B27-devotions

Hosea 10:1-8

Devotions for Friday 26th February

Hosea’s tragic call obliged him to stand against the popular consensus of the day, and in the same way that he dealt with his prostitute wife, call shame on Israel for her denial of her God. This reading today contains Hosea’s fourfold call of ‘shame’ on Israel, with each stanza (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8) using a set of words and themes to make the point. Shame on Israel for her two-faced ignorance of God’s ways (10:1,2), shame on Israel for her abandonment of proper authority (10:3,4), shame on Israel for her religious rebellion and attachment to a golden calf (10:5,6), and shame on Israel for her persistent sinfulness (10:7,8).

Hosea begins by continuing to use the image of the vine (10,1,2), following on from the previous chapter (‘I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness’ - 9:10). The vine found by God and tended by Him has now produced the wrong type of fruit. To explain this, Hosea refers back to Genesis (he does so again in verse 8). God had created people in His own image (Gen 1:26,7), and He had chosen Israel to be a nation that showed Him to the world. But here, the vine of Israel produced fruit like herself, and not fruit designed by the Creator for His purposes! Hosea perceived that it was impossible for Israel to be like her God, for she was hopelessly split in two, with a divided heart (10:2). She tried to worship both God and the Ba’als, so God would act in judgement against her to destroy her ‘altars’ and ‘pillars’, the implements of worship to Ba’al.

As we have seen in recent studies, the people of northern Israel were enduring a torrid time in which their kings were being slaughtered in palace coups, and foreign powers were interfering in state politics. People had become disillusioned, and Hosea reports them as saying ‘we have no king – we do not fear God, and this king, what can he do for us?’ (10:3). The consequences of such cynicism within society resulted in people making ‘covenants with empty oaths’ (10:4), that is, making agreements without meaning to keep them. Hosea also says that in such a poisonous atmosphere, litigation became the norm (10:4), something that foreshadows the collapse of society, ‘like poisonous weeds in a ploughed field’ (10:4)

Thirdly, Hosea continued to expose the sinfulness of Israel’s worship of the golden calf first set up by its first King Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:16f.) after their split with Judah (10:5,6 - see also 8:5,6). One can almost hear his cynicism as he speaks about people mourning for the calf (10:5) as it was taken away to the king of Assyria (10:6), probably in payment of a national debt. The Assyrian empire notoriously made itself rich on the proceeds of extortion, as it progressively overwhelmed the small states on its borders, such as Israel. Yet Hosea was not afraid to pronounce God’s judgement, and the fact that the people mourned the loss of this calf was a matter of shame and disgrace (10:6).

In the fourth stanza (10:7,8), God’s judgement was pronounced on Israel’s sin, and Hosea chose a dramatic way of doing this. He quoted the curse of the ground from Genesis, where it says,

‘cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.’ (Genesis 3:17,18)

Hosea then finished with a prophecy of doom. People would call on the mountains themselves to offer them protection and ‘cover’ (10:8) instead of seeking protection from God!

Remarkably, this last prophecy is more significant than most people realise. Jesus quotes this prophecy about ‘mountains ... and hills’ (10:8) when addressing the professional mourners who accompanied those to be crucified (Luke 23:30). Jesus’ use of this prophecy reinforces our interpretation here. This is a prophecy of doom addressed to those who have the evidence of God but will not worship Him, preferring to place their trust in other gods or in kings or other false religions.

These words carry God’s prophetic message for all who turn away from the traditions of faith they have been given. Today, many nations with a Christian past are keen to throw off the shackles of their heritage. They produce fruit ‘in their own image’ (see 10:1), they abandon both God and ‘king’ (10:3), they mourn for their own petty gods (10:5), and they are becoming rotten to the core (10:8). Hosea’s words are as good a definition of a rotten nation as you can get in the Bible, and they are not to be taken lightly!

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1 Israel is a productive vine

yielding fruit in its own likeness.

The more his fruit increased

the more altars he built;

the richer his land,

the better pillars he made.

2 Their heart is split;

now they must bear their guilt

The Lord will break down their altars,

and destroy their pillars.

3 Look, they will now say:

‘We have no king,

for we do not fear the Lord,

and a king - what can he do for us?’

4 They utter mere words;

they make covenants with empty oaths;

so lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds

in a ploughed field.

5 The inhabitants of Samaria

fear for the calf of Beth-aven.

Its people mourn for it,

and its idolatrous priests,

They wail over it and over its glory,

which has departed from it.

6 The thing itself will be carried to Assyria

as tribute to the great king.

Ephraim will be disgraced,

and Israel will be ashamed of its counsel.

7 Samaria's king will perish

like a twig on the surface of the water.

8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,

will be destroyed.

Thorn and thistle will grow over their altars.

They shall say to the mountains,

Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.

Lord Jesus Christ, when we read about what You did in Your life, we are amazed at the love and compassion You showed towards the people You met. Give us, we pray, a true love for those we meet and a genuine desire to do our best for them, not because we feel like it but because You have first loved us and done Your best for us. Transform our lives in the service of others and may all we do be worthy of You, our living Saviour: AMEN

Praise God!

I found that God’s own love had touched me,

A greater love than anything I’d ever known:

I found that boundaries were broken down,

And life was opened up forever by His love!

I knew that I’d received a gift from heaven,

A sense of wondrous joy within the heart;

I felt emotions rise within my soul, so now

I join a celebration of God’s eternal ‘Yes’!

I discovered rest within the peace He gave,

A quality of wholeness, surpassing thought;

So now I hold the warmth of love’s acceptance,

And dwell within the sanctuary of His ‘Shalom’.

Prayer ideas

Keep a look out today for things that can give you cause for joy and thanksgiving, and praise God

On-going prayers

Pray for those who are growing old Pray for your own elderly relatives and ask God to bless them and help them in all they do
Give thanks to God for the evidence of His love in the world
Pray for the countries of Southern America and their economies

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