Scripture Daily

Context No. 1526 of 4322 · Hosea

Context · Reflection

Hosea 5:1-15: in context

1“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor. 2The rebels are deep in slaughter, but I discipline all of them. 3I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, Ephraim, you have played the prostitute. Israel is defiled. 4Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God, for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know the LORD. 5The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them. 6They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD, but they won’t find him. He has withdrawn himself from them. 7They are unfaithful to the LORD; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields. 8“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin! 9Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Israel, I have made known that which will surely be. 10The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark. I will pour out my wrath on them like water. 11Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment, because he is intent in his pursuit of idols. 12Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness. 13“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to King Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound. 14For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver. 15I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

Hosea pronounces judgment on a people who have turned from God. Their deeds do not permit them to return, he says, for the spirit of unfaithfulness is within them, and they do not know the LORD. They will go with their flocks to seek him, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them. When they saw their sickness they turned to Assyria for help, which could not heal them. And God says a hard and strange thing: I will return to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face; in their distress they will seek me earnestly.

The startling words are God's at the end: I will return to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me earnestly. God speaks of withdrawing, of removing the sense of his presence, and he names the purpose: so that his people, in their distress, will finally seek his face. It is a hard mercy, and a real one. God's people had grown comfortable and unfaithful, seeking help everywhere but from him, unwilling to return; and God says he will withdraw until affliction drives them back to seek him earnestly. There is a sobering but hopeful truth in this about the times God seems absent. Sometimes the felt absence of God, the sense that he has withdrawn and cannot be found, is not his abandonment of us but a severe mercy, meant to bring us to the end of our other refuges and back to seeking him with our whole heart. When we are comfortable, we seek him casually or not at all; it is often in affliction, when our other helps fail, that we seek him earnestly. The withdrawal Hosea describes is aimed at exactly that: to bring a people who sought everything but God to seek his face at last. If God seems to have withdrawn, and our other refuges are failing, it may be that he is drawing us, through the affliction, back to seek him earnestly, as we would not do while we were comfortable. In their distress they will seek me: that is the strange mercy in the withdrawal.

When God seems to have withdrawn and my other refuges are failing, can I hear the strange mercy in it, that he may be drawing me through the affliction to seek his face earnestly, as I would not while I was comfortable, and will I seek him now?

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