The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 9: Eviction Notice!

The Gospel of Hosea, Ch. 9: Eviction Notice!

“O people of Israel, do not rejoice, neither make merry as other nations do. For you have gone a-whoring in unfaithfulness to your God. Like prostitutes, you have hired for yourselves other lovers, worshipping other gods on every threshing floor.” (Hosea 9:1-2).

Threshing Floor. The people of Israel were stuck in their foolishness, stubborn in their thinking that it was Baal their fertility-god that gave them favorable weather and a good harvest. Hosea pointed to the threshing floor in particular as a graphic illustration of how they have proven adulterous in their relations with God… The farmer’s threshing floor was a vital part of their grain harvesting process. It was generally a flat area on a hilltop where harvesters would beat the wheat from the chaff as they prepared to sell the grain or use it for their own bread-making. Men would tend to remain on the threshing floor through the night in order to protect their valuable grain from thieves, and so the local prostitutes would often visit these men on the threshing floor. The threshing floors, then, would often evolve into a pagan site for sex-worship to Baal, especially because Baal priests preferred those “high places” for their sex and incense rituals. Hosea is warning the Israelites that it doesn’t make sense to be happy these days, as if Baal were the one who could give you a good harvest. Breaking God’s covenant through sexual worship will bring you the very opposite of the blessings you are looking for, people!

Eviction Notice. “Israel will not remain in the land of Yahweh. They will be returned soon to Egypt and have to eat the unclean foods in Assyria.” (Hosea 9:3). Hosea continues to give the people of Israel fair warning… They will return to the slavery they experienced in Egypt. They will be exiled, deported to Assyria, and unable to eat kosher food, or offer sacrifices to Yahweh, or celebrate the sacred festivals, or enjoy communal holy feasts that were so important to the chosen people of the covenant. Hosea is telling the people that the Promised Land has been taken away from them because of their unfaithfulness. Israel has been kicked out of the special land that Yahweh had prepared for them and them alone. Pack your bags, Hosea is saying, it’s time to move. You are deep in spiritual debt and can’t even pay the rent. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, and you may as well turn all the lights out for good.

Hosea the Distraught Watchman. “Israel claims that the prophet is a fool, that the man of the Spirit is crazy and deranged, driven mad by the constant harassment and the abundance of hostility. This prophet of my God was intended to be a watchman for Israel and for the surrounding nations. Yet everywhere he goes, the people set traps for him. He is even considered an enemy in the house of his God.” (Hosea 9:7-8). Translators all say that these two verses are the most difficult verses to translate in the book of Hosea. But it seems to make sense that Hosea is doing the talking, and is referring to his experience as a prophet in Israel as well as the experiences of other prophets in the land. The role of watchman was significant in the Promised Land…

• The Lookout. The Hebrew word for watchman was “mishmereth,” which means one who looks out in order to protect, to guard, to keep safe. The good watchman needed to have particular abilities: the mental discipline to be constantly alert, attentive and focused; to be fearless, calm and composed; to be shrewd and not easily fooled; to have acute hearing and eyesight; to be extremely observant and aware of surroundings; to be ready for anything, expectant, poised to act when called upon; to be someone who is able to wait patiently; to be able to discern the good from the bad, the welcome from the welcome.
• The Prophet-Watchman. The literal watchman became a symbol that God used to describe the duties of His prophets. These men and women were appointed by Him to be spiritual watchmen, watching over the souls of His people like a watchman would watch over a city. The prophets, like any good watchmen, had to be vigilant in their observation of spiritual matters regarding His people, calling on them to obey God, to live faithfully before Him, to warn them if they were in danger of the Lord’s judgment due to their sinful behavior. God expected the prophets to be receptive at all times to hear the words of the Lord, to listen carefully to what He is telling them, and then to speak His words to the people. Sometimes the prophet-watchman would shout out the good news of the Lord’s mercy and comfort and hope. But when called upon, the prophets would sound the alarm of spiritual danger. The voice of the prophet was to be like the blare of the trumpet from the watchtower, sounding the alarm that would alert the people that they were in spiritual danger, that the Lord’s judgment is approaching if things don’t change. God spoke often about the importance of prophet-watchman like Isaiah (21:6-9; 52:8; 62:6-7); Jeremiah (6:17-20; 31:3-6); Ezekiel (3:17-19; 33:7); Micah (7:1-4); Habakkuk (2:1); and when Yahweh instructs the prophet Joel to perform a watchman’s duties, “Blow the shofar in Zion, sound the alarm on my mountain of holiness! Shake the people awake, for the day of Yahweh is coming!” (2:1). Prophets were Yahweh’s appointed watchmen for the spiritual welfare of His chosen people.

Hideously Sinful Like Gibeah. “Israel has corrupted themselves and sunk so deeply into depravity – just as you did at Gibeah. God will not overlook the guilt of your actions; He will punish you for your sins.” (Hosea 9:9). If there was one incident in Israel’s history that was a major embarrassment, it was Gibeah (Judges 19-21). This was a low, low moral point in their archives, and if anything should have been an historical wake-up call for Israel, it should have been the merest mention of Gibeah. In a horrific, sordid scene strikingly similar to what led to Sodom’s destruction (Genesis 19), a depraved group of men in the town of Gibeah surrounded the house of a hospitable visitor there who was caring for a Levite and his female servant who were traveling through the area. These degenerates wanted to ravage the Levite, but the old man caring for the two visitors refused and instead offered his virgin-daughter and the innocent servant of the Levite. The group proceeded to gang-rape the servant all night and then left her for dead at the man’s doorstep. When the Levite discovered his dead servant in the morning, he took her dead body back home, and he (believe it or not) callously cut her dead body into twelve pieces and sent those pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel to alert everyone to how evil this town of Benjamin had become. Sure enough, this led to a bloody civil war and the eventual, complete destruction of Gibeah, from which the town never recovered. Hosea is saying that Israel had now reached the lowest levels of sin, equal even to Sodom and Gibeah. Hosea directly implied that Israel had regressed to the point during Israel’s time of the Judges, when, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25).

The Next Stop in Hosea’s Lowlights of Israel. “But they came to Baal-Peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.” (Hosea 9:10). After Yahweh wistfully remembered the good old days, when Israel brought pleasure to the Lord in the wilderness journey, and His people were as delightful as luscious grapes in the desert, like the fresh fruit from the start of the growing season of a fig tree. But then Hosea reverts back to reminding the Israelites how far they have fallen. Peor was a mountain in Moab named after a pagan god, and was the site of what became known as the “sin of Balaam.” (Numbers 25). This twisted prophet was truly prophetic one minute and practically demonic the next. At one point he was hired by the king of Moab to curse the Israelites as they were traveling through that region, calling on the pagan gods to make it easy for the Israelites to be seduced by the Moabite women. So, as you can guess, the Israelite men were seduced into sexual sin and Baal worship, and soon became just as corrupt as the Moabites. The Israelites fell prey in Moab to everything the Lord warned them against as they journeyed through Canaan, from intermarrying with the pagans, producing children by their women, and being lured into worshipping their gods, especially Baal-Peor. Once again, Hosea’s reference to a low point in Israel’s history was not the wake-up call the prophet was hoping for.

Headed to Extinction. “Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird – no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!” (Hosea 9:11). Hosea then offered words from Yahweh that should scare them out of their unfaithfulness, but it didn’t seem to take. Hosea proclaims that Israel is about to experience quite the irony… All their worship of Baal for their fertility of both crops and families will only result in complete infertility. Children have always been the glory of the chosen people, highly valuing their flourishing homes, their thriving families. But those days are gone, says Yahweh, unless Israel turns things around pronto. As opposed to the expected fruitfulness in all those Israelite homes, there will be empty homes and unfruitfulness, and as Hosea graphically put it, “miscarrying wombs and dry breasts.” (9:14). Tragically, this prophecy was fulfilled, because after the Assyrian capture and exile, those ten tribes of Israel were never heard from again. The few remnants in Israel from the invasion ended up mixing with Assyrians and they produced the Samaritan race that were so hated during later eras in Judah.

Another Strategy from Hosea. “Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house.” (Hosea 9:15). The prophet decided to change directions a bit and reminded the Israelites of a spiritual highlight in their history… Gilgal. It was Hosea’s way of revealing how far Israel had fallen, now that Gilgal had become a pagan shrine of Baal-worship and sexual sin, of how something so powerful and significant could turn into something so horrible and spiritually weak. Gilgal was once famous as the place of renewal and spiritual strength from the days of Joshua and the entrance into the Promised Land. This was one of the most momentous holy sites in Jewish history, just over the border into the Promised Land and near their first conquest, the walled city of Jericho. Joshua led this new generation into the land of Canaan and decided to gather everyone together to get organized about two miles from Jericho. They are all waiting for marching orders from Joshua. So after placing stones from the Jordan at their campsite in memory of God’s miracle at the River, God had something important to say to Joshua and to all the Jews at this critical hour. With the whole nation of Israel gathered there, God thundered these momentous words with profound authority, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you!” (Joshua 5:9). God is saying here that He has rolled away the heavy weight of shame, guilt, disdain; the disgrace that was the Jewish experience in Egypt. God has rolled all that away. So no longer do they have the mentality of being a slave, of being hindered or held back, of being in bondage. No longer do they have to feel scorned as when they were slaves. This new Jewish generation are to live in freedom. They are now intended to enjoy life without the burden of slavery, or the shame of being owned, or the despair they experienced in history. As a sign of this renewal, to confirm it and etch it into the psyche of every Jew, the entire nation of Israel celebrated Passover right then, right there, for the first time in 40 years. They remembered together the passing over of death and judgment in Egypt, the lamb’s blood on the doorposts, Pharaoh’s release, and God’s salvation. They celebrated this Old Testament sacrament to renew their old relationship with God. Everyone in the spiritual nation of Israel now knows… no more business as usual; we have turned a corner; we are a renewed people. God has rolled away the reproach of Egypt, the disgrace of bondage, the humiliating shame of being dehumanized, hindered from being fully human. This famous place of renewal was named Gilgal, because that Hebrew word evidently sounds like “rolling.” Gilgal became their military base camp, as well as the headquarters for worship as a nation and the home of the Tabernacle for 14 years. Gilgal came to represent a nation-changing renewal as they entered the Promised Land as well as a place of spiritual sustenance. Gilgal signified where God rolled away their history of slavery in Egypt and would provide His presence in their new land. Gilgal was where there was a national healing of memories and a kindling of hope for their future. But the spiritual fortunes started to turn later when king Saul broke the covenant in Gilgal and was judged by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 15), and it was there that the people of Israel expressed their desire to have a human king instead of the divine King Yahweh (1 Samuel 8). And yet, and yet, by the time of Hosea, Gilgal had become a stench in Yahweh’s nostrils, a symbol of covenant-rejection and corrupted worship, a sex shrine, and place of cultic pagan idolatry. So Hosea is telling the Israelites… Look at what you have turned Gilgal into…  What was once a blessed place of holy worship, you have turned it into something abominable.

Uprooted and Left to Wander. “My God will reject them because they have not listened to Him; they shall be wanderers among the nations.” Hosea pictured Israel as a once-thriving plant that has been struck down, its roots dried up, fruitless and unable to bear fruit in the future. Yahweh is evicting His people from the Promised Land and destined them to wander in the wilderness, rootless, without a home, just like Cain whose punishment from God was to be “a fugitive and wanderer on the earth” for his hateful sin.” (Genesis 4:12).