The Gospel of Hosea, Extended: Baal 2.0

The Gospel of Hosea, Extended: Baal 2.0

“I, Lord Yahweh, am your God. You shall not have any other gods besides Me.” (Ex. 20 and Deut. 5).

The Antidote: Before we discuss the poison of blending other gods with The God, let’s make sure we’re aware of the good news, that we have the option of unplugging the blender and putting God first.

“Only You are the Holy One; Only You are the Lord; Only You are the Most High.” (from the ancient prayer of the Church, the ‘Gloria’).

Only You are the Holy One: When we read “the Holy One” in Scripture, 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.

Only You are the Lord: 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.

Only You are the Most High: The terms “Highest” and “Most High” are used interchangeably in the translations of the Scriptures. This title used by the angel Gabriel is an official name of God in the Hebrew Bible: El Elyon. El is a shortened form of God’s name, and Elyon means Highest or Most High. Elyon is used when one wants to affirm God as the most highly exalted, the One who is supreme to all creation, the uppermost sovereign.  When someone wants to elevate God to highest distinction, to honor God as holding supremacy in all the universe, Elyon is the preferred title. When one wants to glorify God as the uppermost God of gods, Elyon is used. When one desires to acknowledge God’s eternal majesty and eminence, Elyon is used. Elyon as a title for God is used frequently in the Hebrew bible, 34 times in total. El Elyon, or God the Highest (Most High), is used twelve times, beginning with the famous interaction between Melchizedek, the “priest of the Most High,” and Abraham (Gen. 14:18-20). Abraham exclaimed the popular title when he said “I have raised my hands to Yahweh, God Most High (Gen. 14:22). For Jesus to be named as “the Son of the Highest” reveals the popularity of that title for God as well as the importance of the birth of Christ.

The Poison of Baal 1.0. Throughout much of the Hebrew Bible, the prophets focused on listing Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with Him, especially through their idolatry regarding the god Baal. Yahweh continues to hammer down on their whoring after Baal and being spiritually promiscuous in their worship of it. Baal was primarily their weather god who controlled the fertility of their crops and the productivity of their agricultural life. The people came to think of rain as occasions when Baal would impregnate the ground and bring about new life. So worshippers used sexual acts with temple prostitutes, ritual prostitution, as their way of assuring fertility in their land. Rabbi Jonathon Sacks says that Baal was “the macho deity who represented sex and power on a cosmic scale.” Yahweh considered Himself Israel’s bride, so chasing after Baal is best described in God’s eyes as religious fornication, as being spiritually unfaithful and adulterous. This sexual focus in their Baal worship led to other sexual sins in Israel such as bestiality and incest. Throughout the prophets, including Hosea, the Lord builds His case of how their spiritual adultery has led them into such cultural corruptions as violence, injustice, arrogance, hypocrisy, and attitudes of rebellion and ingratitude. Israel’s moral disintegration compels the Lord’s prophets to continue their prophetic work of warning, accusing, appealing to the people, even promising them of God’s mercy and their restoration and protection from enemies if only they would return to Yahweh. Hosea in particular often referred to the snare, the trap, the net that captured the Israelites. The trap was that they foolishly blended Yahweh-worship with Baal-worship. After a time, the two become indistinguishable, to the point when they actually called Yahweh “my Baal!” And then Yahweh was distracted out of their life-center and the focus become, practically speaking, Baal. That was the snare. The people didn’t turn directly face-to-face with Baal, but were engaged in the process of gradually getting to that point.

Baal 2.0. Practically speaking, are we any different now in 2026 than the Israelites during the days of the prophets? Do we take seriously the truth that the Lord is a jealous God who will not share His glory with another? The Baal-worshippers thought they had the best recipe for a worship smoothie, blending together Yahweh-worship with pagan idolatry. Are we using the same Mixmaster in our daily lives, blending our belief in God with an understated trust in other gods? So, our snare these days might just be much the same. Rather than directly rejecting the Lord, we are tempted to blend Him with other priorities, other preferences and distractions in our lives. With whom or what are we blending our focus of devotion on Yahweh in practical terms? Do I have a contemporary version of Baal that is taking away my singular focus on the Lord God and Jesus Messiah? Is there a contemporary god I am choosing that distracts me from a pure centering of my life with God?

• I may not be physically bowing down before an idol, but am I serving the god of my Ego, my Self?
• I may not be kissing the golden calf in reverence, but am I embracing my bank account?
• I may not be engaged in child sacrifice as worship, but am I turning a blind eye to abortion and euthanasia?
• I may not be depending on Baal for a rich harvest, but am I depending on my own ambition for success?
• I may not be enjoying cultic sex for worship, but am I indulging in pornography in any way?
• I may not be following pagan priests, but am I allowing influencers and public personalities to guide me?
• I may not be spreading the fragrance of pagan incense, but am I spreading the aroma of my status and image?
• I may not be self-indulgent in my worship, but am I self-indulgent in my pleasure-seeking or entertainment?
• I may not be offering sacrifices to gain power, but am I working hard to gain power and influence?
• I may not be depending on Baal priests to guide my thinking, but am I being unduly influenced by politicians?
• I may not be directly guided by pagan values, but am I intentionally being guided by gospel values?
• My life purpose might not be determined by Baal, but is my life truly given meaning by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
• My human identity might not be shaped by Baal, but is my human identity being founded on being created in God’s image?

Maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to ridicule or criticize Baal worshippers after all. And perhaps the ancient prayers that call us to worship the Lord alone without our temptation to spiritually blend is supremely wise for us to consider, by exclaiming, “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone! You shall love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength! And you shall love your neighbor as yourself!” (Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:28-30; the words of Jesus as He explained the Greatest Commandment, combining the ‘Shema’ of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 with Leviticus 19:18).