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 is full of really intense imagery, um, and often pretty sexual imagery. So if you're listening with your family or with kids, you might want to be a little careful.
David: Yeah, we're not going to 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. 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. David: Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Seth, how are you today?
Seth: I'm excellent.
David: Excellent.
Seth: I'm excited to talk about, uh, Hosea 5 through 11. Yes. And the oracles of doom.
David: Oh, or is that the second, um, uh, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the second Indiana Jones?
Seth: Second Raiders of the Lost Ark. I've been waiting for the sequel to deliver to the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I didn't realize it already came out. It already came out. Um, No, I think most of the way though, Hosea is organized pretty simply.
David: That is good.
Seth: Hosea 1 to 3 kind of sets up Hosea as this, having married a prostitute.
David: Like a living parable.
Seth: Like a living parable for what Israel is like. He has married a prostitute who is constantly faithless to him, and he is continually faithful towards her. And most of the rest of Hosea is made up of oracles of doom, pronouncements of God's judgment against Israel, primarily for the way that Israel had blended its politics and religious practice. Together and the consequences for doing so.
David: Okay.
Seth: And then at the very end, we have oracles of mercy. Hey, which comes in right when we get to Indiana Jones 3. Indiana Jones 3, Oracle of the Temple of Mercy is right there. And I think it's really interesting how Hosea talks about politics and faith intertwining and meshing and how angry it makes God. It's kind of a really unique thing that we haven't talked about a ton on the podcast before, or even from scripture before, which is super fascinating. And what was— what I think is increasingly interesting is the fact that it's not like the priests abandoned worship of God, right? They didn't abandon sacrificing in the temple. It's that they added something on top of doing those things, right? Like, they added the promise of wealth and power that could come to Israel through political and spiritual alliances with Egypt and Assyria specifically, and the gods associated with them. So what Hosea is doing throughout most of the book is giving these, like, prophetic oracles that rebukes Israel for abandoning their calling to be faithful to God alone and predicts that the political alliances they make will ultimately be their downfall. And that the religious observance that they do actually do, the feast, the celebrations, the sacrifices, right, will also be taken away from them. The thing that they do just out of habit, which makes them feel safe, will also be taken away.
David: So there's like two big ironies there. One is the political alliances that they've gone to, like Egypt and Assyria, they're going to be the ones that actually stabbed them in the back.
Seth: Yep.
David: And let them down. They're going to be the means of their downfall. Yeah. That which they trusted as the means of their downfall. That's one irony, the political irony. And then there's a religious irony because as they, like, carried out the commands of the Old Testament law, Sabbath keeping, temple observance, the sacrificial system that was supposed to be accompanied with blessing. It was right. But then they imported all this pagan kind of health and wealth blessing that came from these Baals and other religions where you just plop a Baal idol in your field and it'll magically, you know, grow. They imported that in. And so that the religious means by which they were supposed to be provided for will also be taken away from them.
Seth: And what's really interesting to add like another layer to this is that while Israel was making all these alliances and adding these gods to their nation, Israel was continuing to get richer and richer. So this was like Israel's golden age, right? So there's a sense and in which that as Israel has gotten richer, so has its idolatrous practices. Right.
David: Because it is working, they thought.
Seth: Because it seems like it is working. So, God has to interrupt the system. He has to intervene because these priests are leading the people astray to doing more of these destructive habits.
David: It is really interesting, especially when we are talking about the blending of politics and religion. We cannot allow economic upturn, you know, like economic success to be an indicator of God's blessing.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Hosea would say, no, it's not.
Seth: And I mean, a lot of the stuff that Jesus talks about in the Gospels is directed to, to the rich, the corruptly rich, and how difficult it is for people who have enmeshed themselves with forces of the empire to actually like to leave it and belong to the kingdom of God. Yeah. So for people who are harming themselves, the good news of Hosea is like people who are harming themselves by the way that they enmesh their politics and their faith, God promises not to abandon them. So no matter how closely tied, like, those two things become, just like Hosea did not abandon Gomer, God will rescue his people from the new— their new slave masters. Yeah. Even after decades and centuries of divided allegiances.
David: So what you're saying is, like, even if you're listening to this podcast and something that gets said today pricks you in your heart and you're like, oh man, I think I've done this. Like, I think I've enmeshed my politics and my religion at a sinful level.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Oh no. Can God ever love me? It's like, of course he can. In the same way that Hosea loved and pursued a prostitute named Gomer.
Seth: Right.
David: Jesus loves you and will pursue you no matter the lengths to which your enmeshing of politics and religion have gone.
Seth: Yeah. And what's interesting, I wanted to like say one thing. The way that you framed it was like, oh, there's two ironies here. The irony of the religion, the politics and the irony of religion. I want us to be careful too. It's like they're actually not two separate things in the book of Hosea. They like overlap in really insidious ways.
David: That's helpful because I was going to— the next question I was going to ask was, I feel like our last podcast on Hosea, we talked about idolatry a lot. And now we're talking about politics, but we're saying the same things about them. So I was going to ask you, what's the difference between political alliances and spiritual alliances? Uh, you're saying they're the same thing?
Seth: Kind of. In Israel, culturally, in Israel's day, they did mean the same thing.
David: Totally.
Seth: Because to make a political alliance with Syria or Egypt, probably also meant an exchange in cultures and an exchange in gods. Like, there was an assumption that the god of the Israelites and the god of the Egyptians, like, had, like, mastery over their territory. And so if you were doing trade or combining or doing some sort of alliance with them, you would swap gods and allow the territories of the gods to overlap, right? And you would bring blessing to both your lands as they interact with one another. That was kind of the idea. So in a very kind of real sense, like, there were more idols in the land by virtue of these political alliances. But even, like, on a more spiritual level, what were the alliances trying to accomplish?
David: Political goals.
Seth: Political goals, increase wealth, increase power. And so you can, as modern people, we don't really have idols we erect, but wealth and power are the way, are what politics function on. Right. So it kind of like cuts the same way for us as well. But okay, so that's kind of the issues at hand. Okay. The first section is Hosea 5 to Hosea 9. Okay. And it really just kind of opens up this whole thing about politics and religion enmeshing. And we're just going to pick apart some of our favorite verses throughout here, the ones that we feel like are key or main.
David: The chart-toppers.
Seth: The chart-toppers to help you understand what Hosea is indicting his people for.
David: Fun.
Seth: Super fun. Yeah. And I think, I think a good place to start is 5:15. Okay. Uh, I will return again to my place. This is God talking. Okay. I will return again to my home. I'll return again to my place. I'm going to leave you until you acknowledge your guilt and seek my face. And in their distress earnestly seek me. So the idea is God says, I cannot be near you anymore. I'm going to leave and not bless you until you turn from your old ways and come to me again. That's the stakes he's setting up. Right.
David: Which I think is really interesting because it doesn't seem like he's asking for that much. You know, like, turn to me. Just, hey, can you look at me real quick and like focus again? Like, this is a common thing that all the prophets say, like return. Yeah, return, repent, come back. Seek me with your whole heart. And it's like, on one hand, it kind of highlights how depraved Israel is at this moment that they can't just turn to God.
Seth: Something so, so simple of a task they can't even do. Yeah.
David: It's like a husband who's like so fixated on his computer that his wife can't get his attention.
Seth: It goes back to like Exodus. And God describes it as a stiff neck, neck people can't turn. They can't turn. Yeah.
David: So like it's meant to show how depraved Israel is. But on the other hand, I think faith, belief, allegiance to God is also a lot heavier and more robust than we often talk about it.
Seth: You think about the rich man. We're talking about wealth, politics. The rich young ruler. Jesus says, give up all that you have and follow me. And it's not something he can do. He can't untangle himself from his wealth and power that he has in order to follow Jesus. Yeah, that's a big deal.
David: It's a— yeah, I mean, it's why Luke or Jesus is recorded in Luke as telling you to count the cost before you follow him. Because it's going to cost everything, but he pays it all, but it costs everything.
Seth: And think about the way that this ancient society, like, was structured. They believed the gods brought their crops right up from the ground. They believed that water was based on whether or not you appeased the storm god Baal. They, like, it was how they survived was by paying homage to offering sacrifices to a particular god or goddess, right?
David: Yes.
Seth: And so to say no to every other piece of, like, spiritual technology available to them.
David: Yes. Right.
Seth: And then worship the God you can't see. Like, makes—
David: The God who's not allowed to have an idol.
Seth: The God who's not allowed to have an idol. And all I'm just going to do is sit in my room and pray that God provides.
David: Hope he exists.
Seth: And hope he exists. That's actually really hard.
David: It's a lot of faith.
Seth: And it's also not too dissimilar from like— like, we can touch money, we can touch positions of power, we can touch science, like we can manipulate it. We know what it says to us. But we're supposed to pray and trust the God who said, "I will be enough for you." Ooh, that's a big deal.
David: Faith is a big deal.
Seth: Faith is a big deal. And so he's saying, "But if you do, if you have allegiance in me, I will come back to you." And then chapter 6, verse 1, we have a false prayer back to God. So God said, "If you acknowledge your guilt and seek my face, I'll return to you." And so you have this prayer where Israel comes and seeks God's face but refuses to acknowledge their guilt. They say, He is— come, let us return to the Lord. Return. He has torn us so that he may heal us. He has struck us down and he is going to bind us up again. After 2 days he will revive us, and on the 3rd day he will raise us up from the dead. That sounds like Jesus being raised from the dead so that we can live before him. Let us know. Let us press on to know the Lord instead of these whores. Yes, instead of these idols. He is going out as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, going back to like crop imagery. Providing abundance and prosperity as the spring rains water the earth. So, man, that sounds good, right? Resurrection. He's— God is like the dawn. He's gonna water our crops. Amazing.
David: And then God responds to it, is like, I don't believe you. That's exactly what I'm gonna do with you, Israel. You're like, you're like the dew that like plops on the ground in the morning and then it's gone, you know, in an hour. Yeah, that's how, that's how much I think your faith is going to stick around.
Seth: He's basically calling out their hypocrisy, right? He's saying you You want to give me lip service, but you don't actually want to give me your whole heart, which is what he says in chapter— verse 6.
David: Yes.
Seth: I desire steadfast love. I desire mercy is the way some translations say it, and not sacrifice. I want the knowledge of God from you rather than burnt offerings.
David: Yeah, this is a famous verse. If you've, if you've read your Bible or been around for a while, it's— yeah, I desire mercy, not sacrifice is probably what you heard. Yeah, because Jesus quotes this verse towards the Pharisees. That's right. And the word mercy there is, is comes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. But the original Hebrew that we have really good attestation on is just the really standard word hesed, which is God's covenant, steadfast, faithful, loyal love.
Seth: And so what these people are doing is not giving God steadfast, faithful covenant love.
David: They're not maintaining their marriage.
Seth: They're not maintaining their marriage. Then they are content with merely sacrifices, right? They have all the sacrifice, but none of the love. Right.
David: I'll bring my wife roses, but I'm going to cheat on her.
Seth: Right. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening. You've been set up for this by Hosea and Gomer in the introductory chapters.
David: Yeah. What God is not saying here is, I don't want the sacrificial system anymore. No, that's how I've often heard this taught. Oh, yeah. It's like, I just want you to love one another. Forget the Old Testament. No, that's not what he's saying here.
Seth: Well, what the priests had done is they had divided covenant love from the sacrifices. Well, as long as I do the right things, I go to temple once a week and I make the sacrifice once a month and do the festival once a year. I can do whatever I want with the rest of my life. And God is saying, that is hypocrisy. You do not actually love me. Right. And I want none of it. And all this, all that prayer did was prove to me that you do not want it, because what did you not do in that prayer? Repent. You did not actually return or admit you did wrong.
David: That is right.
Seth: So that is the state of Israel's soul at this moment in time. And it gets worse. Yeah.
David: I was just thinking about like this, this whole like routine kind of religious observance. Obviously we've all heard this, and like, you're probably thinking it right now if you're listening to this, like, oh, that sounds a lot like modern Christianity in the West. Like, yeah, go to church on Sunday and then whatever you want to do the rest of your week. It's a really obvious connection.
Seth: Or go to confession, right? And live however you want, right? As long as you confess to the priest, you're fine, right?
David: And it's like, that's a really obvious connection, but it's also still a really damning one. Like, uh, and I think especially when we're talking about it's partly, yes, their kind of lackadaisical commitment to what their Saturdays at temple meant, but it's also what they did with Sunday through Friday.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And how— like, what else they pursued.
Seth: As robbers, they lie in wait for a man. The priests band together and they murder on the way to Shechem. The priests commit villainy. The house of Israel is a horrible thing. Like, yeah, that's what they're doing, right?
David: Well, I was just thinking about like the political, like, hypocrisy, you know, where it's like you, you go to temple on Saturday and, you know, I fear, I fear the Lord and I'm gonna keep your commandments and here's my sacrifice. And but then every other day of the week, you're trying, you're relying on your own political connections, you're relying on other gods, you're relying on your own savvy. You're maligning the poor and taking advantage of others in order to secure for yourself a place in the world instead of trusting in that God who you said you had faith in on the weekend.
Seth: Yeah, it's kind of like, it kind of gets tricky because like, what are we actually talking about here? It's like, okay, temple observance. Yeah. But like, what does it mean to trust a political power? And like, that's what you're getting at. It's like the way in which we relate to our government says a lot about the state of our soul. And Hosea has a lot to say about the way those two things are functioning in your heart.
David: Yes.
Seth: And in Israel, it's kind of intense. He's calling them villains, bandits, robbers, murderers.
David: Is this hyperbole or is this like historical report?
Seth: It's, it's, it's probably a little bit of both. Okay. Because probably not all the priests are bad, right?
David: Well, either that or like, it's just like he's, he's elevating the sin of their idolatry by calling it something bigger or more scandalous.
Seth: It's also not hyperbole because the priests actually do conspire to commit political assassinations. If you read the book of 2 Kings and just go to chapter 15, there's a priest named Shallum, another priest named Pekah, and another priest named Hoshea, which is the same name as Hosea in our book. Hosea. Is that—
David: anyway, what happened to his extra H?
Seth: I don't know. It just got dropped somehow. Poor guy. And these 3 priests all conspired with different kings to assassinate another king and institute their king in its place. So you have all these religious leaders aligning themselves with certain political parties in order to get the other political party kicked out or assassinated so that their own interests could be represented in government. Like, I'm not— I don't— yeah. So that happened literally.
David: Wait, are you talking about Hosea or America?
Seth: I'm just talking about Hosea right now.
David: Oh, I got confused.
Seth: I'm just talking about Hosea right now. And that is why Hosea is so frustrated with them. That type of political machination, that kind of political intrigue proves that the priests have a higher functional trust than who sits in the highest office, than who sits on the highest throne. Like, they've betrayed where their trust is. Yes. And they've literally murdered people during that time. They've literally murdered people in order to—
David: literally sat in wait.
Seth: Yeah.
David: To commit murder on the way to the temple.
Seth: Yeah. And there's this really— it's kind of a confusing metaphor, but he talks about them being like a hot oven. Oh, right.
David: This was— yeah, you had to explain this to me.
Seth: Chapter 7. It's like a hot oven. He says, like, your political— like, the political anxiety that you're feeling is something that you as priests are supposed to, like, push down. Like, as priests, you're supposed to say the politics 'Who sits on the throne doesn't matter. God is above it all. We trust him. We'll be fine if we worship him and trust him alone.' But instead of doing that, these priests were stoking the fires and making it burn hotter with their political ambition. Yeah, so the way it says it is here, chapter 4— chapter 4? Oh, chapter 7, verse 3 and 4. 'By their evil, by the priests' evil, they make the king glad because they put him in power and helped him assassinate the other one.' The priests are making the king happy. He had the princes. He's making the princes happy by their treachery. And they're all the priests, adulterers. They are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire. And so I thought that meant at first, like, to stir the fire meant to, like, stoke it up.
David: That's what I thought too.
Seth: But like, if you're baking bread in an oven, you actually want all the coals to be evened out. So you stir the fire to, like, spread it out and not pool them in the center and then burn your bread.
David: You kind of let the coals stay spread out and leave them alone.
Seth: Right.
David: But this guy just keeps piling them up and getting them really hot and he's going to burn his bread.
Seth: Right. And so the hot oven is the political ambition of these priests. And then it says that you— that's what you're doing. And on the day of our kings, the princes became sick with the heat of wine. He stretched out his hand with mockers. He's saying that you, because of these, a lot like what you're doing, you've aligned the kings of Israel with the mockers of Israel, the other nations of Israel, Assyria. You got them drunk with the princes of Babylon, and you brought them in, and they're all making fun of God together by their idolatry. All night their anger smolders. In the morning, it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them, all the priests, all the rulers are like a hot oven, and they devour their rulers. They murder one another to get ahead, and none of them call upon my name. Verse 7. Instead of calling upon God, saying, what are they resorting to? Like military power, political intrigue. Sham repentance, conspiracy theories. They're committing themselves to all these different avenues of gaining power except calling on the name of the Lord alone.
David: Yeah. Oh man. Okay, let me— I have to go to Jesus.
Seth: Let's do it.
David: Or else I'm just going to run to contemporary.
Seth: Our contemporary souls need Jesus, David.
David: Yes, so badly. But like, okay, so the story I'm thinking of here is the feeding of the 5,000 in John.
Seth: Okay.
David: John's account of it where Jesus performs this miracle and the people decide that they are going to make him king by force.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: Right. They want an earthly king to overthrow the Romans.
Seth: He provided us bread. Let's get him up there. Right.
David: Yeah. Like, it's like the same thing.
Seth: That's really interesting. I hadn't thought about it.
David: Jesus is the new idol that they can manipulate to put in their position of power overthrow by assassination the current powers that be, and then reign with authority over every other earthly sovereignty.
Seth: And Jesus refuses.
David: And Jesus refuses. He runs away and he goes and prays by himself in the mountains.
Seth: So what you're saying is nobody should ever be involved in politics and all we do is pray in the mountains?
David: Don't back me up in that corner.
Seth: Got it, David. No, no, you're— the point you're making is good because it's— the point you're making is good. We want our faith to have political clout.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And it's something that Jesus flatly refuses to engage in.
David: I think the point I was making, okay, was that Jesus is the king that does provide bread and does give us what we need and does bring us peace and does conquer our enemies. But he doesn't do it the way every other government does it.
Seth: Right.
David: He doesn't do it by power and force and violence. He does it by love, steadfast love, covenant keeping, faithfulness, and by ultimately dying on behalf of his enemies.
Seth: And he gives what the people want, gives us what we need when we call upon him.
David: That's right. And that's what he tells them in that same chapter, I think, that are really soon thereafter in John. Oh, yes. He tells them just— he's like, they say, okay, what do we have to do to inherit eternal life? Believe in me.
Seth: Believe in me.
David: Just come to me and I'll feed you. I'll give you what you're looking for. And like, stop looking for it everywhere else in other religious extremist groups or in other governmental associations.
Seth: And what does he say? It's like, when you eat food, what's going to happen the next morning? You're going to be hungry, right? No matter how much bread you eat today, you come to me, you'll never be full. That's right.
David: And Israel's situation in the first century AD was, I mean, so close to what's happening here. I mean, so, you know, for those who, you know, don't know this word, Hellenization, the Greekifying, the Greekifying, the becoming like the Greeks of Israel was happening after Alexander the Great, who, you know, was the ultimate Hellenizer. He was obsessed with Greek culture, Greek philosophy, Greek values. And as he conquered the world and established the wide-sweeping Roman Empire, into which Jesus and all of his, you know, his followers lived. And you have, you have this, like, mix of Judaism and Romanism, you know, like, mashed up against each other. And so when you read in your Gospels about the Pharisees, these are like these hardcore right-wing religious extremists who are like, Jews alone, right? You know, and that's it.
Seth: And yet somehow they're aligning themselves with all the Greek and Roman, the Roman powers.
David: No, no, no. So, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll pull that lever to crucify Jesus if they have to. But then you also have the Sadducees.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So the Sadducees are those who have sold out to the Roman government, and they're like in their pocket. That's why they get the courts. You know, Pharisees weren't like— they were the ones like, they were kind of like street preachers. Sadducees were like the people in power. And so it's like all this same kind of blended allegiance is happening in Jesus's day, and they want to make Jesus the head honcho of all of it. And he refuses because he knows the ultimate seat of power is not on an earthly throne. And as long as we continue to put our hopes in earthly thrones and governmental institutions, we will continue to commit the sin of Israel that Hosea points out.
Seth: Yeah, it's a well-made point. And what does he say when he's on trial? My kingdom is not of this world.
David: Yes. If my kingdom was of this world, my followers would seek to fight to free me. But again, my kingdom is from another place. John.
Seth: John. Period.
David: So good.
Seth: And podcast. And what's funny, it's like going back to the food analogy, you are going to eat this food, you are going to be hungry, but eat me and you will be satisfied. Israel in Hosea's day was going to all these political— Assyria and Egypt, and they were demanding tributes. They were aligning themselves more and more closely with Assyria and with Egypt, and they demanded more and more from them. They got hungrier and hungrier the longer they were with them.
David: That is right.
Seth: And they got more so that they became impoverished and hungry by the thing that they were consuming rather than the Lord alone. Yep. Um, so that begins a long stretch where God kind of just calls— Hosea calls Ephraim a bunch of names.
David: Like what?
Seth: So he calls him a, uh, a cake not turned.
David: Oh yes.
Seth: There's like this oven analogy. You're a cake not turned. You're burnt on the bottom and raw on the top.
David: Like, that's usually how I make my cakes.
Seth: Well, that's why you have a convection oven that like rotates the heat around. But if you're burning, if cooking on a fire.
David: Why do mine still cook? You know, I still burn cakes.
Seth: Well, you can still have your oven set to burn from the bottom.
David: Okay, so I mean, it could happen today, guys, just because you're a great baker.
Seth: I do watch the Great British Baking Show.
David: That doesn't surprise me.
Seth: Great relish. So do my children.
David: They put relish on the cakes?
Seth: Always. It's a British thing. He calls them a cake not turned. Yeah, so it's like you burn the bottom, raw on the top. He calls them moldy bread in verse 9. Strangers devour his strength and he knows not. Gray hairs are sprinkled upon him. Like the gray hairs are mold from the bread. That's the little hairs coming out of the mold. He calls him like a silly dove in chapter 7:11. You're flitting over here, you're flying.
David: Yeah, I love that illustration. They go back and forth between Egypt and Assyria. Yeah, it's like, Egypt, can you help us out? Oh, you can't? Oh, let me go back to Assyria. Yeah, and it's like, you're like a dumb dove. But then what's amazing is, uh, later in 11 He actually picks up on that metaphor again. He's like, and I'm going to love that stupid dog.
Seth: And I love that.
David: So good.
Seth: He calls him a treacherous bow or a loose bow.
David: Okay. Yeah. Help unpack that one for me. Cause like, is it like, cause it's like you, you want to go one way, but it comes the other way.
Seth: I thought it meant like a bow that would like, like a bow in somebody else's hand that you thought was fighting for you, but it would be pointing against you. I think the translation should be like loose bow, right? The bowstring is not not taut. So when you pull it back, it doesn't do anything.
David: The arrow just falls to the ground.
Seth: He calls them like failed farmers in chapter 8, verse 7. Uh, he like calls Israel— I'm gonna read it because it's kind of a weird one. He says, they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind. They have standing grain, but there's no heads in the grain, so they have no flour, and their friend— and their— the strangers devour. Israel swallowed up. They're a wild donkey just stubborn mule out in the wilderness doing nothing. In 8:8, they're a cracked pot that can't hold any water. In chapter 12:1, my commentary said that they are shepherds of wind. He said, "Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long." Running after the wind.
David: Sounds like they're living the book of Ecclesiastes.
Seth: That's exactly right. Like, they're just like, all they can do is chase the latest whim in hopes that it satisfies them. And so what the point is of all these things, I was like, what's the main theme of this name-calling section? I think all of them are a couple different things. Like, they're all chaotic, they're all useless, they all run contrary to their design, and they're all stubborn. So Hosea is calling Israel saying, like, you're like a bow that's been badly strung. You're like a cake that nobody can eat. Like, you're moldy bread that nobody can taste anymore. You're running contrary to the way that you were designed to function. You plant seeds in the ground and all you get is sterile wheat. Like, you're not doing it right. Do you not notice, like, the bankruptcy of your efforts to involve yourself in the political machinations and your alliances with Egypt and Assyria? It's not working, is it, Israel? Don't you know that yet?
David: And so does this connect with the idea that Jesus— or Jesus— that God comes to them and says, like, like, okay, whenever we first started this relationship, I came to you and you were like, uh, like a, a gorgeous vineyard and you had good grapes and I was super excited. And then things progressed and you turned into thorns and thistles and now you're useless to me. Is that kind of—
Seth: are you talking from, from here? Yeah, yeah, I think it, I think it's all connected. I mean, like the— we're about to move into the section where there's just 4 metaphors for Israel's sin.
David: Yeah, uh, it was 9:10 was what I was referring to. Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel I saw like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season. I saw your fathers, but then they came to Baal Peor and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame, and they became detestable to me.
Seth: Yeah, there's that kind of like—
David: I guess my question is, my question is, is it, is it you are running contrary to your nature and you're stubborn and broken and useless because you were supposed to be my covenant keepers, but you've broken my covenant? Or is it because, because you are seeking satisfaction, provision in earthly political alliances?
Seth: Well, I think it is both. Okay. And it is summed up in Hosea 8:14, "Israel has forgotten his maker." It is— that is all that you have to say, like Israel has forgotten his maker. And he— and it goes on to say, "And built palaces and multiplied fortified cities." And he is growing an empire in the middle of God's kingdom, an empire for himself in the middle of God's kingdom.
David: And wow, growing an empire for himself in the middle of God's kingdom is one of the most profound things I think you've ever said.
Seth: Yeah. And it's not— it's not working out for them. And those are both things. They've both broken the covenant, the religious practices, and they've broken the political ways in which they're supposed to trust God. Like they've done both things wrong and God— and they're not working out. Okay, does that answer the question?
David: It does, it does. I just wanted to unpack it because it seems like he goes on a really big rant on becoming useless and becoming stubborn and going contrary to your nature, and I want to get to the bottom of that. So I don't want to be that thing, right? I don't want to be a half-cooked, half-burnt cake, you know? I don't want to be a broken pot. Like, so like, what does it mean to be that? How do I be— how do I get to that point?
Seth: You know, like, you have to return to the Lord.
David: No, how do I— I don't know. That's how you get fixed, but like Like, what am I doing to become that useless thing?
Seth: Is it like— I see, I see.
David: Like, anyway, and I think you kind of hinted at it when you said like it's building an empire in the middle of God's kingdom.
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's like you— we were made— our purpose, our intention was to be ruled under God and to enjoy his creation, to serve him only, to worship him, to name him as high above everything else. To like be made in his image and to image him out to the world. Like, that's what we were made to do. And yet what we're instead doing is building up an image of our own selves and our own empire and our counter kingdom in the middle of his world.
Seth: Right. Most people aren't out there in church because this is written to people who are presumably Jewish, right? Presumably faithful to the Lord. Yes. So like the analogy today would be people in churches. We don't— most people in churches aren't out there telling other people to worship idols, no, to go bow down at the Hindu temple. Like, that's not what's happening in most places. In most places, it's like subtle insinuations that God can't, through patience, prayer, fasting, um, his word, give us all that we need, and we need to ally ourselves to forces outside of his outside of those means of grace in order to be successful.
David: Yeah. I mean, how many times have you heard, you know, Christian leaders allied themselves to any political leader and when brought up the inherent hypocrisy within that leader on either side of the aisle, wherever they are, and they're like, well, don't they believe in this? Or haven't they done this in their past? Don't you know they're not a Christian or a good person?
Seth: Right.
David: And they go, yeah, but it's worth it. Because they're going to push this agenda through and we need that.
Seth: Right.
David: And it's like, is that—
Seth: we—
David: yeah, it's like we don't trust that. Like, they're— that God's going to do it his own way.
Seth: Yeah. And I mean, to— the hope is that we live in a world ruled by God's rules forever. That's the hope. It's always been the hope like that we would live in perfect alliance with God and with the world and with one another. Under God's good law. And that's not going to happen on earth. And there are good reasons to think that we can make some of it happen here. Right.
David: And we should— your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Seth: And we should want that.
David: Yes.
Seth: And it's really tricky because like I catch myself in this one all the time. It's like, so, so when then do I fight?
David: Right.
Seth: For something good to happen?
David: Yeah.
Seth: And when do I have to give it up?
David: Right.
Seth: And I think what he would— I think what Hosea would say is when you can no longer like rejoice that God is good and be happy that— like, I don't know, maybe that's the wrong way to say it. It's like if you can't engage politically without worshiping God and being happy regardless of the outcome, then you've probably made politics legislation your idol and you're worshiping power and wealth in a way that you shouldn't. Right.
David: Another way to say it would be Where's your ultimate hope? Yeah, right. Is your, is your ultimate hope in the political party you back or how you vote or the, the committees and litigation you get yourself involved in? We're not saying don't participate, you know, don't advocate for justice.
Seth: Right.
David: And good to be happening in your society. You should do that. But like, where's your hope? Is it in the kingdom or the empire? Is it in Israel or is it in Babylon? Yeah.
Seth: Do you feel hopeless after the election of so-and-so? Then you might have placed more trust in an idol of the empire than the God of the kingdom.
David: Right. Yeah. If you felt devastated in 2016, November 2016, you might have, you know, the wrong empire.
Seth: Right.
David: If you felt devastated in November 2020, you probably might have a foot in the wrong empire. It's not about Republican or Democrat at all.
Seth: It's where's—
David: where's your ultimate hope?
Seth: Who do you trust to provide for you ultimately?
David: Yes.
Seth: And, and Those are complicated questions.
David: They are.
Seth: Ethics of that is. But, but the heart.
David: Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say the judgment is overwhelming and it demands your attention that God says if you trust other political powers more than him, you're a whore. Like, yeah, we can't get away from that in Hosea. It's extremely harsh. And I know that, like, I'm not trying to be blunt or offensive or anything like that. I'm just trying to represent Hosea.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's like, like we need to be wary of political affiliation, how much we trust it and everything like that, because God takes it extremely seriously.
Seth: Yeah. I mean, I mean, at one point Hosea is hoping for the barren wombs and miscarriage of Israel's women because for the ways in which they've idolatry joined themselves to other political powers.
David: Right.
Seth: And to be fair, fertility cults.
David: Yes.
Seth: Like they were trusting their fertility to other gods. And so it's like, you want, It's not gonna work. These— right.
David: Anyway, there are severe punishments that come with this severe treason. And these punishments, including infertility, were listed in the covenant in the Torah that they ascribed to, that they said, yes, we agree to these terms.
Seth: I think we said it back in the very first episode of the podcast that in Deuteronomy 28, there are 27 curses mentioned for breaking the covenant, and 20 of them are listed here. Right.
David: We're mentioning some of those are all coming to fruition. Okay. That's a lot for the first half of a podcast. Let's take a break and regather the pieces for the next segment.
Seth: Okay. We're about to get to 4 main metaphors that Hosea is going to use to ground out our time.
David: I think you wanted to talk about that in the last section, and I was on a tangent, and you—
Seth: we shut it down. There's one more thing we want to address here. So we said at the beginning that, that even Israel's religious worship is going to be taken away from them. So in chapter 9, we kind of get that explicitly mentioned. Um, it says, 'Rejoice not, O Israel,' 9:1. Don't rejoice like the other people. Because you've played the whore, you've forsaken your God, you've loved a prostitute's wages on all threshing floors. Uh, threshing floor was where you like got wheat from.
David: Yeah. And it was kind of like a euphemism for like makeout point.
Seth: Yes. Which we, I think, talked about the Ruth podcast too. Yeah. Um, uh, the threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them and the new wine shall fail them. And so what he's saying is when you go, one of the big feasts in Israel's history, in Israel was the the Feast of the First Fruit, the Feast of the Harvest. When the harvest came in, you would go to the threshing floor and collect all your wheat, and you would celebrate.
David: Throw a party.
Seth: Throw a huge party. This is one of the moments in the Book of Ruth.
David: Yes.
Seth: It is like it is a big redemptive historical moment where you are celebrating God's provision. And Hosea is saying, because of the way that you have assumed that your abundance is actually a rubber stamp on your idolatry, Your day of first fruits, the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of the Harvest, the day that you celebrate the Lord's provision is actually the day that the Lord's going to take everything away from you. And he says on verse 5, what will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the Feast of the Lord? For behold, you are going away for destruction. Egypt will gather you, Memphis will bury you, and nettles will possess the precious things of silver. Thorns shall be in your tents. The days of punishment Have come now, have come already, come. The days of recompense have come at last. Israel will know it.
David: Yeah. So he's talking about their— the northern kingdom being taken away by Assyria. Yes. Swept away.
Seth: He's saying the day that you celebrate the abundance of the Lord is the day of your desolation.
David: Which is— which is leaning into their irony, that whole religious irony where it's like, if you would have given your wholehearted allegiance to me, I would have provided for you. But since you gave me this blended rote obedience— yeah, root obedience— it's, it's going to sweep you away.
Seth: Yeah. Okay.
David: That's dark.
Seth: It's dark. I mean, chapter 9 gets darker if you want to get dark. If you want to get real dark, like always, always. Verse 9: They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity and he will punish their sins. So Gibeah. Is from Judges chapter 19, when a Levite— he was a priest— a priest had taken his wife into the town of Gibeah and was trying to stay the night there. And the men of Gibeah come to the door of the house and they want to rape him. And so instead, he kicks his wife out the door and they, and they, they rape her to death. And this is like the darkest point in the book of Judges. And God— and Jose is saying, like, what you're doing now by aligning yourselves with these political, uh, parties, forgetting the Lord, assuming on your relationship with God, is exactly what the priest did in Judges 19. The depth of depravity that you've seen in your history, you haven't really progressed from. You're just— you have— you're not better people because of your place in time.
David: Yeah, there was supposed to be this trajectory as you read through the Old Testament, and as people in this day would have read their scriptures, they would have seen this kind of creation and then this little downward spiral. And then, you know, Israel gets bought by God and there's this increase again. Yeah, but then in the land, a new Messiah, new Moses, a new Joshua. But then like with Judges, it starts to go down again. And then Judges 19, bottom of the barrel. This is the worst possible place that not only Israel could be, but any human society could be.
Seth: Right.
David: And that is just like the— what's the opposite of the gold standard?
Seth: The copper standard.
David: The copper standard for depravity. Yeah, right. And then David comes, you know, King David, and they thought they had progressed beyond this. They thought they had escaped the sin of Gibeah and this, this prostitute and everything. And he's like, no, I'm going to remember that. And in fact, you're still participating in that. You're still in the bottom of the barrel.
Seth: Yeah. And what's crazy is like what he calls that. It's like When I read that story about a man who gives up his wife, allows her to be raped to death, and then cuts up her body and sends it to the rest of Israel, like, well, that's really dark. And what Hosea is comparing to that is taking faith and aligning with the politics of the day and putting your hope in earthly rulers rather than in the ruler above rulers. I'm like, that's how God sees my divided allegiances? That is crazy. Yeah.
David: Um, it's also interesting what's— what that sin at Gibeah was after, like, he— like, he chopped up that prostitute.
Seth: It wasn't prostitute, it was his wife. He chopped her up, sent her to the 12 tribes of Israel to start a civil war with Benjamin, which was the town where Gibeah was located, right?
David: It's just like this divided woman. That was, you know, like sexually assaulted, is like, ties in so well with like the, like sexual assault language of this book.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Where it's like, yeah, it's the same metaphor being used here that, uh, our political adultery, our spiritual adultery is as gross as that.
Seth: Yeah. When priests intertwine themselves with politics, it's as gross as adult— it's as gross as sexual abuse.
David: Yeah. We think it's more innocuous than that.
Seth: Right.
David: Yeah. Okay.
Seth: So that's the dark. That's the darkest it gets. I mean, maybe it gets a little bit darker, but that's, that's really the bottom of the barrel of Hosea's oracles of doom. And he goes on into 4 metaphors to kind of reframe Israel's sin in just different words. And so he has 4 metaphors, one of grapes in the wilderness, one of a luxuriant vine, like a vine producing a whole bunch of stuff. One is called a trained, like a trained calf, and the other is a beloved child. And what happens in each of these is they're reversed. God found them like grapes in the wilderness. I wasn't expecting to find grapes in the wilderness.
David: Like a mirage.
Seth: Whenever you're like really thirsty, you're at an oasis, but oh, actually the grapes have been dried up and they bear no fruit. Verse 16.
David: Kind of like when Jesus comes to the fig tree.
Seth: Yes, exactly like that. When he's like rebuking the priest through this like metaphor. Anyway. They were like a vine that like produced all this fruit, but in 10:1 they're also now dried up and produce nothing. They were like a trained calf who was like the owner's pet. He gave him the best job. He would thresh the grain, which meant the cow could eat the grain as he walked around.
David: Oh yeah.
Seth: And now he's gonna yoke him so that he plows the field.
David: He was basically free, top of the, top of the, like the heap. And now he's in like the worst position.
Seth: Yeah. And then he says like, you were once like beloved children. And then this just ties all the way back to the beginning, very beginning. You are my children, but you are not my people anymore. You are, you're, you're, yeah. Yeah.
David: You're not mine.
Seth: You're not mine. Yeah. And those, so my favorite word for this, this podcast, you're now bastards. Yeah. Bastards.
David: So yeah.
Seth: So it's these four, like you were this, now you're this, you were this, now you're this.
David: Right.
Seth: Um, and I think the most I mean, they're all important. They all make the point. The my child that I called out of Egypt is probably the most famous one, right? Because it gets picked up by Matthew to talk about how Jesus came out of Egypt, right? I want to go there.
David: Okay.
Seth: Do you want to say anything before we get there? Because I have one thing I want to say before we get there.
David: Um, I don't think so.
Seth: Okay.
David: Yeah, no.
Seth: So go to Hosea 10 with me for a second. This is 10:11. Ephraim, another—
David: Israel.
Seth: Word for Israel, was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck. So it's like this pet calf who has this great job threshing the wheat. It can eat the whole time it walks in that little circle, right? It's doing a great job. Um, but I will now put Ephraim to the yoke. Judah must plow, Jacob must harrow for himself. It's like this backbreaking work even for an oxen.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I just kept thinking about what Jesus said. Yes, Matthew 11. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It's like, well, why would I put a yoke on?
David: Right.
Seth: If I'm like in Jesus, should I not have a yoke at all? Right. Right. You say no. Like there's a— Judah has been consigned to decades of hard labor like an ox. And I've come to bring you back to what you were before the exile. I've come to bring you back to like my pet calf that I love and I've given the best job in the field. It's kind of like a strange way to think about. Yeah, you're my pet. You're my pet cow, guys. But like, that's like, it's like he's reversing the curse that Hosea proclaims over Israel right here, which I thought was really—
David: that is really cool.
Seth: Really cool.
David: But yeah, so, but Matthew, early Matthew, not Matthew 11, but Matthew 2, right? Or is it 1?
Seth: It's Matthew 2, I believe. Okay.
David: So Jesus is born in Bethlehem and Joseph sees a vision. Hears from an angel that Herod is after them, and he's told to flee to Egypt to protect Jesus and his family. And they stay there for a while. And then he's told at one point by another vision of an angel that he can now come back. And it's here on their, their, their flight from Egypt back to Israel that we hear this prophecy from Hosea.
Seth: Yeah. Matthew quotes Hosea 11: When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt I called my son.
David: Right.
Seth: And Matthew says that was fulfilled in Jesus.
David: Yes.
Seth: Now I've always heard that one and been like, Matthew is like doing some weird stuff.
David: He's stretching. We try to see Jesus in all scripture, but he's really trying to see Jesus in all the scripture.
Seth: This is like nothing. This has nothing to do with like Messiah. What on earth is he talking about?
David: But as we were studying, we were like, oh, Matthew's just reading Hosea really well.
Seth: So think about it. So, well, one, when Israel was a child, I loved him out of Egypt. I call my son. So he's using the language of son and child, and Jesus is God's Son and God's child, right? That makes sense. You have— there's a conflict with Egypt in this passage. Yes. And there's also some sort of like conflict with the powers that be in Israel and Egypt at that time. And there was like a treaty made with Egypt when Joseph goes there and comes back out again. And he— we don't know what his life was like in Egypt, but like he's made a treaty with the local principality in Egypt to seek asylum there, seek asylum for a period of time. So okay, there's, there's like a migration story happening that's similar. You have a divine call to service.
David: Israel—
Seth: God is calling Israel to serve him properly, to come to like— in that cow metaphor, he says that now you need to sow righteousness. So seeking the Lord so that you can reap steadfast love, break up the fallow ground so that I might rain righteousness on you. So he's like, there's this good service work that he's been called to. Just like Jesus is being called to the work of being the Messiah of the whole world to rain righteousness on the earth. Jesus is being called to that same task. Um, and there's this like, uh, he— one commentator I read said this, I don't really get it. So maybe you can help me. And says it intimates the grace by which the Father nurtured both Israel and the infant Jesus. Hmm. I think what— do you know what he's saying there? The grace by which he nurtured infant Israel. I think— is he— what he's saying, like, you have this Israel that's about to be in exile, and he's like showing grace to bring her out of slavery again, to like protect her faith, protect her loved ones, in the same way he's protecting his son while in Egypt and bringing her back.
David: Yeah, I mean, well, the Exodus story is always that story, right? The story of leaving Egypt is always God freeing you from a foreign power by providing you, nurturing you in the wilderness with manna or what have you, or providing a remnant in this case of your children to return. And so, yeah, I think he does the same thing for Jesus. He protects them with political asylum from an oncoming force, which is what— which is ironically is what Israel in Hosea's time was looking for in Egypt. Assyria was breathing down their neck and they wanted to escape.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so instead they, they flee to Egypt and they're like, can you protect us from Assyria? And it doesn't work for them because they did it the wrong way. Yeah, but in Jesus it's done the right way because God actually provides Egypt as an escape.
Seth: Yeah. And God's the one who directs.
David: Yes, Joseph did it like he did it in wholehearted allegiance to God instead of rebelling against him.
Seth: And just like when Israel first went to Egypt, Moses was involved in the first call out of Egypt.
David: Yes.
Seth: Like he was the son that was supposed to be raised up to call Israel out of Egypt. He did it multiple times in front of Pharaoh. Jesus is now a new Moses who's being called out of Egypt to lead his people free.
David: That's right.
Seth: From freedom. So I was like, man, he was really just reading his Bible really well.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I just was really happy to have made those connections.
David: Jesus is also like the first fruits from exile. In that moment that out of Egypt he calls his son. And that son is for corporate Israel, you know, like. And so Jesus as the Son of God coming out of exile, out of Egypt into the Promised Land as the first fruits of all of Israel, because he's going to earn the way for them to come back into God's presence is also, I think, what that's pointing at.
Seth: So this is— so Hosea says, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. He's referring to literally the Exodus story, the Exodus story. And then the more they were called, the more they went away.
David: Mm.
Seth: They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws. And I bent down to feed them, but they shall not return to the land of Egypt. 'But Assyria shall be their king.' He's like, he's saying like, 'I love my kids. Yeah, I love them.
David: And I was the best dad.
Seth: I was a great dad. But I can't keep doing this. To Assyria I'm gonna send you in hopes that you will repent because you are bent on turning away from me.' Right. And he actually says, 'And though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.' So Hosea is like, 'It's over, guys.' Like, God will not raise you up. That hypocritical prayer.
David: Yes.
Seth: Where they prayed for resurrection. Right. God— Hosea says he is not going to raise you up. Right. And then, and then this section ends. So like that is the oracle of doom all the way up to 8:7 or 11:7. 11:7. Okay. It is all oracles of doom.
David: Yes.
Seth: Here is what you have done wrong. Here is what you can expect. Here is what you have done wrong. Here is what you can expect. There is no hope in any of those passages. We kind of like preempted Jesus a little bit with that, that passage, but that's what we're supposed to do, I think. But like, there's no hope. And like, rightfully so. When you see the way that God thinks about their political and spiritual idolatry, it's like they're too far gone.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And then God speaks up.
David: Yeah. And it seems like out of nowhere, it's crazy. He's just like, but how can I give up on you, Israel?
Seth: How can I hand you over? How can I make you like these cities that I've destroyed previously?
David: My heart recoils within me.
Seth: My compassion grows warm and tender.
David: And then he says, I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim.
Seth: Because I am God and not a man.
David: That's crazy.
Seth: And like, because like, what would a man do? Yeah, equal proportion to your crime.
David: That's right.
Seth: I will treat you. Or even a husband. You slept around, divorce, divorce, right? 'But I am a God and not— I am God and not a man. I am the Holy One in the middle of you, in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.' I'm like, that's Jesus.
David: That's Jesus.
Seth: God is the Holy One who comes to people who are so prone to mixing their spiritual and political hopes with their own faith in the Lord that he will not abandon them even after a lifetime of doing so. He becomes the Holy One in us, and he doesn't come to us in wrath hoping to beat it out of us. And I think that can be like a sin on— I think, well, like the political idolatry thing, it's really easy to see other people's political ideology.
David: Oh, definitely, definitely.
Seth: And it's easy, like, I just want to beat it out of them. I want to make sarcastic jabs to just like, get that out of here.
David: Uh-huh.
Seth: The Lord does not come in wrath towards those he's politically hostile to. Yeah, because his kingdom is not of this world.
David: Yeah, when, when Pilate talked about his kingdom, he didn't say, "You don't even have a kingdom, dummy. I'm the King of Kings." Yeah, right, right. He was like, "My kingdom is not of this world." It's like this kind response.
Seth: "I'm not interested in the battle, the battle lines you draw for yourself." Yes. "Because I fight my own battles." Yeah. Or I even think about Joshua, the angel of the army of the Lord.
David: Uh-huh. Yeah. "Whose side are you on, ours or theirs?" He's like, "Neither.
Seth: I'm on God's side." "I'm on God's side. You're asking the wrong question." And so I think that's like a pretty powerful, like even just a pretty powerful statement from the Lord. It's like, I'm not like man. I don't divide myself the way that you do.
David: Yes.
Seth: And that actually allows me to come to both sides, both spiritual and political idolaters, and offer them mercy and grace. Not because I have to, not because I have any reasons to, right? Not because you don't have a history of aligning yourself with the wrong political power. But because you are my child.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I love you.
David: What's amazing about that, you— I mean, I think this can feel like whiplash at this point because you're reading this long oracle of doom. Israel's a whore and God's going to offer her a certificate of divorce. You know, it's over. Assyria is breathing down her neck and he's like, but I won't, you know, at least forever, you know? And it can feel like whiplash. And I think what's interesting too is in this section between 5 and 11, there's this bookend of a metaphor for who is God. And at the beginning, at the end, the end, he's called a lion. Oh, at the beginning, at the beginning, he's called a lion. And he's like, I will roar like a lion and it will terrify you and I'll overcome you. I'll devour you like a lion is what he says. And it's like, oh, God's like a lion. I thought that was somebody else. Yeah, but it's like, I will be like a lion. I will devour you. So he is the Assyrian threat, you know, coming down on them. But then here he says in 11:10, they shall go after the Lord. He will roar like a lion, and when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west. So the roar that drove them away is also the roar that draws them home. And I'm like, yeah, God is both the just and the justifier. His— his being God and not man allows his terror and power and holiness that dwells in midst— in our midst. It can both draw us away and draw us near. Like, and like, that's what Jesus did on the cross. Like, on the cross, he was the Lion of Judah, right, who roared. And in that roar, he punished sin, but he did it in his own body so that he could bring sinners close to him. I'm just like, and then he—
Seth: and then the roar from the cross was what? The temple being torn into, right? Inviting all people towards him in love because his compassion grew warm.
David: And that's where he says, I love those little dumb-dumbs that flittered here and there and everywhere, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.
Seth: And that word Lord, just to name it, is the personal name of God.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Not God as an abstract idea, but Yahweh. Yahweh will come and return them to him. Yeah.
David: And that is what Jesus finally accomplished on the cross. Like, this was not accomplished until Jesus came. When Jesus came, like we have said, Israel was still in this mixed political system. They were still waiting for the freedom that they thought they could purchase politically in Hosea's day, and they were still waiting for it in Jesus's day. That is why they tried to make him king by force. You know, yeah. And it's— and so the hopes of Hosea, the promises of Hosea, what light there is in Hosea doesn't come about until Jesus hits the scene. He is the consummate Hosea, right?
Seth: Yeah. Yeah. This hope here doesn't happen until Jesus, because after this book, Israel does go into exile.
David: Yes. And they stay in exile for the most part. And even when they return home, it is under political occupation.
Seth: Yeah, but that wrath does not last. No, it's not ultimate.
David: No, because it falls on Jesus. Yeah, the lion.
Seth: He's the one who's called out of Egypt, the one who's called out of slavery, the first one. He's leading a new exodus. Yes, he's like Moses, but for a new people in a new time, and for all people and for all time.
David: Yes. And what he does is— and I think I love seeing him here also just as the new Hosea, right? That like his people his whorish people have racked up a debt and he comes and pays it and buys his bride back from her idolatry.
Seth: Yes, he. Yeah, he marries Gomer.
David: He marries Gomer. He comes and he calls himself the groom.
Seth: And we're his bride.
David: And we're the bride. And he comes and pays the atonement price for us. He says, I've come to make atonement.
Seth: And he frees us from overreliance on our political—
David: Right. Because this Jesus is not just Savior. He is King.
Seth: Yeah, we don't—
David: He is Lord.
Seth: We don't need a president when we have a king.
David: That's right.
Seth: And I was even thinking, like, isn't it— I think it's fascinating that in Jesus' little entourage of disciples, you have a tax collector who's aligned himself— Democrat. Democrat. He's aligned himself with the Roman government. And then you have zealots.
David: Like Republicans.
Seth: I'm not.
David: I'm just kidding. I'm kidding on both sides.
Seth: And you couldn't really be on two more— no opposite ends of the political spectrum in Jesus's day.
David: Yeah. Someone who is literally killing Roman officials on the road, the zealots, and one of those Roman officials, the tax collector, hanging out together.
Seth: And it's— that's only possible in Jesus.
David: Yeah.
Seth: It'd be like Bernie Sanders and QAnon hanging out and being best friends about it. I'd want to have a beer with that. A group of men or women. I don't know who's queuing on. Oh my gosh.
David: That's funny.
Seth: That's really funny.
David: Oh goodness.
Seth: Anyway, anyway, the kingdom God brings.
David: Yes.
Seth: Not like the empires we build.
David: Right. Because he is the one new king who reigns over all. And so when we have full-hearted trust and allegiance to Jesus who sits on the highest throne, it rips our allegiance off everything else.
Seth: Our conversations and our dialogue is not primarily yelling at one another, right? Or it's just like, it's so hard to have a conversation about politics. We're trying our best not to have one here, but it's like, it's just hostile.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Everywhere is hostility. And in Hosea, you have hostility except in the command, the declaration from the Lord.
David: I will not have wrath.
Seth: I will not have wrath. Do you want politics without wrath? Yes, look to Jesus. Yeah, he has come.
David: A politic of peace.
Seth: A politic of peace. Yeah, there you go.
David: It's good news. That's good news. Well, thank you guys for joining us. We will, yes, wrap up Hosea next week.
Seth: Yeah, we'll wrap up Hosea and get to some final oracles of doom. You're not out of the park yet.
David: Here we go. But Indiana Jones 4.
Seth: Indiana Jones 4: The Crystal Skull of Doom. But we also have some really beautiful moments of God's mercy too.
David: Well, we look forward to being with you guys again to finish up Hosea. Until then, have a great week and we will see you on the next episode.
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 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.
