Scripture Daily

Context No. 1872 of 4322 · Hosea

Context · Reflection

Hosea 13:1-16: in context

1When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, but when he became guilty through Baal, he died. 2Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’ 3Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor, and like the smoke out of the chimney. 4“Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; and you shall acknowledge no god but me, and besides me there is no savior. 5I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. 6According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me. 7Therefore I am like a lion to them. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. 8I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them. 9You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. 10Where is your king now, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? 11I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath. 12The guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sin is stored up. 13The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son, for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb. 14I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction? “Compassion will be hidden from my eyes. 15Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure. 16Samaria will bear her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

Hosea's word to Israel is heavy with judgment. Ephraim, once exalted, fell through idolatry; the people sin more and more, making idols of their silver. They were filled in their prosperity, and their hearts grew proud, and they forgot God, their only Savior. Judgment is coming, described in fierce images. And yet, in the middle of this dark word, a startling promise breaks through: I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Death, where are your plagues? Grave, where is your destruction?

In the midst of one of the sternest chapters of judgment, a line of pure gospel suddenly shines: I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O Death, where are your plagues? It comes almost without warning, in a passage otherwise full of Israel's sin and coming ruin, and it reaches past all of that to God's deepest purpose: to redeem his people from death itself. Even here, amid deserved judgment, God's ultimate intention is not destruction but ransom, not death but redemption from death. And the words are so full of hope that Paul takes them up centuries later to proclaim the resurrection: Death, where is your sting? What Hosea glimpsed, that God would redeem his people from the power of death, finds its fulfillment in Christ, who conquered death and broke its power for all who are his. There is a pattern here worth noticing in how God speaks. Even in his sternest words of judgment, his purpose of redemption breaks through; the darkness of the warning is not his last word. God judges sin, and the judgment is real; but his deepest intention, running beneath and beyond the judgment, is to ransom and redeem, to save his people even from death. This is a great comfort, and a great hope. Whatever the darkness of our situation, whatever judgment our sin has earned, God's ultimate purpose for his people is redemption, even from death, the great enemy. I will ransom them from the grave, he says; and in Christ he has done it, breaking death's power so that for his people the grave is not the end. The gospel line breaking through Hosea's judgment is a preview of the gospel itself: that God's final word to his people, even past their sin and past death, is redemption.

When I am aware of the darkness of my situation, or the judgment my sin has earned, can I hear the gospel line that breaks through even Hosea's sternest judgment, I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death, and take hold of the hope, fulfilled in Christ, that God's deepest purpose for his people is redemption, even from death itself?

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