Lesson 6 - Hosea 11:1-11 - GOD YEARNS OVER HIS PEOPLE
INTRODUCTION: Last week in Hosea 5:15-7:2, the prophet covered a lot of territory, describing the coming judgments that the LORD GOD (YHWH) would inflict on both Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and Judah (the Southern Kingdom). At the start of the lesson we saw God's people cry out to Him for healing, but at the same time, they totally failed to confess their sins and acknowledge their need for personal holiness. Some Christians do this today: They cry out to God for help in a personal crisis but refuse to repent of the sins that got them into trouble in the first place (vv. 1-3). The prophet also told these people that God desired their loyal love more than sacrifices and offerings. For modern Christians, this means that loving and serving God with your whole heart is far more important than simply attending church periodically and putting money in the collection plate (vv. 4-5). The prophet then warned these people that their failure to pay attention to the words of the prophets who delivered God's message would result in certain judgment in the future. What this tells you and me is that it isn't enough for us to simply own Bibles and bring them to church; it means that God expects us to carefully read it, understand it, and apply it to way we live (vv. 5-6). Finally, the prophet reminded these people that God never forgets anything and there would be a divine accounting (Chap. 7:1-2). We Christians need to be mindful that we too will one day be accountable for our sins.
This will be our final lesson in Hosea, and we'll move into the Book of Amos next week. Our text for today, Hosea 11:1-11, illustrates God's unwavering love using a parable built on the analogy of a father's love for a rebellious son. The theme is of the passage is developed in a similar way: unfaithfulness and rebellion, followed by punishment and restoration. The message, as it develops, is kind of like a four-act play where Hosea is the only actor speaking for God, who plays the role of both a loving Father and a reluctant Judge.
Read Hosea 11:1-12 - I CALLED MY SON
1 When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. 2 The more they called them, The more they went from them; They kept sacrificing to the Baals And burning incense to idols.
v. 1a: "When Israel was a youth I loved him," - God chose Israel for special blessings among the world's nations, and loved "him" enough as a child to establish a covenant relationship with him.
v. 1b: "And out of Egypt I called My son." - Israel went into Egypt as an extended family, not yet a nation, then after becoming a nation in Egypt, was called to come out of Egypt by the power of the LORD's divine intervention. This foreshadowed the experience that God's Son, Jesus Christ, would fulfill when He returned from the comparative safety of Egypt, so that He might suffer and die in order to accomplish His great work of redeeming a lost world (Matt. 2:19-23).
v. 2: "The more they called them, The more they went from them; They kept sacrificing to the Baals And burning incense to idols." - The apostasy of the Israelites began almost immediately upon leaving Egypt. God had continued to call the Israelites after they left Egypt through the prophets; but, the more the prophets appealed to the people to obey their LORD GOD, the more the people turned aside from following Him and continued sacrificing to Baals and idols (Judges 2:11-13)
Read Hosea 11:3-4 - I TAUGHT EPHRAIM (my Son) TO WALK
3 Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in My arms; But they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws; And I bent down and fed them.
v. 3a: "Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk," - "Ephraim" is one of the Ten Tribes often used to signify the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Here, God portrays an especially tender moment in a father's life as he teaches his little child to walk, which is an equally important moment in the child's life, too. The term "walk" is also frequently used as metaphor to describe how a person lives his daily life.
v. 3b: "I took them in My arms; But they did not know that I healed them." - The LORD lovingly cared for His child in many apparent ways, but like small children who take their parents for granted, Israel failed to acknowledge God's concern and kindness for them.
v. 4a: "I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love," - The "cords of a man"-i.e., the restrictions placed on them by the Law of Moses-were designed by God "with bonds of love" to preserve and protect them as a people rather than take away their freedom.
v. 4b: "And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws; And I bent down and fed them." - The LORD lifted "the yoke from their jaws" by rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, and afterward, in their wilderness wanderings "bent down and fed them" with manna from heaven. All of this imagery portrays a loving shepherd who took exceptional care of his wandering flock.
Read Hosea 11:5-7 - BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO RETURN TO ME
5 They will not return to the land of Egypt; But Assyria-he will be their king Because they refused to return to Me. 6 The sword will whirl against their cities, And will demolish their gate bars And consume them because of their counsels. 7 So My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call them to the One on high, None at all exalts Him.
v. 5a: "They will not return to the land of Egypt;" - The term, "return to Egypt" is a metaphor for slavery or captivity. They will suffer slavery as they did in Egypt, but this time under a new master.
v. 5b: "But Assyria-he will be their king Because they refused to return to Me." - Their new masters will be the barbaric Assyrians, who will kill any who resist and exile many others to foreign places in order to repopulate their fertile land with their own kind (i.e., the Samaritans).
v. 6a: "The sword will whirl against their cities," - This pictures large armies marching up to their cities and towns, with soldiers armed to the teeth with sharp swords and edged weapons. As a practical matter, the Israelite civilians would be completely defenseless against such might.
v. 6b: "And will demolish their gate bars" - The northern cities weren't fortified like Jerusalem. Using military siege equipment, the enemy would very quickly break through their gates and walls.
v. 6c: "And consume them because of their counsels." - The Israelites had sealed their own doom because in their "counsels," they no longer trusted in the LORD to give them protection.
v. 7a: So My people are bent on turning from Me." - The expression "bent on" suggests stubbornness, a rejection of evidence to the contrary-refusal to accept to sound reasoning.
v. 7b: "Though they call them to the One on high, None at all exalts Him." - The "One" refers to YHWH, the one true God. They just call on Him out of desperation, not with true faith or trust.
Read Hosea 11:8-9 - HOW CAN I GIVE YOU UP?
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, All My compassions are kindled. 9 I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath.
NOTE: The next section of verses will introduce a message of eventual future restoration. In the near term, the LORD is certain to bring a devastating judgment on Israel (which did happen in 721 B.C.); yet, out of His compassion for the nation, together with His promises (covenants) to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He would give them a final blessing after disciplining them now (Deut. 4:25-31).
v. 8a: "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel?" - This is the first of four rhetorical questions posed by the LORD in this verse: Here we see an example of Hebrew parallelism, that while Israel surely deserved punishment, it breaks God's heart to do so.
v. 8b: "How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?" - "Admah" and "Zeboiim" were cities God entirely annihilated along with Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 10:19; 14:2).
v. 8c: "My heart is turned over within Me, All My compassions are kindled." - God could not bring Himself to deal with the Israelite cities like He did with the two mentioned above. His heart was turned upside down in compassion-he would not totally exterminate them like those mentioned.
v. 9a: "I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again." - While God did not change His mind about bringing judgment on Israel, He promised not to apply the full measure of His righteous wrath. He would show restraint because He is a compassionate God.
v. 9b: "For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath." - This is a key premise of this passage: God, like the human beings whom He made in His image, is capable of a wide range of emotions, but God, unlike human beings, expresses His emotions in perfect balance. God, who is perfect, controls His emotions and always expresses them rightly and fairly. When God says He, "will not come in wrath," it means His judgment will be exactly just, under divine control, as opposed to the human tendency to commit overkill.
Read Hosea 11: 10-11 - THEY WILL WALK AFTER THE LORD
10 They will walk after the Lord, He will roar like a lion; Indeed He will roar And His sons will come trembling from the west. 11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt And like doves from the land of Assyria; And I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord.
v. 10a: "They will walk after the Lord, He will roar like a lion;" - Lions were among the most ferocious and feared animals in Biblical times. They were powerful and swift and known to stalk and devour humans. That the Lord intended to "roar like a lion" meant that He planned to make a frightening display of His power to get everyone's attention.
v. 10b: "Indeed He will roar And His sons will come trembling from the west." - In this scenario, God isn't acting as lion about devour his prey but as 'father' lion leading his cubs to safety. This display of power will frighten those who are God's enemies but will be a welcome call to those who choose to follow Him. Insofar as His sons will come "from the west," this isn't referring to a return from Assyria, which lies in the east. Scholars say this refers to a return from the Jewish Diaspora, which in the past 2,000 years has dispersed the Israelites all over the world.
v. 11a: "They will come trembling like birds from Egypt And like doves from the land of Assyria;"- This verses depicts the scattering of the Israelite people, dispersed far and wide as a consequence of the Assyria's conquest of their lands, and indeed, people have been fighting over Palestine ever since. The Israelites had been as foolish as "trembling...birds," seeking to protect themselves with foreign alliances rather than depending on YHWH. The return from "Egypt" is symbolic as their place of exile-i.e., the Jewish Diaspora. But Israelites will return like "Doves," a reference to migratory birds that know how to find their way back to the homeland they left.
v. 11b: "And I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord." - Many Bible scholars see the term "their houses" as a foreshadowing of the return of the Israelites to the Promised Land following the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to the earth to establish His Millennial Kingdom (Dan. 9:27; Isa. 11:11-12).
APPLICATION-The Example of a Loving Father
1. Hosea's lesson show us that like a faithful parent, God's love for His people never ceases (vv. 1-2). God always yearns for His people to return to Him and never gives up on them. He called His people Israel through the prophets in ancient times, and He is still calling them today through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. Hosea's lesson shows us that the "cords" the LORD places on us are bonds of love (vv. 3-4). The moral standards placed on the Israelites by the Mosaic Law and on us by the complete Bible were designed by God to preserve and protect us rather then take away our freedom.
3. Hosea's lesson forces us to seriously consider who are we allowing to be our master (vv. 5-7). Because of their refusal to keep their covenant with God and depend on Him to protect them, the Israelite, by default, opened the door for the barbaric Assyrians to become their new masters. The same thing can happen to any Christian who allows himself or herself to fall away into sin and apostasy.
4. Hosea's lesson shows that God's punishment when His people are unfaithful is always just (vv. 8-9). The Israelites in today's lesson had reached the point where they were so faithless, they basically deserved to be written off as God's people, yet God, in His care for them, did not inflict the full measure of His righteous wrath. Christians who turn their back on God will face divine discipline in this life and will be required to account for their sins at the judgment seat in the next life (Rom. 14:10-12).
5. Hosea's lesson shows that the LORD still has a plan to redeem His people Israel (vv. 10-11). One of the major purposes of the Tribulation in the End-Times is the conversion of the Jewish remnant to faith in Jesus Christ as Messiah (Zech. 13:8-9; Ezek. 20 generally). After being dispersed by the Assyrians in 721 B.C., the Jew were scattered all over the world in what is know as the Jewish Diaspora. There are an estimated number 14.8 million people of Jewish descent in the world today, of which 7.6 million reside in the U.S. and 6.7 million in the secular state of Israel. God isn't finished with them.
