god’ any longer. For in You, the orphan finds tender mercy (‘rachem’).” (Hosea 14:2b-3).

Hosea’s Suggested Prayer. Hosea is assuming that most of the Israelites have distanced themselves so far from Yahweh that they probably don’t exactly know how to confess if they wanted to. So he offers a model prayer, words they can use and take as their own from the heart. Sometimes a well-designed, prepared prayer expresses what’s on our heart better than we can say at that moment. So Hosea says, if you’re not sure how to approach God with your repentance, if you’re not sure what to say to Yahweh, you could pray like this… Hosea then gives us a rather peculiar turn of phrase with his “offering the calves of our lips.” But other ways of saying the same thing might be: present our lips as sacrificed bulls; offer my words as sacrifice to You instead of animal sacrifice; speak my sacrifice of praise to You; dedicate to You my words of worship rather than my sacrifice of bulls; repaying you with the words of my lips to fulfill my vow; sacrifice to you the fruit of my lips; sing for You the thank-offering of my song of praise. And what has led up to these words of repentance, dependence on Him, and promises of allegiance? What does a person need to be convinced of in order to reach such powerful faith? Love. A deep trust in God’s love. For look at how Hosea ended his model prayer. “For in You, the orphan finds tender mercy.” Hosea is proclaiming that it all starts here, all faith needs to be founded on the personal belief that Yahweh is a God of love, and if He loves the most needy like the orphan, then He will certainly love me. The word for mercy in this passage is the profound Hebrew word “rachem.”

• “Rachem” = In addition to hesed, another primary word for mercy used a number of times in Hosea. The word rachem is translated in Scripture as tender mercy, deep compassion, and, profoundly enough, womb. In the Hebrew mind, the womb is much more than the sacred place in a woman that enables the unborn baby to safely develop till birth. Womb also became a metaphor for mercy because of its linguistic roots. The Hebrew word rachem is intended to mean mercy-womb. God formed each of us with rachem when we were mere unborns, and we were conceived and nourished within His rachem, the mother’s mercy-womb. The baby within the woman is the ideal time to extend God’s compassion to that human being inside of her. The developing baby utterly depends on a mercy-womb. And God wants Himself to be experienced as our womb-sanctuary, our safe place in Him, our refuge and shelter. God Himself yearns to be experienced as a womb of mercy for each of us, a refuge and shelter and safe haven. The purpose of our lives is to live in God’s rachem, God’s womb of love.

“I will heal your unfaithfulness and apostasy; I will love you freely with all my heart, for my anger has turned away from you.” (Hosea 14:4). God is now laying His cards on the table. He is promising that what He saying will become true if it is accepted and acted upon. It takes two to tango, God is saying, and here is what I am offering you, Israel, if you choose to accept it. The Hebrew prophets loved to use the image of the physical ailment when describing spiritual brokenness. Sin is a spiritual sickness and needs to be cured. Sin is not so much an evil act as it is a mortal disease. Unfaithfulness is a spiritual wound of the heart that needs to be healed, and only Yahweh is the Great Physician who can restore us to wholeness. Hosea even used this word picture earlier in 5:13 when he said Ephraim “saw his sickness and Judah his wound,” and that the king “is not able to cure you or heal your wound.” Could there be any greater revelation than that God will love us freely? The word for love here (‘ahab‘) means a very personal, affectionate love, a heartfelt love that is generous and extravagant, a love without restraint or limits. God’s love is His “freewill offering” to us.

“My presence will fall like the dew upon Israel; My people will blossom like a lily; they shall take root like the cedar of Lebanon; they shall spread out like the branches of the olive tree; they shall carry the fragrance of Lebanon. My people will return and live beneath the shadow of My blessing and protection. They shall flourish like a field of wheat and thrive as a blossoming vine. They shall become as famous as the wines of Lebanon.”  (Hosea 14:5-7).

Hosea the Poet. The spirit of the prophet-poet was truly unleashed here as Hosea is inspired to provide a wonderful string of word pictures about how the presence of Yahweh will affect Israel if they only chose to let Him do so by becoming faithful to His covenant with them. The natural images describing how Creator God wants His people to return to the Garden of Eden is beautiful and broadens our view of our God of renewal and restoration:

• The Morning Dew. In an extremely dry climate like Israel, the morning dew was as good as a rainfall for the plant world. As a key source of water, the dew was gentle on the plants, and life-giving, and often represented God’s daily, gracious care for humanity. Believers often used dew as a metaphor for God’s anointing presence that caused all things to be refreshed and new every day.
• The Lily. The Hebrew word for lily is “shushan,” and it meant either a lily or any of the lily-like wildflowers of that place and time such as the daffodil or the hyacinth. The lily wildflower was renowned for its beautiful bright whiteness and its graceful bell-shaped petals Even ancient historians like Pliny recorded that lilies were the whitest of all the flowers and had the most sweet-smelling fragrance. So besides becoming a symbol of purity, innocence, and the beauty of God’s creation, lilies symbolized fertility and fruitfulness, since one lily root could produce as many as fifty lily bulbs. Lilies were considered both noble and humble, since they were the tallest of flowers but their thin stalks couldn’t bear the weight of the flowers, causing their heads to hang low, so to speak. Because lilies were held in such high esteem by the Israelites, the likeness of the lily was engraved on all the pillars in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 7:19, 22). This Biblical lily in Israel evolved into what we now call the “Easter Lily,” since it brought new life and flourished early every spring.
• The Cedars of Lebanon. The magnificent cedar trees in Lebanon were the most honored of all the trees in early Scripture. They are mentioned over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible, and were known in biblical times as the “king of trees.” There were good reasons people esteemed them so highly. They had a natural resistance to decay. Their oil repelled snakes and bugs. They were deliciously aromatic. They grew to majestic heights, as tall as a twelve-story building, while their enormous trunks made them a picture of stability. Their roots were so deep and wide that the trees were as deep underground as they were high aboveground. These cedars were famous for their longevity, and flourished a long, long time as they thrived in all temperatures… from the intense summer heat to the freezing winter. These cedars were evergreens, beautiful in their appearance, and the cedar forests in Lebanon were breathtaking. The wood of these cedars were known around that part of the world as the very best for shipbuilding and toolmaking, and were always the wood of choice in construction of palaces. The first Temple was built with the cedars of Lebanon, as was the second Temple. So down through ancient history, the Cedars of Lebanon were a symbol of strength, beauty, durability, and majesty. Only the wealthiest could afford to use these cedars, so they became a symbol of prosperity as well.
• The Olive Tree. Is there anything in nature more biblical than the olive tree? There are well over 200 mentions in Scripture about the olive tree, the olive and olive oil. That’s not a big surprise when considering the importance of the olive tree to Israel’s food supply, its economy, its history, its daily life. Apart from it being an important part of their daily diet, olive trees were responsible for fuel to light the lamps, an ingredient for cooking, medicine and health aids, anointing oil for kings, priests and the sacrificial system, facial ointment, hardwood for long-lasting furniture, construction material, and beautifully grained wood for ornaments and decoration. The ancient olive tree was the first tree to bud after the Flood, and signified a renewal of the relationship between God, man and nature. The olive tree can grow to a height of twenty feet, a slow-growing tree that takes years of careful labor to reach fruitfulness. It remains one of the earth’s longest-living trees. Scientists have gone to the Mount of Olives in the Holy Land and carbon-tested three of the olive trees there. It was firmly established that all three trees were at least 1,000 years old. There is one particular tree there that is estimated to be about 2,000 years old. All three of those trees were found to be originally planted from the same parent stump, springing up from the roots from the old, dead stump of one tree. This is common for the olive tree. When a tree reaches old age, hundreds of years, and it has reached its maximum production, the farmers will usually cut down the tree to its stump. Soon, miraculously, the roots of that stump develop new shoots, and the tree continues to grow until it begins to produce olives again years later. As many as five new trees are known to spring up from one old stump. Because the olive orchard was a common scene of healthy growth and fruitfulness, it became a symbol for the person or family who was likewise.
• God’s Shade. The Hebrew word “tsel” means shade or shadow and represents relief from scorching heat and protection from the elements in life that are difficult to endure. Two related words are “tselen” which is used in being “made in God’s image” and refers to a shaded image of a more substantial reality; and “tsalmavel” which is the phrase the “shadow of death” and means a profound and total darkness that signals a life-threatening danger. Encouraging pictures of God as our tsel, our dependable source of shade, is found in many biblical passages. Psalm 121 is a celebration of the Lord as our faithful guardian, our keeper of the soul. The song is a triumphant meditation of a believer in the Lord’s character, an inner dialogue on how his God is trustworthy, as stable and immovable as the mountains in Israel. And the psalmist goes on to encourage others to believe as he does in God as the ultimate helper. “Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade (“tsel”); He is beside you at your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.”  (Ps. 121:4-8).
• The Blossoming Vine. A common biblical metaphor for Israel is that of being a vine in which God is the careful and loving owner and farmer of a carefully cultivated vineyard. Israel was commonly pictured as God’s vineyard by many prophets, such as Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Psalm 80:8 also points out that Israel was “a vine out of Egypt” brought by God Himself to plant in the Promised Land. But after all the owner God did to produce a wonderful vineyard (Israel), the choice grapevines (the Chosen People) unexpectedly produced sour, bitter, wild grapes. God is saying that Israel has failed to produce the sweet grapes He was hoping for, with spiritually juicy qualities such as justice, righteousness and faithfulness. But Yahweh is promising in this passage that if they return to Him, they will blossom once again. The Lord earnestly desires that Hosea’s words in 10:1 become true once again… “Israel was once a lush, luxuriant vine that yields its fruit and produced plenty of healthy grapes.” 

“I, Yahweh, am the One who hears, responds, and watches over Israel. I will shelter him under My branches like an evergreen cypress tree. Ephraim, you owe your fruitfulness to Me.” (Hosea 14:8). This might be the only passage in the Hebrew Bible in which Yahweh is likened to a tree. Hosea chose the cypress tree in particular to represent Yahweh for many reasons: it is an evergreen, which symbolizes eternal life and immortality; it resists rot and harmful insects and has a well-earned image of resilience and durability; it is famous for growing very straight and tall as it points toward heaven; it flourishes in difficult conditions and represents divine restoration each spring; it is a symbol of the removal of the curse of sin, such as in Isaiah 55:13, “Cypress trees will flourish where there were only thorns, and myrtle trees instead of briars. These will stand as testimony to Yahweh’s renown, everlasting signs that will not be cut off.” Finally, the pine/cypress tree is often associated with the wisdom of God, so it’s not surprising Hosea goes straight from the cypress tree in verse 8 to a focus on wisdom in verse 9.

“Do you consider yourself wise? Then you will understand these words. Are you discerning? Then you will discover their meaning. For Yahweh’s paths are smooth for walking and the righteous will walk in them, but the rebellious sinners will stumble in them.” (Hosea 14:9). There are many biblical ways to describe wisdom: understanding and discernment; the practical art of living skillfully; moral and spiritual intelligence; the ability to practice the truth in daily life; astute insight; shrewd street smarts; the ability to apply relevant knowledge to thoughtful decision-making; to think ahead with foresight and anticipate the consequences of actions; to fully appreciate the difference between wise and foolish, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, good and evil, true and false; to demonstrate a practical spirituality. Hosea closes his profound book with a word to the wise, appealing one last time to the Israelites that they wisely return to Yahweh, implying that they have been living in supreme foolishness for far too long. Hosea closes with this chapter of the hope of restoration and forgiveness, when he could just as easily concluded with doom and judgment. It seems too that after appealing to the nation of Israel as a large group, he is focusing on the individual Israelite. Hosea pleads with his people in Israel, please, please consider the grace of God’s covenant, His merciful heart, and return to a vibrant faithfulness in Him.

“No chapter in the Bible can be more rich in mercy than this last one in Hosea; and yet no chapter in the Bible might, in the natural order of things, have been more terrible in judgment. Where we expected darkness, behold a noontide of light.” (Charles Spurgeon).