Israel: A Biography

Hosea 10 to 14

This Story of Israel.

A God and His people.

Israel a bride and God her groom.

Israel a son and God the Father.

This Story of God’s people reads like a biography.  Filled with family details and elements of history.  With first person narrative.  It’s very intimate.  God’s side of the Story, when we’ve had a front row seat to all the things Israel has done and not done.  

Ch 11:1 “When Israel was a child,

I loved him,

And out Egypt I called him.

2 But the more I called Israel

The further they went away from me.

Ch 11:3 “It was I who taught Ephraim to walk

But they did not realize it was I who healed them.”

8 How can give you up, Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, Israel?

My heart is changed within me

All my compassion is aroused.

9 I will not carry out my fierce anger,

Nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.

For I am God and not man,

The Holy One among you.

I will not in wrath.”

Like a patient father to an unruly teenage son who is so bent on pursuing independence. 

A parent who doesn’t want to watch his son make mistakes but knows he cannot stop his child.   The hardest of all things to watch.  The back of your child as they walk away from you.

The NIV Notes.  God will not be untrue to His Love.  He will punish Israel but will not destroy. 

Ch 13;4 “But I am the LORD your God,

Who brought you out of Egypt.

You shall acknowledge no God but me.

No Savior except me.

5 I cared for you in the desert

In the land of burning heat.

6 When I fed them, they were satisfied.

When they were satisfied, they become proud;

Then they forgot me.

11 In my anger, I gave you a king,

And in my wrath I took him away.

14 I will ransom…

I will redeem…

15 I will have no compassion…

Their springs will fail

Wells will dry up

And storehouse plundered of their treasures. “

In chapters 12 and 13, Israel’s long trail of God’s providence and leading is laid out and contrasted with sin and rebellion and God’s anger. Israel’s kings given to Israel by God “in anger” were taken away “in wrath”, and floated away “like a twig on the surface of the waters”. (Intro to Hosea) (Ch 10:7 & 13:11).

Does this illustration of his anger also show his grace?

That we get far less than we deserve?

And that His compassion resides right beside His anger?

That seems so much like a parent!!

God demands to be acknowledged and desires to be chosen and remembered.  He does not want pawns or puppets.  But He will remove His blessing, His bounty, His plenty and abundance.

He will allow consequences, scarcity.  The curses of covenant disobedience. Of bearing the heavy weight of the guilt. Watching Israel walk on the path it chose, regardless of all the road signs of warning along the way. 

But in this biography, God never stops calling out or longing for the heart of His people.

Ch 14:1 “Return, O Israel,

To the LORD your God.

2 Take words with you

And return to God. “

Take words with you.

Come empty handed.

But don’t come with nothing.

Come with contrite hearts.

With the words of repentance on your lips.

Their hearts and hands so guilty of crafting idols and defiled from bringing offerings. 

Hosea’s life was an open book. 

Honest and vulnerable and very likely filled with shame.

Hosea’s relationship with Gomer would make him unclean and untouchable. 

And yet, like Hosea, was told to pursue Gomer, as God pursues Israel.   

When I read all these words God’s love seems endless and His pursuit relentless, His compassion something He cannot put out or douse, unquenchable.   Like a parent’s love for a child.    

Israel’s Story is filled with scandal and intrigue.

Unfathomably deep and high and wide Love.

Israel’s Story.

Our story.

God’s furious longing for our hearts and our souls.

Standing at the end of the road, waiting and watching.  

And our meandering, sampling, path to Him.  

With empty hands.