"When Israel was a child, I loved him.
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols."
In the earlier chapters of the book, Hosea is instructed to willingly commit one of man's greatest mistakes - take a woman who is already ready to leave him. The Word of the Lord has come to him; life will never be the same, and Hosea's now becomes a doomed, tragic romance. He obeys and marries a "wife of whoredom," and as they obey Yahweh in having children with cursed names, we watch them with compassion. Perhaps some mixture of pity.
But when the story of Hosea seems to be done, there is a break in the text. Calling His people to the stand, Yahweh takes over the narrative.
"What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?" He groans. (Hosea 6:4) Israel is tortured by his own inequity - he tugs at the hem of the Infinite and cries out my God, we - Israel - know You. (8:2) But there has been a sowing of sin in the beautiful hills of Israel. The crooks and crevices of the Shephelah are running red with blood; the wadis running down to the Sea are filthy with streams of idol worship. There is screaming ringing up to the ears of the Heavens, and it is something that the pleading of Israel cannot drown out.
Hosea looks down into the little faces of his children and must see, as Israel should, the coming judgement for the days of sowing. There is a concept in the Holy Text - whatever you put into the ground comes right back up to you. Perhaps it is not always in the way you'd expected; even famine is a sort of answer. But there is always an answer coming.
The storm-clouds are gathering on the horizon.
Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,
because of your great evil.
At dawn the king of Israel
shall be utterly cut off.
(Hosea 10:15)
--
When Israel was a child, I loved him.
It's like a broken whisper, lost in the memory of a time so long ago it's grown faded and wrinkled from being touched, spoken into the quiet between thoughts.
Yahweh allows Himself to be seen by us, to be felt by us. He parts back the veil for a moment to let us into the privateness, the seclusion, of a memory that only He has from this time that is past. Everyone who was alive to see it is gone; yet Yahweh knows.
What is it about a man's heart that stubbornly holds onto love? What is it about the heart of Yahweh that still remembers Israel after the long years? One of these is a mere shadow, a fleeting thought, inside the vast expanse of the other. As the rushing roar of battle starts to build, ready to tear into the children of God like a hungry mouth full of teeth, we drop back down into the silence at the beginning.
And out of Egypt I called my son.
(A toddler wobbles over to his father on a street in Jerusalem, tiny hands waving in the air to catch his balance. I watch him until he's scooped up into his father's waiting arms. I smile to myself.)
In the beginning, Israel creeps out into the wasteland like a child afraid of every shadow behind every tree, dragging their feet so there are long, deep claw-marks in the sand. But they respond to the Voice. They allow themselves to be led. They waddle to Yahweh, and He scoops them up into His Arms, into His very Presence which, in some Divine modesty, comes down to dwell. Deuteronomy 1:31 says that He "carried them all the way."
In all of the other religions, one must work their way up to the gods. There are stairs, works, feats of strength, and others between every man and his eternal rest. But only Yahweh came down.
Only Yahweh left Heaven for the rescue of mankind.
In the desert, Israel soon began to hear another voice. A voice thick with lust, new and fresh, tempting and hard to ignore. They wandered off, ripping their tiny hands out of the Almighty ones holding onto them, and tripped headfirst into a love-affair they couldn't pull themselves out of - they put their blood onto the alters of the Baals, and turned their back to the Father.
Israel, there are such dark days ahead of you.
But for all your wandering, you are so deeply loved. You are remembered, even on the day of battle, even as the yoke settles down around your beautiful neck, even as the swords are being sharpened to split through your heart.
O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. (14:8)
As the light dims on the horizon, the sun prepares to take another rotation across the heavens. It will come back. It will rise again. There will be a new day, a day of healed apostasy. A day of wisdom and righteousness.
A day for a son to run into the arms of his Father and be restored.
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