Spoken Gospel podcast with a photo of David and Seth

Hosea 11:12-14:9: Relentless Judgement and Free Love

About This Episode

Hosea's last oracles of doom are some of his darkest. But his prophecies of mercy are also some of his most explicit. Seth and David talk about God's most brutal punishments and how they reveal God's even deeper commitment to his love in Jesus.

Listen Now Read Show Notes

Listen On

Apple Podcasts Youtube Spotify

Hosea 11:12–14:9: Relentless Judgment and Free Love

Show Notes

In this final episode on the book of Hosea, David Bowden and Seth Stewart walk through the closing chapters of one of the Old Testament's most intense prophetic books. These chapters contain Hosea's final warnings to Israel, cycling through the darkest descriptions of judgment in the entire book before arriving at a stunning declaration of free, unconditional love. The Exodus story serves as the controlling metaphor for this final stretch, and the Gospel shines through as God reveals himself as a husband who will go to any length — even the cost of his own life — to win back his unfaithful bride.

Back to the ABCs: The Exodus as Israel's Defining Story

The end of Hosea leans heavily on the Exodus narrative as a way of explaining Israel's situation one final time. God reminds Israel that he loved them, carried them out of Egypt with compassionate arms and cords of kindness — language drawn straight from Deuteronomy, where God describes carrying Israel through the wilderness like a father carries his son. But the harder God pulled, the more Israel ran away. The Exodus functions as the Gospel of the Old Testament, the foundational act of salvation that Israel needed to remember again and again.

Now, God warns, Israel will enter a new period of captivity. Just as they spent 400 years enslaved in Egypt, they will be handed over to Assyria. This is not a threat that repentance might still avert. Hosea does not believe Israel will escape this punishment. The exile is inevitable. Even the naming of Hosea and Gomer's children — "not my people" — points forward to a future generation, not the current one. The hope is real, but it belongs to those who come after. This raises a pointed question: if judgment is guaranteed, why repent at all? The answer lies in the difference between corporate destruction and personal salvation. Hosea himself will be swept into exile along with the rest of the nation, but he is not equally guilty before God. A faithful remnant — a small pocket of true believers — can still have a relationship with God even when their nation crumbles around them.

Wrestling with Jacob: Israel's Inherited Struggle

Hosea reaches even further back than the Exodus, all the way to Genesis and the story of Jacob. Jacob's name means "trickster," and his life proved it. He grabbed his brother Esau's heel in the womb, stole his birthright, deceived his father for the blessing, manipulated Laban with his flocks, and even wrestled the angel of God to the ground, refusing to let go until he received a blessing. When God changed Jacob's name to Israel — meaning "to strive with God" — it became a name the nation would live up to for all the wrong reasons.

God's comparison between Israel and Jacob drives home the inevitability of judgment. Israel has not progressed beyond its namesake. The striving, the trickery, the wrestling with God's commands — it has remained consistent across their entire history. Yet there is a thread of hope woven into even this comparison. Jacob wrestled with God, yes, but that wrestling led to a blessing. There was still some desire for God underneath all the scheming. So in Hosea 12:6, God calls Israel to "hold fast to love and justice and wait continually for your God." The language of holding fast echoes Jacob clinging to the angel until daybreak. God is saying: you are going into exile, and it will be dark, but hold on to love and justice through the night and wait for me. When the sun comes up after exile, the blessing will come — just as it did for Jacob.

Salvation Through Judgment: The Paradox of Exile

One of the most striking ideas in these chapters is that exile is simultaneously punishment and rescue. Hosea draws a parallel between three "goings out": Jacob went out to the land of Aram to find his wife, Israel went out from Egypt to find God, and now God is taking Israel out of the promised land and into exile — where he will find his bride again. What looks like destruction is also mercy. God is ripping Israel out of the corrupt systems they built, tearing away their allegiances to false kings and golden calves, stripping them of the wealth that made them say, "I'm rich — how could God not be for me?"

God reminds Israel that he will make them dwell in tents again, recalling the days at Sinai in the wilderness. This is not nostalgia; it is a reset. It is God saying, "Let's get back to basics." Jesus patterned this same reality in his own ministry. He began in the wilderness with John the Baptist. He called people out of Jerusalem to meet him in Galilee. When the crowds tried to make him king by force after witnessing his miracles, he withdrew by himself to be alone with the Father. Jesus, like Hosea, was a prophet brought out of Egypt to save his people from their misplaced trust in wealth, power, and political security. He called out the moneychangers in the temple, challenged the rich young ruler to sell everything and follow him, and told the religious leaders to attend to the weightier matters of the law — love and justice — rather than tithing a tenth of their dill. And like Israel, Jesus was taken outside the city. But he was not just a prophet pronouncing judgment — he was Israel itself, reenacting the nation's story in his own body. He went outside Jerusalem to be judged for Israel's sins so that salvation could be offered to anyone who repents and returns to him.

The Darkest Chapter: Child Sacrifice and the Fury of God

Chapter 13 represents the lowest point in the book. Israel's national reputation has become a shameful proverb: "Those who offer human sacrifices kiss calves." The golden calf of Exodus was Israel's original sin; when the northern kingdom divided, they doubled down by making two golden calves. Now they have escalated to sacrificing their own children and then kissing the idols in gratitude — showing intimacy and loyalty to the very gods that demanded their children's lives. This is especially devastating because children were central to God's salvation plan for the world. Israel's calling was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In killing their children, they were not only committing an unspeakable evil but actively dismantling the future God had entrusted to them.

God's response is severe. Israel will vanish like morning mist, like dew that evaporates, like chaff blown from the threshing floor. He compares himself to a lion and a bear tearing apart its prey. He calls on Death and Sheol — possibly even invoking Mot, the Assyrian god of death — to come and unleash their power. "O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?" In context, this is not a taunt of triumph; it is a summoning. God is calling the forces of destruction down on his own people. The chapter closes with one of the hardest lines in all of Scripture: "Compassion is hidden from my eyes." This raises an unavoidable question about whether God is justified in speaking this way. The answer requires stepping into God's moral framework rather than imposing a modern one. Sin is far worse than any human system of justice can account for, and its consequences extend beyond a single life into eternity. God is not a tyrant hoarding power; the means of his judgment — Assyria's invasion — is the natural consequence of the political entanglements Israel chose for itself. God did not make Assyria behave differently than it always had. He simply removed his protection, and Israel's sin came back on its own head.

From Wrath to Free Love: The Promise of Chapter 14

After the darkness of chapter 13, chapter 14 opens with a prayer of repentance that Hosea invites the faithful to pray alongside him. "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Take with you words and return to the Lord and say, 'Take away our iniquity.'" Unlike the false repentance of chapter 6, where Israel offered vague, generic prayers without ever naming their sin, this prayer is specific: "Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses. We will say no more 'Our God' to the work of our hands." They renounce their trust in political powers and their loyalty to handmade idols. And that is all they do. They repent, name their sin, and turn back to God. There is no pilgrimage, no elaborate ritual, no years of proving themselves. God's response is breathtaking in its simplicity: "I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely, and my anger will turn from them."

God then reverses every metaphor of judgment he used earlier. Israel was like vanishing dew; now God himself will be like dew, watering them. Israel was withered and fruitless; now they will blossom like lilies and grow deep roots like the cedars of Lebanon. Their beauty will be like the olive tree, their fragrance like the forests of Lebanon. This is Eden language — the Garden restored, abundance freely given, not because Israel earned it but because God chose to love them. The healing God promises is not merely forgiveness for past unfaithfulness but an inward transformation of the heart's very inclination toward apostasy. He is not just pardoning them; he is remaking them.

Abiding in the Vine: Hosea's Echo in John 15

The final verse of Hosea's speech ties the whole book together: "O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress, and from me comes your fruit." Ephraim means "fruitful," yet throughout the book, fruitful Ephraim kept looking for fruit from idols, kings, and political alliances instead of from the God who named them. When they forgot where their fruit came from, they became withered grapes, shriveled trees, chaff in the field — dew that dries up and vanishes.

Jesus takes up this same imagery in John 15 when he tells his disciples, "I am the true vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing." The parallel to Hosea is unmistakable. Branches that do not remain in the vine are thrown into the fire and burned — the same fate Hosea describes for faithless Israel. But those who abide in Jesus' love and keep his commands will bear the fruit that Ephraim always longed for. And what is Jesus' command? "Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down one's life for one's friends." The central question of Hosea — where does Israel's fruitfulness come from? — finds its final answer in Jesus, who paid the ransom, absorbed the sting of Death, and now invites his people to remain in the love that was freely given. The intimacy God has always wanted with his people is not something believers need to manufacture through emotional experiences or spiritual techniques. It is already theirs in the Messiah. The work now is not to achieve closeness with God but to discover how close he already is — and to treasure that reality more and more each day.

Transcript

David: Hey, everyone. Welcome to our series covering the Book of Hosea. Before we jump in, we wanted to offer a quick word about the sensitive nature of this book.

Seth: Hosea's full of really intense imagery, um, and often pretty sexual imagery. So if you're listening with your family or with kids, you might wanna be a little careful.

David: Yeah. We're not gonna get crazy explicit, but you just might want to use discretion when, uh, diving into this book with us. But we're excited to preach Christ out of it and go through the Book of Hosea with you. [upbeat electronic music] Here we go.

Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit dedicated to the idea that every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is about Jesus, and this podcast is our experiment to publicly test that belief. Every episode, hosts David Bowden and Seth Stewart work through a biblical text to see how it helps us see and savor Jesus. Let's jump in. [upbeat music]

David: Well, welcome, everyone, to the Spoken Gospel podcast, and welcome to the last episode on the book of Hosea.

Seth: The final, final episode.

David: Yeah.

Seth: [laughs]

David: So what are these last three chapters mainly about, Seth?

Seth: Yeah. We're gonna set up... We're actually gonna go back a little bit into chapter 11-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... uh, which we ended on last time, to just set up the context a little bit, but really, this is Hosea's final warnings, uh, to Israel, and it's mostly all bad news. Israel's history is going to continue to repeat itself.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Israel will continue to trust in political powers and false gods, and as they do so, they're gonna fall deeper and deeper into powerlessness and eventually destruction. But the good news of the Book of Hosea is that God will not give up on his bride.

David: Mm.

Seth: He's actually gonna go to any lengths to woo her and call her back out of exile, even if that costs his own life, which, obviously, one day it will.

David: Yeah. Okay.

Seth: Uh, and that's where we're going.

David: Yeah.

Seth: That's the, that's the, the... That's the book, the ending of Hosea.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But to set it up, we need to go back. We talked about, "Out of Egypt will call my son"-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and how Matthew picks up on this.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Like, we feel like Matthew's taking liberties, and-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... he's not. He was just reading the text well.

David: Yes.

Seth: But there's also a whole bunch going on there with Egypt as, like, an, a category to understand the last half of the book, so.

David: Yes, so while, while chapter 11 winds down this la- one of these last sections of woes against Israel, it also opens up the last section, um, of the book, which f- which uses Egypt and the Exodus story as a central metaphor to, um, explain to Israel in one last-ditch effort what their actual situation is.

Seth: It's funny how, like, Exodus is like, "Okay, guys, you're not getting this. Let's go back to the Exodus." [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: Like, I feel like that happens-

David: Back to the ABCs.

Seth: Go back, back to the ABCs. Remember you were saved?

David: Yeah.

Seth: Let's, let's keep that-

David: [laughs]

Seth: Let's keep that going. Remember what you did back then? Don't do that anymore. I feel like that's-

David: That's so true

Seth: ... a pretty common thing-

David: It's a very common thing

Seth: ... throughout scripture.

David: Well, I mean, I think they call it... Like, the, the, the Exodus story is the Gospel of the Old Testament.

Seth: Yep, that's right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: I've heard that, too.

David: It's the thing that needs to get repeated over and over again. Uh, and so, um, God explains that he loved Israel so much. Like, he's putting himself in Hosea as the husband's shoes, and he's saying, "I loved you, and I carried you out of Egypt. I wrapped you up in compassionate arms, and I bound you with cords, but they were cords of kindness."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "And I pulled you out of Egypt to bring you to myself, but the harder I pulled, the more you ran away from me."

Seth: Yeah, Deuteronomy even says, uh, "I carried you through the wilderness like a father carries his son."

David: Yeah.

Seth: He's pulling on Deuteronomy language.

David: Yes.

Seth: But he's also saying, "And like a rebellious kid, no matter how fatherly and loving I wa- You just went further and further away."

David: That's right. And so he says, "Now then, you're going to..." A- and he ends up picking up on almost every aspect of the Exodus story, and it's achronological. Like, this-

Seth: So meaning like-

David: The order is all over the place

Seth: ... like the plagues and then-

David: Yeah, like-

Seth: ... the exile, the Red Sea.

David: Right, but right now, we're going back to maybe even, like, the, the days, uh, like at the end of Genesis when Israel first went into Egypt. He said, "You're gonna go... You will not return to the land of Egypt. This time I'm gonna send you into Assyria. So you're gonna enter into a new time of captivity, a new time of enslavement. Just like you had those 400 years of enslavement, uh, under Egypt, now you're gonna enter into a new time of, of enslavement, but it's gonna be worse. It's gonna be under Assyria."

Seth: I don't think we've talked about this yet, but one of the things that's really important to know about Hosea, Hosea doesn't believe that Israel will actually escape punishment.

David: No, it's inevitable.

Seth: Like, um, I think we hear a lot about repenting and returning to the Lord, and we'll talk about that today as well.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But that's almost always a future-oriented thing.

David: That's right. That's for-

Seth: It's like that's for generations-

David: ... the next generation

Seth: ... in the future.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So when he says, "You're going to be like Assyria," it's like there's no hope that they're gonna escape Assyria.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Right?

David: Right.

Seth: And [laughs] -

David: Well, yeah, and that's picked up in the fact that it's, uh, Hosea and Gomer's children that he first calls not my people and then says, "I will call not my people my people." He's saying, "Not our generation but the next generation."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "Our children maybe-"

Seth: Right

David: ... "will be called my people again."

Seth: Right.

David: The future hope.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So y- And, and so that's what they should be picking up on. It's like, oh, if going into Assyria is going to be our new Egyptian punishment kind of thing-

Seth: Right

David: ... then we should be expecting to be there for the long haul 'cause our ancestors were there for 400 years.

Seth: Right. Then l- answer this question. Then why doesn't that just undercut any motivation to do right?

David: Oh, sure.

Seth: Because I've... I was... As I was reading this, I was like, okay, if Assyria is guaranteed, why should they repent-

David: Right

Seth: ... if it's guaranteed to happen?

David: Personal salvation instead of corporate salvation.

Seth: Meaning, like, individuals still might be saved?

David: Would you say Hosea, though he, uh, will be bound up in the exile to Assyria because of where he lives, is equally as guilty before God for the sins of Israel?No.

Seth: No.

David: He stands apart because he's faithful. And like Hosea mentions-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... that there will be this remnant of people. So there's hope even in exile that you can still have a relationship with God and still be humble and serve him and trust him only, even though your nation's still gonna get wiped away. So yes, the righteousness of, of, of a small pocket won't ultimately save Israel from being swept away by Assyria-

Seth: Mm

David: ... but it will... It could still mean individual salvation, though it might mean corporate destruction.

Seth: And that goes back to a couple of different other things we're, we've been seeing. It's like trusting in political powers. It's like, yeah, actually all the political mi- power might be stripped away from Israel, but you'll still have a deeply personal, intimate relationship with the Lord.

David: Right.

Seth: And that's actually worth losing all the political power you could hope for.

David: Definitely. And I think that's the picture that God is painting when he tells Hosea to take Gomer out into the wilderness and to be alone with her th- in a s- period of sexual abstinence.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, it's like, "Let's strip it all away. Let's get back to the beginning." And he's gonna pick up on that-

Seth: What is non-sexual abstinence? [laughs]

David: Non-sexual ab- like, I'm abstaining from coffee.

Seth: Got it. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: So the New Year's resolution-

David: The New Year's resolution is non-sexual abstinence. Uh, yes. Uh, good thing we gave that disclaimer at the beginning of the show.

Seth: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: It's good. [laughs] Okay, so, um, anyway, so he, he, he says, "You're gonna go back into, um, a time of captivity, and, uh, and it's going to be under Assyria. And there you're going to experience my burning anger," you know?

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: But he says, "It won't be full. Like, I'm not going to utterly destroy you, uh, but I will keep a remnant," um, and-

Seth: And a remnant just means a small pocket of true believers?

David: Yeah, a small-

Seth: Faithful

David: ... some leftovers. [laughs]

Seth: Leftovers. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: The Israeli leftovers.

David: But yeah, a small pocket of, of believers that were faithful to God through it all. Um, and so that brings us, uh, up to chapter 12, but it just... It, it's really important just for us to flag the Exodus story, because-

Seth: We're gonna see a whole bunch of Exodus

David: ... it's gonna get picked up more and more.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yep.

Seth: Okay. Cool. And then we, uh, get introduced to Ephraim, which we've seen before, but Ephraim-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... is just another name for-

David: Israel

Seth: ... Israel, right?

David: The northern kingdom.

Seth: And the first judgment we hear about Israel in this next passage, it goes even back further than the Exodus.

David: Mm.

Seth: It goes back to the very first, like, stories we hear about Judah the person, Israel the person.

David: Or J- or Jacob.

Seth: Or Jacob, sorry.

David: Jacob.

Seth: Jacob the person. Uh...

David: Yeah, from Genesis.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah. Yeah, Jacob was an interesting character, right? He, uh, like, h- uh, his na- uh, what is it? His name means tricker, like trickery?

Seth: Trickster.

David: Trickster, yeah.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so it's like he was a twin, and he, like, grabs his brother's heel, which is like an, uh, Hebrew idiom for, like, being a trickster.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And, uh, and then-

Seth: It's like he pulls him back into the womb and comes out-

David: Right, yeah, exactly

Seth: ... first kind of thing.

David: And then, like, uh, he tricks his brother Esau for his birthright.

Seth: Mm.

David: He tricks his father for his blessing. And then he-

Seth: He manipulates the angel of the Lord by wrestling him to the ground and waiting for him to bless him.

David: Yes.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Like, he doesn't do... A- He tricks, uh, Laban when he's out-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... with his sheep or goats or whatever they are. He, like, he's a trickster.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And, and God compares Israel to Jacob, because-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... Jacob's name got changed to Israel.

Seth: Right, it's the f-

David: And-

Seth: It's, he's the forefather of Israel.

David: Yes, and we're told in the name-changing ceremony why he's changing their name to Israel, and because the word Israel means to strive with God or to wrestle with God.

Seth: Mm.

David: And he's like, "Israel, you've really lived up to your namesake, 'cause you really keep taking me to the mat." [laughs]

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: Like, "You keep striving with me. You keep, you know, being tricky."

Seth: And so the reason why this shows up here is, like, the inevitability of judgment that's coming. It's like, "You've not progressed beyond your name."

David: That's right.

Seth: Like, "Who you were in the past has remained consistent throughout your whole history with me-

David: Mm

Seth: ... as a people. You're still striving with me. You're still struggling with me. You're still wrestling with my commands, and I can no longer bless you because you're so disobedient." Is that the-

David: Yeah, and I think there's also... So yes to that, and then there's also a thread of hope in it. Because, yes, Jacob wrestled with God, but that led to a blessing.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, there was still some semblance of a m- of, of s- of a heart that wanted God. Like, that wanted him. And so at the end of the comparison between Israel and Jacob, we hear in 12:6, "So you by the help of your God return and hold fast." And that's, like, the same idea as, as, as-

Seth: Oh yeah, like wrestling

David: ... Jacob holding fast to the angel until he would bless him-

Seth: Right

David: ... in the wrestling. "Now hold fast, but to love and to justice and wait continuing in God." He's like, "Go, go back to that moment where I blessed Jacob-

Seth: Let's-

David: ... and wrestle with love and justice-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and hold fast to them until I come and return. 'Cause you're gonna go into exile. It's gonna be bad. You're gonna have to hold on fast to love and justice if you're going to survive. And you need to wait for me. And then I will bless you when the sun comes up after exile."

Seth: Yeah.

David: Just like it did in the Jacob story.

Seth: And then verse 10, he kinda says, he, he introdu- I guess Hosea is, uh, speaking for God, basically, "I spoke to the prophets. It was I who multiplied visions and who the prophets gave parables. And, um, by a prophet the Lord brought Israel up out of Egypt-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and by a prophet he was guarded. Ephraim has given bitter provocation, so his Lord will leave his blood guilt on him and will pay him for his disgraceful deeds." But I think the reason why I bring that up here is that, okay, uh, this is the way that Ephraim will be saved, Israel will be saved-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... is by holding fast to love and justice in a way they haven't so far, and by listening to the words of a prophet, right? So in Hosea, God is like, "I've sent you all these prophets before."

David: Right.

Seth: "Hosea is another one of these prophets. If you listen to him, if you hold fast to love and justice, you will be saved."

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Right?

David: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and I think there's something else happening here too that's pulling on the Exodus story. So he talks about how Jacob had to flee to the land of Aram out in the wilderness, away from, uh-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... the promised land, um, to find, like, a wife, and he ser- like, he served there. Uh, uh, he went out is the idea. Like, Jacob goes out to find his wife.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Um, and then the, i- in, in, uh, the Exodus story, Israel had to go out from Egypt in order to-

Seth: Oh

David: ... find God.

Seth: To find God, right.

David: And so now he's saying, "I'm taking you out again, but this time out of the promised land-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and into exile, and that's where I'll find my wife again."

Seth: Mm.

David: So just as Jacob found his wife, just as Israel found God, both while they were taken out, now God is saying, "I'm gonna do the same thing to you. I'm gonna take you out, and there in the wilderness you'll find me."

Seth: It sounds like more mercy than-

David: Yes

Seth: ... judgment.

David: It is mercy. He's, he's ripping them out of the systems that they've built that keep them from being able to follow God.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, he's tearing their allegiances to their kings out of their hands. Um-

Seth: So what's the role of the prophet in there? Moses is the... Is he, uh, he talking about Moses there? "By a prophet the Lord-

David: Yep, mm-hmm

Seth: ... brought them out of Egypt."

David: Yeah, he's definitely talking about Moses there, for sure. Yeah. And it's like, I think he's also, like, just trying to, like, show that they are linked into their history.Uh, y-you know, and, and he's, and he's done the work already of linking them to the Exodus story, linking them to the Jacob story, and now he's bringing all that back to say, "Yes, you're going into exile, but you going to Assyria, yes, it's like you going to Egypt, but it's also like you coming out of Egypt."

Seth: Hmm.

David: It's both your punishment and your salvation-

Seth: Hmm

David: ... together. And so w- I mean, he's gonna pick up on some of that-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... ironic reversal of is this judgment or is this salvation? And the answer is yes.

Seth: It's kind of both.

David: Which is, like, a really interesting thing to meditate on, like, um, how God saves us from our sin-

Seth: Through judgment

David: ... sometimes is by ripping our systems of sin out from us.

Seth: Yeah. I th- I heard one theologian, I think his name is James Hamilton, he talks about, like, God's, uh, salvation comes through judgment.

David: Yeah, yeah, James Hamilton, he wrote a-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... whole book on it, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah, God's salvation through judg-

Seth: I think

David: ... yeah, God's salvation through judgment or something like that.

Seth: I think that's what it is.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And so this is kind of a picture that you're gonna be sent out in judgment for your lack of love and your-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... lack of justice, but it's in that same place of judgment I'm also gonna bring you back-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and make you-

David: Right

Seth: ... um-

David: And he picks up on that i- in the, in the part right before, uh, i- in between the two texts that we've talked about. So these, this is verses 7 to 9. Uh, he com- he compares Israel to a, um, disgraceful merchant that's, like, rigging the scales to try to, like, cheat the system.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And, um, they're like, a- and the way they do is really funny. They're like, "Uh, I'm rich. How could God not be for me?" Like-

Seth: Right

David: ... like, "I'm rich. I've found a lot of wealth for myself."

Seth: I can't be sinful-

David: I can't be sinful-

Seth: ... if I'm rich

David: ... if things are going so well.

Seth: Right.

David: [laughs] Like you've never melt, met more of a health and wealth-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... person in your life. Uh, and then God says, uh, in order to heal them from that, he's going to, um-

Seth: Mm

David: ... he, he, he's, he reminds them that he's the God who took them from the land of Egypt, and he's going to make them dwell in tents again and have the days of their appointed feasts again.

Seth: Hmm.

David: And so again, this is him saying-

Seth: Like I'm gonna strip away your wealth.

David: Yep.

Seth: I'm gonna reduce you back down to poverty-

David: Right

Seth: ... so that we can feast together again.

David: Right. So, 'cause when they dwelt in tents, that was out-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... at Sinai-

Seth: Right

David: ... in the wilderness. And he's like, "Let's get back to basics." Like, [laughs] "Let's get you out of Egypt," right? "Let's rip you out of that system where you learned about golden calves and, you know?"

Seth: Right.

David: And raisin cakes. [laughs]

Seth: Raisin, uh, [laughs] yeah, cakes.

David: Cakes of raisins. [laughs]

Seth: Oh, you love the cakes of raisins.

David: And, like, let's get back to the-

Seth: It's a Hosea 1 deep cut right there. [laughs]

David: It's a deep cut. And, like, let's get back to the basics. And so, like, that is such an interesting, like, call to us. Um, and I think it's something that, like, I think Jesus patterned in his own life.

Seth: Well, he was a prophet-

David: Right

Seth: ... brought out of Egypt-

David: Yes

Seth: ... to save the people from their, their mis- the way that they, um, mistrusted wealth.

David: Yeah, totally.

Seth: Like, Jesus calls out the moneychangers in the temple.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: He calls out un- like, unjust weights and scales, right?

David: Yep. Yes, he does, and he, and he talks about the, like, the, the, uh, rich, young ruler, says, like, to "Sell all you have and follow me," trying to call him out of his corrupt system.

Seth: He calls to the priests that they need to consider the weightier things of the law-

David: Yes

Seth: ... like love and justice rather than-

David: Instead of tithing a 10th of their dill.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: Yeah, so it's like Jesus is a, a prophet-

David: Yes

Seth: ... in the vein of Hosea, and he's giving the same-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... does he give the same announcement of mercy and judgment? Like, you will inevitably be destroyed-

David: I mean, yes

Seth: ... Israel.

David: He, I mean, he does. Yeah, he does. He absolutely does. I, I mean, think about whenever, uh, Simon from Cyrene takes the cross of Jesus in Luke.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Um, right after he takes the cross, Jesus looks at the daughters of Jerusalem who are wailing for him, and he says, "Don't wail for me. Wail for yourself." And he quotes Hosea and talks about how you're going to want the mountains to fall on you-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... because my judgment's coming. But ironically, he's then gonna go take the judgment for them.

Seth: Right.

David: But yes, he, uh, he announces-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... ultimate doom. I mean, he talks about, like, uh, you know, Tyre and Sidon or whatever, like I, you know-

Seth: Yes.

David: It's-

Seth: "If the, if the miracles I had done here were done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented."

David: Right, but instead now, you know, these Jewish cities are going to be like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Seth: Hmm.

David: So yeah, he does. But what else he does that's lined up w-with this is that Jesus calls people out of their systems and into the wilderness. Like, this is where-

Seth: Hmm

David: ... we meet Jesus for the first time in his ministry is in the wilderness with John the Baptist.

Seth: Right.

David: Like, and people come out of Jerusalem, out of the-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... system to meet him. We often see him out in Galilee instead of inside Jerusalem, and so he's calling people out to himself.

Seth: Yeah. It makes me, like, rethink a lot of the monastic communities throughout history.

David: Yes.

Seth: I also always thought they're like, well, that's just the wrong way to engage culture. Like, get, make a-

David: Oh, right

Seth: ... making a city out in the middle of the desert, that feels like the wrong way to be an evangelist. But, like, there's, like, this really deep history. Like, that's, no, that's where the Lord meets his people-

David: Right

Seth: ... is in the wilderness-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... in poverty, in, away from everything they've grown comfortable. That's where God comes.

David: Yes. And then that's something Jesus himself does, right? Like, at the height of the time, whenever, uh, the, the people in Jesus' day wanted to make him like a king they could idol- or, uh, like, make into an idol.

Seth: Yeah.

David: They wanted to take him and make him king by force after they saw that he was a miracle worker. And they're like, "We're gonna go use his superpowers to take over Rome."

Seth: Yeah.

David: What does Jesus do? He withdraws by himself to go be-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... with God. He gets back to the basics. He goes and dwells in a tent again. You know, like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... and I think, like, that's the pattern. Like, so if you, if, if you're feeling like I'm, like, political idolatry like we talked about a few episodes ago-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... or last episode, uh, like, it, it's just so the water in which I swim. Like, I don't know where I start and it ends, you know? [laughs]

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, I'm just so enmeshed in it, uh, maybe the right solution for you is to follow in Jesus' footsteps and, like, go be alone with God. [laughs]

Seth: Yeah. I, um, I also keep thinking about, um, [sighs] Jesus as this prophet who is also taken outside the city-

David: Yes

Seth: ... who not just pronounces judgment, but is judged himself-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... so that his people, so that in that place of judgment, salvation could be granted for anyone who repents and returns to him. That's what, how Luke sets up his gospel. Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.

David: Yes.

Seth: So you have Jesus, who not only is a prophet in the vein of Hosea-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... but he is also-Israel.

David: Yes.

Seth: Like, he reenacts the story of Israel-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... within Israel.

David: Right.

Seth: So Israel had to go out-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... to be judged before they could be brought back in. But there was this internal problem within Israel, [laughs] right? Like-

David: Right

Seth: ... they were still corrupt on the inside. So, like, he geographically-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... maps on, in his own life, what's happening internally by going outside Jerusalem, being judged for the sins of Israel so that he might bring salvation to all of Is- all-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... of Israel once again.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Within. Like, does that-

David: Yeah. No, it does.

Seth: Do you agree that-

David: No, it does

Seth: ... we read that, that right?

David: Yeah. It's, it's really good. Yeah. Uh, the last thing, I just, verse 14 of chapter 12 was just staring me in the face, and I was like, um, we've been talking more and more about the way we see the apostles use the Bible.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: We're like, "I think I have the biblical warrant to do this." [laughs]

Seth: Continue.

David: But it says, like, "Ephraim has, has given bitter provocation, so his Lord will leave his blood guilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds." I think now in Christ, we can look to Jesus as the new Israel, right?

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Hanging on the cross in our place and say, "His Lord will leave our blood guilt on him and will repay him for our-"

Seth: Mm

David: ... "disgraceful deeds." It's just like a-

Seth: Even though we have provoked the Lord-

David: Yes

Seth: ... God leaves our blood guilt on Jesus-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... and he is repaid for our disgraceful deeds. And then I guess the other side of that is we are repaid for his-

David: Yeah, good deeds

Seth: ... his good deeds.

David: Yeah.

Seth: We're treated as if we are righteous.

David: Yes. Yeah. We're made a good wife of the fa- of, like, our husband. Yeah.

Seth: He makes us into the spotless bride-

David: Right

Seth: ... Ephesians 5.

David: Yeah. So anyway, okay. Uh, that's, uh, a... Hold on. Take a deep breath, everybody. Hold onto s- all those good feelings-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... 'cause we're jumping into [laughs] chapter 13.

Seth: [laughs] [gentle music] Okay, so chapter 13 is probably the darkest that Hosea gets.

David: Yes.

Seth: So chapter 14 is mostly all promise.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: It's all promise and redemption. So chapter three-

David: So we're gonna just skip to 14.

Seth: Just [laughs] skip right to 14.

David: [laughs]

Seth: Uh, chapter 13 is kinda the darkest this passage gets. It outlines what Israel has done wrong most, like, like, um, intensely-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and also describes God's consequences most, like, violently too.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So this is what Isra- Israel has done wrong. Um, when Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He was exalted in Israel. What, when it ha- says, "Ephraim-"

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... "and Israel" like that, what's the reference? 'Cause I th-

David: It-

Seth: I've been reading Ephraim as Israel.

David: It is. It's just h- Hebrew parallelism.

Seth: So when Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He was exalted in Israel. Do you just mean the leader of Israel or Israel as-

David: Israel was exalted inside of geographic Israel.

Seth: Got it. The people of Israel-

David: The people were exalted-

Seth: Got it. [laughs]

David: ... inside their country.

Seth: Uh, but he incurred guilt through Baal and died. So Israel has died by their idol worship-

David: Right

Seth: ... to Baal.

David: Spirit- spiritually and physically-

Seth: They've died

David: ... they've died.

Seth: And now they sin more and more because they make for themselves metal images.

David: They are literally dead in sin, as Ephesians 2 would say.

Seth: They, uh, they make idols skillfully out of silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. And it is said of them, this is, this is the quote the nations make about Israel.

David: If Israel had a one-liner that was, made them known to the whole world, this would be it.

Seth: Oh, those are the people who offer human sacrifices and kiss calves.

David: Ouch.

Seth: So, [laughs] so it's just... The, uh, actually the, it's, in the ESV that I'm reading from right now, it says, "Those who offer human sacrifices kiss calves."

David: Right.

Seth: So the idea-

David: They're linked

Seth: ... they're linked together. So remember the golden calf-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... that Israel set up was one of the first sins that they committed. When Israel became a divided kingdom between the north and the south-

David: The north kingdom, who Hosea is mainly writing to

Seth: ... made two golden calves-

David: Right. [laughs]

Seth: ... doubling the sin of the past.

David: Sinning more and more.

Seth: Sinning more and more, and now they're offering their children as sacrifices, and they're, I presume, literally kissing these calves-

David: Right, which was-

Seth: ... at some point in the ceremony

David: ... which, and child sacrifice was, like, one of the main reasons Israel was brought into Canaan in the first place, to put an end to this heinous sin. And now Israel themselves-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... are killing their children, which is the, I mean, one of the worst sins you could ever possibly imagine, one of the darkest human evils that has ever been invented. Um, and, a- and so, like, I d- I don't wanna belittle that when I do something theological here.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But it's like, it's made even worse by the fact that the children of Israel were God's salvation plan for the world.

Seth: Right.

David: So it's not only they're doing this absolutely horrific thing where they're actually killing their own children for an idol-

Seth: Right

David: ... but they are putting the future of God's salvific plans-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... for all creation to an end.

Seth: Yeah.

David: They're saying, like, "We don't care about our main goal as God's chosen people, were to be fruitful and multiply and to cover the earth, and instead we're killing our children."

Seth: Yeah, I, I also... Yeah, it's not good news. [laughs]

David: No.

Seth: And I, I was just kept thinking about that phrase, "kiss calves."

David: Yeah.

Seth: So it's like, I, I think you've been to, like, a lot of places. If you go down to a shrine, you'll see people just touch things-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... like pass by a holy or sacred image, and it's just worn out, like it's brown.

David: Yeah, it's like rubbed, yeah, like rubbed off.

Seth: So, like, presumably, this was actually part of the, the practice, and they're actually showing gratitude to these idols-

David: Yeah, and loyalty

Seth: ... and loyalty to these idols after having burned their children.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: So they're thankful, grateful to these idols, expressing intimacy with these idols-

David: Right

Seth: ... after they've murdered their children.

David: Right, and why, why are they so grateful? It's because they think these idols are giving them more money, and they're willing to kill their children-

Seth: More security, more safety

David: ... for more money.

Seth: Yeah. It's-

David: What?

Seth: It's gr- we haven't talked about, um-Abortion-

David: Mm

Seth: ... in this context.

David: Right.

Seth: And it's, it's difficult because there's a lot of complexities in that-

David: A lot of complexity

Seth: ... conversation and, like, nobody wants to get an abortion.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But, like, infanticide is not far removed from the world we live in today.

David: No.

Seth: And regardless of the justifications that we give for it, there is a sense in which, like, we still offer our children-

David: For our own comfort

Seth: ... for comfort, safety, security, financial provision.

David: Right.

Seth: And that's not to say that that's an irredeemable sin-

David: No

Seth: ... that God isn't willing to rescue people-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... who-

David: If you have had an abortion and you're listening to this, wait till chapter 14.

Seth: Chapter 14-

David: There's good news for you. [laughs]

Seth: ... is all about offering mercy-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and grace to those who have killed their children.

David: But yes, we are not far removed from this world to offer our children in order to make our lives marginally better.

Seth: And then to offer gratitude to those who allow us to do so.

David: Right.

Seth: So I'm thinking about, like, the politicians or-

David: Mm. Planned Parenthood

Seth: ... Planned Parenthood make it more feasible for us.

David: Right.

Seth: And we celebrate that fact.

David: Right.

Seth: Like, I don't think we're so far removed from that world, um-

David: I mean, we celebrate the ability to choose even. We've made choice over even life and death something to be celebrated and owned and, like, that empowers us, like the pro-choice movement. Like-

Seth: Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's thorny. [laughs]

David: It's thorny, yeah.

Seth: Like, and again, like, I don't wanna, like, make simplistic parallels.

David: No, obviously not.

Seth: However, like, human sacrifice is still a part of our culture today-

David: Mm

Seth: ... in a really powerful way. And, like, we would do honor to the Book of Hosea by meditating on that s- somewhat.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And God responds to Israel's version of child sacrifice by saying, "Therefore, Israel will be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes away early, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window." Or in other words, because they're so devoted to giving up their own offspring, they'll vanish.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Their worthless worship will cause them to vanish. They'll be evaporated from the land.

David: Right. And God then reminds them right after that, that they don't- they didn't need these Baals, these false gods, these idols that demand their children in the first place. He was the only god who saved them from Egypt. He brings back the Egypt and the Exodus story again, and he's like, "Y- you knew no God but me." [laughs] Like, "I was and should be your only God-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and besides me, you needed no savior. I was your only savior."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Um, and, like-

Seth: But because you've rejected this-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... I'm now to you like a lion-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and a bear. [laughs] Like, he's like, he compares himself to an animal ripping apart its prey.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And then in the last chapter, uh, in the last verses, he says this in 16, he says, "Because you've rebelled against God, you will fall by the sword. The little one- your little ones shall be dashed in pieces and their pregnant women ripped open." So one, think about the way in which that fits with their o- their commitment to child sacrifice already.

David: What they're already doing.

Seth: But also, think about it historically, the Assyrians literally did this.

David: Right.

Seth: They literally took Israelite children and hit their heads and killed them against the rocks. Psalm 137 references this as well.

David: Right, this was, like, a horrible war practice-

Seth: Right

David: ... of the- these, these, like, armies of Assyria.

Seth: Yeah, so, like, so he's describing historically what Assyria will do to them.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But he's also describing the judgment God has against, um, Israel's sin of child, like, of-

David: Right

Seth: ... refusing to commit to love and justice.

David: Right. He, he's saying it's proportionate.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right? It's eye for eye-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... tooth for tooth, that you've been doing this to your own children, so now I will allow it to be perpetrated against you-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... and you'll kind of get a taste of your own medicine.

Seth: That's right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And then we have a really interesting... So that, that's, that's chapter 13.

David: Yes.

Seth: That's as dark as chapter 13 gets.

David: Very dark.

Seth: Um, and there's an actually really famous passage here, too-

David: There is

Seth: ... which says this: "I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol. I shall redeem them from death." Now, that sounds-

David: It sounds, it sounds good

Seth: ... really positive. There's s- a lot of translation issues with that-

David: Yes

Seth: ... because the whole thing is judgment. It's really weird for there just to be a stri- a interruption of a projection of mercy. It could be rhetorical questions. "Shall I redeem you from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem you from death?"

David: Right.

Seth: Or it could be, like, God's compassionate intent. He wanted to redeem them from Sheol. God wanted to redeem them from death, but that's not what's happening anymore.

David: Right.

Seth: "O death, where are your plagues?" You talked about Egypt. This is Egypt coming back.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: "Bring on your plagues, O death. O Sheol, where is your sting? Bring on-

David: Yes

Seth: ... the underworld."

David: Yeah. He's calling out to death and the grave and plagues. Like, "Sheol, where are you?"

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "Plagues, let's go. Let me call them up."

Seth: And even the word here for death is probably a reference to Mot, the-

David: Mm. One of the gods

Seth: ... the one of the Assyrian gods of death, and he's like, "You wanna worship the god of death?"

David: Fine, he's coming.

Seth: He's coming.

David: Yeah. Yeah, and another way to read the ransom and redeem passages is that, um, it's kind of a reference back to how they wanted the mountains to fall on them. Instead of having Assyria get ahold of them, they would prefer just immediate death to what Assyria's gonna put them through.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And so God says, "No, I'm actually gonna ransom you from the power of the, the grave. I'm not gonna let you die."

Seth: Mm.

David: "And instead, I'm gonna make you go through this worse fate."

Seth: Oh, that's even worse.

David: It's, it's very grim.

Seth: We're used to reading this pos- this passage positively-

David: Right

Seth: ... because of Paul-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and how he uses it, and we'll get there-

David: We'll get there

Seth: ... there in a second.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But for now, we just need to sit with the fact that this is the starkest that Hosea is getting.

David: Right.

Seth: We've had one version of Israel's apostasy shown as, like, a prostitute bride whoring herself out to other men, um, and then yet God remaining faithful to her and calling her back.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But now we have... It's, it's just, it's just more vicious.

David: Right. I mean-

Seth: It's more brutal

David: ... and, like, the punctuation at the end of verse 14 seals itCompassion is hidden from my eyes. Like, God just takes compassion away from His, from His eyes and just only looks at Israel with wrath.

Seth: How is God justified talking about like this to anybody-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... regardless of how they've behaved? M- not even counting the fact that we have Jesus as an example who dies for his enemies. Like, like, let's not put Jesus off the table. Let's just put Him off the table for a second. [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like, how is God justified in talking about anybody He claims to love this way?

David: Mm. Yes. Uh, well, I mean, one, he's divorced them anyway, you know? [laughs] Like, but-

Seth: In the, in the book of Hosea, like, that's the metaphor.

David: Yeah.

Seth: You, you're divorced from me.

David: Right.

Seth: You're going to Assyria.

David: Uh, but, uh, I think what justifies God to remove compassion from His eyes and to pursue the people who used to be His people, uh, like a bear, and to rip them open and do these things, like, does this make God, like, a monster? Uh, like, is that kinda-

Seth: I mean-

David: ... what you're asking?

Seth: Yeah. I mean, He compares Himself to a bear-

David: Right

Seth: ... and a lion.

David: Yes.

Seth: And He's calling upon the powers of death to overtake His people. He, He sounds monstrous.

David: Right. So the first thing I would say is that question, what, just would not ring in the ears of the audience that read this book originally. We're, we're asking a very modern question.

Seth: Right. And-

David: Because-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... we are, we have a, we have an enlightened moral, uh, grid by which we judge the world. You know, call it human secularism, call it, uh-

Seth: Or even just, like, the way in which Christianity has permeated the world. Like-

David: Right, exactly

Seth: ... Christian values, [laughs] like-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... like, yeah.

David: The, the values of Jesus and love and compassion have so changed the world that this, Hosea's world just doesn't exist anymore because of Jesus. [laughs] Like, and so, but, um, w- what gives God the right to pursue people like a bear? And the answer is that God is the ultimate system of morality, of whe- of right and wrong, and so, like, w- we, we just, we, we, we, we, we have a hard time of, like, understanding what could someone possibly do to incur this kind of punishment from a God who's supposed to be loving.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Because it doesn't fit in our moral grid.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But we need God's moral grid, and God's moral grid is that sin is way worse than we think it is, especially s- horrible sins like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... killing your children, and that His justice that He presides over the world as King of the universe has far more reign and reach than we wanna think it does.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And that, that we are not ultimately morally culpable to one another as a society-driven culture like we think we are.

Seth: Meaning, like, my sin isn't primarily against-

David: A person

Seth: ... a person or-

David: That's right

Seth: ... the child that I killed-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... or my mother that I wronged.

David: And neither does it end with the action itself, the consequences of that action, or my life here on Earth. There are eternal reverberations of our sin because we are eternal beings created by eter- eternal God who gave eternal moral standards for His world, and we infringe upon those, and the consequences are far more dire than we think they are because we have bowed the knee to-

Seth: Right

David: ... a different king who's told us that we're not as bad as we think we are.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And so what gives God the right? It's 'cause He's operating in the only correct moral universe that there is. We've just been duped into thinking that we're actually, like, good.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And that we don't deserve punishment.

Seth: I mean, the other... I mean, the, the pejorative way to say that is, like, well, God said it's wrong, so it's wrong, and God said this is okay, so it's okay.

David: Right.

Seth: Which is ki- I mean, it's what you're saying in a, in a, in a way.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And I, I think I want to, like, apo- almost apologize for that-

David: Mm

Seth: ... in some way, right? It's like, well, God said it's wrong, so get over it, and this is a just punishment 'cause God's just. Get over it. Um, I know that's not the heart of what you're saying.

David: Right.

Seth: But it's like how willing should we be to accept that view of God? Like, you know what I mean? It's like that feels like such a hard line in the sand. It's like, well, God ult- is the ultimate decider between right and wrong, and if He just says something, we need to trust it's an accurate representation of what He's like.

David: Mm.

Seth: Right? Like, it's just a big-

David: So, uh, is, is killing your children wrong?

Seth: I would say so, yes. [laughs]

David: So God would agree with you.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: Uh, should those who kill their children be let off scot-free, or should they be held responsible?

Seth: They should be held responsible.

David: You sound like you agree with God here.

Seth: [laughs]

David: I don't know what you're trying to apologize for.

Seth: I think ripping people open, like, the violent imagery that God em- that Hosea employs-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... like, it's like, man, I don't know anybody who talks that way anymore, even people-

David: Right

Seth: ... who are advocates for justice, like, for... I mean, if the, if Israel has violated God's commands for love and justice, and even life itself, murdering people, um, still seems intense.

David: Mm.

Seth: Like, life in prison, maybe execution is as far as our society really gets, right?

David: Right. Yes.

Seth: Um-

David: Yeah, the point of, um, this eye for eye, tooth for tooth retribution i- is because God a- and, uh, is looking corporately at, at Israel and at the world. Uh, we have a very individualized, personal view of justice, and so, like, when I do wrong, it's only, like, my-

Seth: Right

David: ... fault, and it ends with me. It's like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... God is saying that if I allow this sin to continue, like, go back to Genesis and the f- like, right before the flood, like, if I allow sin like this inside my chosen people, the only hope for the world, uh, to continue, then the, the whole Earth will just-Go to ruin. Like sin will win.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: There's this power called sin that was ruling the world and crouching around like a lion.

Seth: Death and Sheol. There's these-

David: Death and Sheol are winning and he's like e- he, he has to come and do something drastic to fight that battle back-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and to redeem his people, to change the, the course of history or else we would not have the world as we know it today.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, so yes the, the, the actions are dire, but the stakes are really high. Um-

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah. And beyond all of that, beyond all of that, uh, what we're, what we're butting up against is actually a basic Christian belief that all people will stand before God and be liable for judgment and those who have not trusted Christ will have worse things happen to them than being ripped open. Like-

Seth: Yeah, whatever, whatever hell is-

David: Whatever hell is

Seth: ... it's worse than what we could experience in the world.

David: Than miscarriage. And in both you and I have experienced that-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and it's horrible, but like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... hell is worse. And so, like, I'm, I'm not asking anyone to believe something about God that they probably didn't learn in VBS. Like [laughs]

Seth: Right.

David: It's just when we're confronted with the reality of it, it's scary. And I think, like, that is good for us to wrestle with that because the n- even the New Testament says, "It's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a living God." Like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... God is not soft, fluffy, old man, white beard. He is all love and all justice. Like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... he's bigger than we want to put him into a box. Like-

Seth: And I also think, I think all this is good, and again, it's, like, something we're gonna have to wrestle with by virtue of our place and time in history.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like, people who have a god named Death-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... whose job is to rule the underworld and execute his whims on the world, the god Mot in Assyria-

David: Right

Seth: ... like, they just have a different frame of reference than we do.

David: Totally.

Seth: Um, I think, and I think that's helpful to, like, to name, uh, and say we're just separated from that world by a good margin.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But I think the other thing that's interesting in all of this is that the m- the means by which God exercises this judgment is not, is by an army.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Israel was making political alliances.

David: Right.

Seth: It was backstabbing its own leaders. It was paying tributes to these other nations. They were involving themself in the politics of the world to such a degree that they got involved in the politics of the world.

David: Mm.

Seth: And Assyria comes in and is Assyria to them.

David: Yeah.

Seth: God isn't inciting Syria to be different to Israel than a- anybody else.

David: Right, they're being themselves.

Seth: They're being themselves.

David: Yeah, he removed his protection.

Seth: And Go- and Israel got to be involved with Assyria to the degree that they wanted to.

David: Right.

Seth: Like, like it's like-

David: And it, yeah, their sin came back around on their own head.

Seth: So I think that's the other side of it-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... 'cause I think sometimes... I think that's helpful to me sometimes, not all the time.

David: Right.

Seth: 'Cause at the end of the day, did God send Assyria or did he not?

David: Yes.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs] So, like, Assyria is still responsible-

David: Right, yes

Seth: ... for the ways in which they-

David: Absolutely

Seth: ... slaughtered Israel, even in their sin. Like, Israel, Assyria was murderous and barbaric, and it's fi- it's good and right to say that.

David: Right. Yeah, and the same thing happens with God's chosen servant in Isaiah, like Cyrus. He, he raises him up, calls him his Messiah, his anointed one-

Seth: Mm

David: ... sends him into Israel to, to, like, do the same things here, but now in the Southern Kingdom. They-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... like, he destroys. And then Cyrus gets all puffed up from it, and he's like, "Oh, I am the man." And God's like, "Oh, I will punish you for your sins in war and for your pride." Like-

Seth: Right

David: ... like, yes. The, I'm just saying all that to say, like, Assyria's morally culpable for ripping open pregnant women.

Seth: Yeah. And this was... Yeah, that's right.

David: So this is-

Seth: We've, we've gone way into the weeds.

David: Yes.

Seth: This is a difficult passage-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... that we're obviously still wrestling through. However, the, the way that we see Jesus really clearly-

David: There's really good news here

Seth: ... I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol. I shall redeem them from death. Oh, death, where are your plagues? Oh, Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is not hidden from the eyes of Jesus.

David: Mm.

Seth: In Christ, Paul says, the closest that anybody ever gets to this is-

David: Reading it

Seth: ... reading it.

David: [laughs]

Seth: Like, we f- it's easy to, like... God has died-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... for us.

David: Right.

Seth: And when we repent and turn to him, death and Sheol have no power over us.

David: Right.

Seth: They cannot come against us. Like, there will be no more plagues. Death will no longer be a f- have a fearful sting because compassion has been shown to be God's ultimate character quality, not his anger at our sin.

David: Right. Yeah. Um, I mean, we see, yeah, so clearly. So, so Paul, right, quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 15, uh, verses, uh, 40, 54 and 55, and, uh, he, he talks about how death has been swallowed up in victory.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like Mot, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Has been defeated. Uh, and he says, "Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting?" And he reappropriates this language where instead of God calling upon death and plagues to come and ransack his people, saying like, "Hey, death, rise up. Show me how strong your sting is." Like, "Oh, grave, rise up. Show me how powerful your victory is." You know? Like, God's calling on them to come and do their worst. Instead, after Jesus takes their sting and takes grave's victory on the cross and rises from the dead, now we, we say, say the same words, but we're speaking to an empty room.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: We're like, "Death?" [laughs]

Seth: Yeah.

David: "Where are you?"

Seth: Yeah.

David: "Grave, where is your sting?" Like, it doesn't exist for the Christian-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... like, because it's been fully exerted on Jesus for our behalf, like on our behalf.

Seth: Right. And that's the other thing to say about this. Yeah, this is terri- like, the, the, the, the plagues, the sting of death-The bear-like nature of God's anger at Israel's sin is terrible, but God did not exempt himself from it.

David: That's right.

Seth: He came in the form of Jesus and experienced the bear-like claws of death

David: Of his own death, of like his own punishment of death.

Seth: Right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And even like, and like I, I wanna be careful how I word this, but like th- Jesus was also described as God's son.

David: Yes.

Seth: God lost a son on the cross as well. The judgments that he gave to Israel, he did not excuse himself from.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: He fully took on the terror of what he was prescribing elsewhere.

David: Yes.

Seth: And if... And that, I think, fundamentally changes the way that I read texts like this. It's like, okay, this is a terrible, terrible thing, and if I knew a person who's only ever threatening and only ever just-

David: Mm

Seth: ... just maliciously, like, was just killing people-

David: Right

Seth: ... and reserving power, prestige-

David: For themselves

Seth: ... authority for themselves and not being concerned with the people, that's a different character than the God I see in the-

David: Yes

Seth: ... in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

David: Yes.

Seth: In the Old Testament, this is gonna be followed up with pronouncements of mercy and hope.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But we also see a God who's not only willing to pronounce justice, but also come under that justice himself.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Like, this is not... God is not being malicious here, and he's not speaking out of both sides of his m- both sides of his mouth.

David: No.

Seth: Either, like, uh, yeah, I, I don't know how ... I don't know what to say about it.

David: No. Yeah. No, you've landed the plane. I mean, it's like, it's like th- this, this amalgam of nation of a person that we've come up with-

Seth: Right

David: ... who's like always punishing other people and reserving power for himself. It's like that's very different from a leader who, um, says like, "Hey, I, I've taken the blow already. Like, uh, you know, there was a million dollar debt, and I paid it for you."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "Um, so if you just come to me and pick up your I Got Out of Debt Free card, then great. But if you refuse, I'm gonna go ahead and charge you that million dollar debt."

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David: Like, that's not him being malicious.

Seth: Right.

David: That's him saying like, "You had a debt. I paid it. Come and receive that-

Seth: Right

David: ... forgiveness for free or pay it yourself."

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so it's like it's a... he's a kind and merciful judge. Like, it's a very different picture of a, of a, of a, of a g- of God than-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... I think people wanna paint out of passages like this.

Seth: Yeah. Um, so-

David: Especially when we see Jesus. [laughs]

Seth: Yeah, especially when we see... Which is, I think, where we should end this. Like, so the-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... the darkest part of Hosea is also matched by the darkest night of Jesus' life.

David: Yes.

Seth: His death on the cross. And ultimately, that dark night doesn't prove God's viciousness, but Jesus' commitment to providing justice-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... for those... 'Cause the thing about the, the innocent victims in Israel, the children.

David: Yes.

Seth: Jesus is bringing justice for innocent children.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And he will experience it himself to offer hope to all people. [gentle music]

David: All right, Seth, we made it.

Seth: We made it. [laughs]

David: We got, we got to chapter 14.

Seth: The good news-

David: Everyone, I told you to hold your breath, now you can now let it go.

Seth: We've had good news throughout.

David: We have. No, I know.

Seth: However, this is just an easier passage [laughs] to talk about, chapter 14.

David: Yeah.

Seth: "Return, O Israel-"

David: Yes

Seth: ... "to the Lord your God. You have stumbled, but take with you words and return to the Lord and say to him, 'Take away my iniquity.'"

David: Mm.

Seth: So, like, at the very last chapter, it's Hosea's prayer of repentance-

David: Yes

Seth: ... that Israel's supposed to pray with him.

David: Yep. Yeah. They just, they, they say, "God, take our iniquity," uh, and here's their ultimate confession. And it gets to the h- what we've kind of identified as the heart of the sin of Hosea, not of the prophet Hosea, but in the-

Seth: Right

David: ... book of Hosea-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... uh, is, is in verse three. They finally say, I mean, those who would say this with Hosea-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... not everybody. Those who, the, the faithful say, "Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses, and we will say no more, 'Our God,' to the work of our hands. Uh, in you the orphan finds mercy." So, like, they, they, they name what their sin is, that they've trusted in false, like, in other kings-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... like Assyria, and they have adopted their gods of idols, like, as their own. And they said, "This is our god," like the-

Seth: Mm

David: ... sin of Exodus, right? And so, um, their, yeah, this is their repentance.

Seth: Yeah. If you compare this to chapter six, there's a false prayer of repentance.

David: Yes.

Seth: I don't know if you remember that.

David: Yes.

Seth: But he says, Israel is praying this prayer but never names their sin. Says, "Come, let us to return to the Lord, because he has torn us that he may heal us. He has struck us down, so he'll bind us up." And there's all these, like, really general, generic, platitudinous, stereotypical prayers to the Lord, but they never actually name what they did wrong.

David: Mm.

Seth: They never, um, acknowledge their sin.

David: Right.

Seth: They never renounce their idolatry. They never, uh, reject their trust in politics.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: They just say, "We trust in God," without doing any of the hard work necessary to, to prove that true.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And so this prayer is the, the prayer of the righteous people-

David: Yes

Seth: ... who's giving up their idols, who's naming the things that they make with their hands are j-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... can't be gods.

David: And then that's what they do. That's all they do. I just wanna like-

Seth: That's all they do.

David: That's all they do. Like, they say sorry, and then they decide to serve God only. Like, they don't have to, like, take a trip to a holy site or say-

Seth: Right

David: ... a billion prayers or like... You know, I'm just like... It's, it's, it's like we've talked about this many times.

Seth: We've talked about this, yeah.All it is is faith.

David: Yes.

Seth: But all it is is faith.

David: Faith is costly.

Seth: Like the rich, young ruler.

David: Yes. So I'm just saying-

Seth: Trust in Jesus-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... required the sacrifice of everything he had.

David: But it's like after, after ver- after chapter 13, you would just expect like, "If you want my forgiveness, if you want the bear to put its claws away-

Seth: Mm

David: ... you better do something crazy."

Seth: Yeah.

David: You know, like you think about, I mean, think about let, let's use-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... let's use Jose's metaphor. Like, think about a, a, a husband who's cheated on his wife this time-

Seth: Mm

David: ... instead of a wife cheating on her husband. A husband cheats on his wife, and he comes back, he's like, "Can you ever trust me again?" She's like, "I don't know. You're gonna have to do some amazing things to make me trust you again."

Seth: Yeah.

David: You know?

Seth: Long, slow obedience over, faithfulness over time performs.

David: Right. "And maybe I will forgive you."

Seth: Yeah.

David: And it's like they just, they make their vow, they repent, they name their sin, and then God responds, "I will heal your apostasy."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "And I will love you freely," like, "and my anger will turn from you."

Seth: Think about... It's, it's a beautiful promise.

David: It's beautiful.

Seth: But think about how hard it is, too.

David: Mm.

Seth: They have to obey that in exile.

David: Right.

Seth: They have to obey that with God having turned his back for a season.

David: Yeah.

Seth: God will be with them in exile. He has not abandoned them fully, but they're gonna live on, under the oppressive foreign rule of Assyria.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: They're gonna look around them, and it's gonna look like God's not there.

David: Right.

Seth: It's gonna look like punishment, and they're supposed to trust God there-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... in Assyria, in exile?

David: Right.

Seth: And that's-

David: That's hard.

Seth: That's hard.

David: That's hard. But what's funny is that's where Israel experienced their spiritual revival-

Seth: Yes

David: ... was in exile.

Seth: We ta-

David: I mean, read the, like, later Psalms, you know? Read Ezra-Nehemiah.

Seth: Well-

David: Right?

Seth: ... God saved Israel when they were homeless.

David: Right.

Seth: They were trapped in Egypt.

David: Egypt.

Seth: They went into a desert to a random mountain, and then God made them his people in the middle of the wilderness.

David: Right.

Seth: Like-

David: Yeah, this is, that's, yeah, it's, it's out in the sticks-

Seth: So the-

David: ... where things are usually made right with God.

Seth: Like, trust in God, faith in God, relying on God is not, is proven in the wilderness. It's proven when there's nothing left. I mean, Israel s- Israel says it in their false plea of repentance, "God has torn us so that he will restore us."

David: Yes.

Seth: And it's a theme throughout Hosea-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... that the reason God is stripping everything away is so that the, their faith could be proven to be pure.

David: Yes.

Seth: Like, faith in God isn't just, "I'm gonna trust God-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and I'm gonna be fine."

David: Right.

Seth: "And everything's gonna, nothing's gonna change."

David: Right.

Seth: It's, it's-

David: Faith tested by fire.

Seth: Right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Right.

David: Yeah. And so God not only says, "I'm gonna heal you of your apostasy," which is in that inward healing you were talking about-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... that they needed. Like-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... not that I'm gonna forgive you from being apostate, right? I'm going to heal you-

Seth: Mm

David: ... of being inclined toward apostasy.

Seth: I'm gonna, like, change your heart.

David: I'm gonna change your heart. I'm gonna heal your inclination to move away from me, [laughs] like, which is what we need, like-

Seth: I will love them freely

David: ... because that's, I mean, but, like, that's the, that's the reason Hosea's been picking back up on the Exodus story was to show that they keep repeating the same cycle of apostasy.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And God's saying, "I'm gonna heal you of that." Like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... all of that. And then, yeah, I'll love you freely.

Seth: And then he reverses all the metaphors that he used-

David: Yes

Seth: ... about his judgment. Beforehand, his judgment was like dew on them. Now, he, he will be like dew to Israel.

David: Well, like, Israel, Israel was l- Israel was the dew.

Seth: Vanishing.

David: Right.

Seth: But now God is the dew, refreshing-

David: Watering them, and now the vanishing dew, instead of it, instead of Israel being vanishing dew, now they're the lilies and the flowers that grow because God is watering them with his presence.

Seth: His, uh, the, Israel's beauty will be like the olive and his fragrance like Lebanon. I guess Lebanon smelled great. That's, the cedars of Lebanon-

David: All them, all them trees

Seth: ... all the, cedars smell like cedars.

David: Yeah. They smell great.

Seth: Put some salmon on those cedars. [laughs]

David: Cedar plank salmon, let's go.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Seth: "They shall return beneath my shadow, and they shall flourish like the grain. They shall blossom like the vine. Their fame shall like, be like the wine of Lebanon."

David: Yeah.

Seth: The Chateau Valley of, in France.

David: The Cotes du Rhone [laughs] of Eden.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Uh, I mean, this is Eden.

Seth: It is Eden.

David: This is, this is the Garden of Eden coming back, and, like, God is saying, "Not only will I bring you back to Israel, like, back to your land, uh, I'm gonna give you more than Baal ever could," you know? Like-

Seth: I'm gonna give you everything you want.

David: Yeah.

Seth: You, you wanted and looked for in other gods.

David: Right. I'm, I'm gonna actually give that to you, but not because you worked for it or anything. I'm gonna love you freely just because you've repented-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and you've come to me. You've put your trust in me. Um, yeah.

Seth: Um-

David: It's beautiful

Seth: ... the final, the final verse of Hosea-

David: Mm

Seth: ... there's two l- final verses, chapter eight. Uh, verse eight and verse nine, chapter 14. Verse eight I think is the end of Hosea's speeches, and verse nine is, like, this prophetic editorial. Oh, yeah, I see that.

David: This proverbial editorial-

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah

David: ... at the very end of it. Uh, but the, the, I think the last word of Hosea's speech is this. "O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?" This is God speaking.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: "It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress, and from me comes your fruit."

Seth: Mm.

David: So a couple things. One, Ephraim means fruitful.

Seth: Right.

David: And so Ephraim, symbol for Israel, was constantly forgetting that their fruit came from the Lord.

Seth: Right. They were looking for it in idols. They were putting idols in their field to try to get, become more fruitful, and they didn't realize that they were made fruitful when God named them Ephraim.

David: Yes.

Seth: I mean, it's kinda like the, uh, uh, the whole, like, uh, Garden of Eden sin, where it was like, "If we eat this fruit, we'll be like God."

David: Right.

Seth: It's like you were already made in God's image.

David: You were... [laughs]

Seth: What, what more do you want? Uh, and [laughs] I think another way to say it is, like, um-The central question of the book of Hosea has been where does Israel's livelihood come from?

David: Right.

Seth: Where does their fruitfulness come from?

David: Idols, kings, political alliances.

Seth: God?

David: God. [laughs]

Seth: And consistently throughout the book the fruitful Ephraim, the Ephraim whose name means fruit-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... has trusted fruitfulness to come from anywhere else except God alone.

David: Mm.

Seth: Um, and when they forgot that their fruit came from God, they became like what? Chapter nine and chapter 10.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like w- w- uh-

David: Withered grapes

Seth: ... withered grapes on the vine.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Trees that had shriveled up and-

David: Yeah, like a, like a desert oasis that you come upon and realize that it's a wasteland

Seth: ... like chaff in the field.

David: Yeah

Seth: Like-

David: Like dew that dries up.

Seth: And I think we have another way to say that in John 15. Jesus says the exact same thing to His disciples-

David: Mm

Seth: ... right before He dies. He says, "I am the true vine."

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: "You are the branches. If you remain in me, if you abide in me, and I in you, you will-

David: Bear much fruit

Seth: ... bear much fruit."

David: You'll be Ephraim. [laughs]

Seth: You'll be-

David: [laughs]

Seth: You will finally be true Israel.

David: Yes.

Seth: After I read John 15, after reading this, I was like, "I can't see anything but Hosea in Jesus' speech."

David: You're right. That's crazy.

Seth: "Apart from me, you can do nothing."

David: Mm.

Seth: "If you do not remain in me, you will be like a branch that is thrown away. Such branches are picked up, thrown in the fire, and burned."

David: Sounds like Hosea.

Seth: Sounds like Hosea. If you, but if you remain in me, and my words remain in you-

David: Oh, his word, which he said-

Seth: Ask what-

David: ... take words, take with you words is up here

Seth: ... ask whatever you want-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and it'll be done for you. This is to my Father's g- glory that you bear much fruit."

David: Wow.

Seth: And then I was like, man, that is such a powerful... Like, when Israel forgets to be in the vine-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... they wither and die. And so I was like, okay then, what does it mean then? And we've been wrestling with this. Like, okay, you got the political alliances.

David: Yeah.

Seth: You've got all the enmeshment. You've got idol worship. Like, what does that mean on the ground for us? Jesus reframes it.

David: Mm.

Seth: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you," or as Hosea, with free, "I have loved you-"

David: Freely

Seth: ... freely. "Now remain in my love."

David: Mm.

Seth: What's, how do we not experience what Hosea experienced? How do we not, um, fall prey to being fruitless?

David: We, we don't do what Gomer did.

Seth: We, we remain-

David: We remain in our husband's love

Seth: ... in our husband's love.

David: [laughs]

Seth: And then he even goes one step further, even more practical. "If you keep my commands-

David: Mm

Seth: ... you will remain in my love-

David: Right

Seth: ... just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in His love." There, I mean, that's so, like, I was like, man, okay, love.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Practical. Remain in God's husbandly love.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Even more practical, remain faithful to the God-

David: In what He's commanded

Seth: ... what He's commanded. Even, like, my marriage has rules. Seth can't sleep with other women.

David: Right.

Seth: I have-

David: Seth, occasionally, you have to do the dishes the right way.

Seth: Right, yeah. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: You can't keep putting the bowls on the top rack, Seth.

David: [laughs]

Seth: They go on the bottom rack.

David: This is, [laughs] this shows how much I hang out at your house.

Seth: [laughs] If I ke- by keeping God's commands, I prove my love to, to Him.

David: Right, in the same way they keep, you know, doing things that the, the, the, the spoken and unspoken commands-

Seth: Yes

David: ... of marriage shows that you remain in that marriage.

Seth: And then really more, even more simply, "My command is this, love each other-

David: Mm

Seth: ... as I have loved you. Greater love h- is no more than this, that one would lie down one's life for his friends."

David: Right.

Seth: Man, what is, what does it mean to experience fruitfulness?

David: Mm.

Seth: What does it mean to avoid the terrors described in Hosea or even the, the pruning image of being thrown into the fire that-

David: Right

Seth: ... Jesus mentions? It means abiding in the love of Jesus' death on the cross for us.

David: Mm.

Seth: And then loving others the same way.

David: Right, which is the same call that Hosea gave to the people of Israel.

Seth: It is the same law.

David: He said, "Remember that God brought you out of slavery in Egypt." [laughs] That's-

Seth: Re- remember you were saved. [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Remember I was the one who saved you. I loved you, and I-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... carried you out with compassionate arms. Remain in that love, and you will be mine even in exile. And Jesus is saying the same thing. I w- I'm going to the cross for you, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: I'm gonna, I'm gonna o- I'm gonna switch the o, death, where is your sting to, o, death, where is your sting, you know? [laughs] And, like, just remain in that compassionate love and salvation that I've given to you. What does it, what does it mean to remain in Jesus' love?

Seth: To abide in Jesus' love. To re-

David: Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, obviously, you've said to obey Him.

Seth: To obey Him.

David: Right.

Seth: To love others-

David: To love others

Seth: ... and to love God.

David: Right.

Seth: Right? Like, that's, that's-

David: We can overcomplicate it or-

Seth: We can over-

David: Yeah, yeah

Seth: ... yeah. It's like, what does it mean to remain? It means to love God and to love others-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... based on the fact that God, I mean, he, you didn't choose me.

David: Mm.

Seth: I chose you and appointed you, so whatever you ask in my name, the Father's gonna give to you. This is my command, love one another. The re- it's really simple. Like, and what's at the, behind all the crazy imagery of the book of Hosea-

David: Mm

Seth: ... what's the book of Hosea about?

David: A marriage.

Seth: God's love.

David: Yeah.

Seth: God's love for people who have previously been unfaithful, and Him wooing them-

David: Yes

Seth: ... back to faithfulness.

David: Yeah. W- how do we... Like, what's the, what's our response to the, like, calls to repentance in the book of Hosea? As Christians, what's our response?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Pursue intimacy with your husband, Jesus.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Like, and when you are with Him and you remain in His love, it'll start changing your life, and you won't be like the corrupt money changer. You know? You'll-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... you'll start doing justice and holding fast to love and kindness-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... you know, like the, like he told Jacob to do.

Seth: Yeah.

David: You know? And, like, it'll, it, you'll, you'll, you'll be changed. Like-

Seth: That's amazing. Let me ask you this question.

David: Yeah.

Seth: This is my out of left field question-

David: Oh, boy

Seth: ... that I have not prepared you for.

David: Okay.

Seth: Intimacy with J- intimacy with Jesus-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... is such a weird cliche Christian thing.

David: Oh, yes.

Seth: I think we put a little bit of flesh on it by saying it's like, it's obeying God's commands-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... and loving others and loving God. But one of the things that's really striking about Hosea is how de- like how Hosea is not ashamed to use sexual imagery to define his relationship with Israel. And he even, like just the phrase, "I will love you freely," or Jesus, "My love will remain in you." What are, like, the limits to intimacy with God? Like-

David: Mm

Seth: ... how do we... Like, w- how close is too close? Especially when God is also burning down things-

David: Right

Seth: ... and condemning people. How can I draw... Like, is there a... How do I do that? [laughs] Like, what's the extent to like my capacity to be intimate with the Lord?

David: Mm.

Seth: Or what's the... [laughs] I, I don't know.

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think I understand your question. Um, I mean, I could, I kinda could go up to the limit and then back it down.

Seth: Okay.

David: So I think our capacity is our... And this is gonna sound very, like, new agey or something, I don't know.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But like our corrupted current human state. Like we, there's a limit to what our physical body can experience of the nearness of God, right? 'Cause even Moses on Mount Sinai, he wanted to see more of God. He wanted to increase his intimacy with the Father, so he said-

Seth: I wanna see his face

David: ... "Show me your glory." And he says, "Okay, but if you see my face, you'll die." And that gets repeated all throughout the Old Testament.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And face wasn't like God's eyes, nose, and ears, it's the fullness of His presence.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: So, like, we can't see that right now or we would be destroyed. But 1 John 3:2 tells us that when we're risen, you know-

Seth: Right

David: ... which is like the, the same context that 1 Corinthians 15, "O death, where is your sting," is talking about.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Whenever the p- the perishable clothes itself with the imperishable-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and the mortal with immortality, when that moment comes, when the resurrected Jesus returns to us, as Revelation says-

Seth: Mm

David: ... like a husband coming-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... for his bride, and this marriage that Hosea's been talking about is finally consummated, 1 John 3:2 says that when we look at Him face to face and we see Him as He is, we will not be destroyed because of who God is.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: We will become like Him.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: We'll be made one with Him.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, husband and wife will be intimate with each other. Now, I'm not saying there's gonna be some kind of big spiritual sex scene, right?

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: I'm saying that what's, that sex is a picture of something bigger. [laughs]

Seth: Yeah.

David: If you're thinking sexually about the union between man and God, you're thinking too carnally. You're thinking too-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... small.

Seth: Yeah.

David: There is, sex is a small picture of what ultimate joining, ultimate union, ultimate intimacy-

Seth: Mm

David: ... with God will be like.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And that will happen when He returns. So, like, I think that's the limit right now, is-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... we, the, we can't quite get to what our hearts ache for when it comes to intimacy with God here and now. Like, Paul describes it in Romans 8 as, like, groaning with the pains of child's, childbirth, waiting for-

Seth: Mm

David: ... the sons of God to be revealed.

Seth: Oh my gosh. That, Hosea uses that same imagery.

David: Oh.

Seth: I for- totally forgot about that. He ta- he talks about re- refusing to repent-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... being, like, being in the pains of childbirth-

David: Crazy

Seth: ... but never seeing a child be born.

David: Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Seth: But to be born is to repent and to experience life-

David: Mm

Seth: ... to actually, to be alive.

David: It's like John 3.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: Yeah. Anyway, side note. Uh, yeah, so, but backing up from that point, um, I think intimacy with God-

Seth: Don't we also see Jesus, God's face in Jesus?

David: Yes, absolutely.

Seth: So it's like there's a sense that there's a deep, final-

David: So-

Seth: ... eschatological consummation-

David: Yes, yes, yes

Seth: ... coming.

David: But-

Seth: But don't we see-

David: Yes

Seth: ... God's face more clearly than Moses did?

David: Oh, definitely. And Paul picks up on this in 2 Corinthians 3. He s- he says that, like, what Moses asked for on Mount Sinai, we can get whenever we come to the scriptures, actually.

Seth: Mm.

David: We come to the scriptures and we see Jesus and the good news of what He's done. We see Him, we behold His face, and then we become like Him from one degree of glory to the next. So we get to get a down payment of 1 John 3:2 and Jesus's return here and now, like while we-

Seth: Right

David: ... open the Bible, see the gospel, behold how good and loving Jesus is, like-

Seth: Yeah. But-

David: ... and, and have our lives changed.

Seth: Uh, you say, like, I don't wanna sound too new agey, but it's like, what, what you just said is like, how do we, like, how, how do we be intimate with the Lord? It's like, well, read your Bible-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... and obey, obey His commands. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: It's like, it's not super-

David: It's not super new agey at all, actually

Seth: ... super new agey. But what's, I think, is strange is the degree of, like, emotive love that that's supposed to generate in God's heart towards us-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and in our heart towards God.

David: Yes.

Seth: Um, and I, I guess I don't know what that feels like. I feel like I have some, like, oh, I love the Lord.

David: Right.

Seth: And it feels... I'll tell that, "Oh y- I'll tell, I'll tell my kids, God, I, I love Jesus more than I love you guys."

David: [laughs]

Seth: Um, and I'm like, do I actually believe that?

David: Right.

Seth: Like, do I actually f- feel that?

David: Right. Do we feel what, what, uh, this, th- what David, uh, felt in Psalm 19 when he's looking at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... and Deuteronomy.

Seth: The law of the Lord.

David: The law. He says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes." Like, he's freaking out. And he talks about how they're better than gold, like, better than fine gold. They're, they taste better than honey. Like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... David is freaking out over Leviticus 12. [laughs] Like-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... because he's, like, he's meeting God there.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Which is-

Seth: I don't... [sighs]

David: Yeah, it's crazy.

Seth: Now, now I'm just thinking about, like, so my question that started all this was like, how intimate can I be with God?

David: Mm.

Seth: And I just real- I have another answer to the question. Well-How much more intimate could I want to be?

David: Right.

Seth: He is in me.

David: Right.

Seth: His word lives inside of me. The word that he, David just gushed over is written on my heart-

David: Yes

Seth: ... by virtue of the Holy Spirit. Like, I actually don't think I could be more intimate with the Lord if I tried to.

David: Mm.

Seth: Like, there's no music I can pump through the speakers or service I could go to to get closer to God-

David: Mm

Seth: ... than I am right now by the fact that Christ has saved me, and I've repented and trusted in him, right?

David: Yeah, I mean, I guess the way you would say that is you would just come to treasure that reality more.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, I can't make another commitment to my wife more deep-

Seth: Right

David: ... than our marriage. We can't take a physical step farther than having sex with each other.

Seth: Right.

David: Right?

Seth: Right.

David: But I can come to treasure those things more, and treasure-

Seth: Mm

David: ... the fact that she's my wife more, right?

Seth: And like the unconditionality of it.

David: Yes.

Seth: Like, I can't really do anything to m- unmake you my wife right now.

David: Right, right. And so it's like there's not an, a next level you need to get to with your intimacy with God.

Seth: Right. [laughs]

David: Right? If that's what you're, if that's kinda what you're pointing at. But, um, hopefully, as you seek his face and pursue him in the way that Jose has been calling us to, you realize more, and more, and more how close you are to your husband already.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, the price that he has already paid to ransom you.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, the fact that he's already moved into a house with you, you know? [laughs] Like-

Seth: Right

David: ... you're already his bride. Um, and it's uncovering that, and unpacking it-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... and seeing it more and more clearly-

Seth: Mm

David: ... um, I think is maybe the, the, the process of intimacy.

Seth: Yeah, and I think even back, back to the, this might be the way we should end it. The, uh, the first metaphor was, like, Gomer, this prostitute bride-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... ends up going and sleeping with somebody else that now demands payment for Hosea to buy back his wife.

David: Right.

Seth: So he's clearly this kind of abusive figure-

David: Yes

Seth: ... to Gomer. Assyria was the abusive figure to Israel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Israel had prostituted herself to Assyria.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Israel, enslaved her, trapped her, and demanded payment back. The forces of darkness demanded payment, and then Jesus pays it-

David: Mm

Seth: ... for us. That's the lengths to which God goes to be intimate with us again.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And I don't, I can't be more intimate than that.

David: [laughs]

Seth: I already have the intimacy that I want in the Lord.

David: Right.

Seth: And I think you're right. I need to continue to know that I already have it, and seek to love him and obey his commands.

David: Yeah, so let's take that, and let's end with the final editorial addition, uh, to Hosea 14 verse nine. So everything we've said up to this point-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... whoever's wise, let him understand these things.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Good luck. [laughs] You know? Like, if you're wise, like, let, let, let, let them understand these things. Whoever's discerning, let him know them, for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but the transgressors stumble in them. So, like, may I just pray this over everyone listening to the podcast right now, and over you and me, too, Seth. Um, God, make us wise to understand the beauty of your love for us revealed in Hosea and on the cross. Um, make us discerning. Help us to know them as a husband knows his wife. Um, help us to see that your ways are right, even whenever they seem wrong to us, and help us to discover them, walk up them, and be made upright, uh, in the bride of Christ as we pursue you. Amen.

Seth: Amen.

David: Thanks for joining us, guys, for Hosea. It's been fun.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Uh, it's been enlightening. Hosea was not the book I was expecting.

Seth: Yep, yep.

David: But I'm [laughs] very glad to have gone through it.

Seth: But we'll be in Joel next.

David: Joel.

Seth: I'm super excited about that.

David: Very quoted book in the New Testament.

Seth: It is.

David: Yeah, so that'll be fun.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay.

Seth: See you guys next week. [outro music]

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit that gives all its resources, like this podcast, away for free because of supporters like you. To help Spoken Gospel in our mission to speak the gospel out of every corner of Scripture and view all our free resources, visit spokengospel.com. [outro music]

Related Resources

Free videos sent straight to your inbox.

Hosea 11:12–14:9: Relentless Judgment and Free Love

Show Notes

Back to the ABCs: The Exodus as Israel's Defining Story

Wrestling with Jacob: Israel's Inherited Struggle

Salvation Through Judgment: The Paradox of Exile

The Darkest Chapter: Child Sacrifice and the Fury of God

From Wrath to Free Love: The Promise of Chapter 14

Abiding in the Vine: Hosea's Echo in John 15

Related Resources

Introduction to Hosea

View our devotional on Hosea 1

Ready to study a different book?

Listen to the Hosea Introduction podcast

Listen to the Hosea 1-3: A Whore Bride podcast

Listen to the Hosea 4:1-5:7: Oracles of Doom podcast

Listen to the Hosea 5:8-11:11: Politics and Religion podcast

Listen to the Hosea 11:12-14:9: Relentless Judgement and Free Love podcast