Scripture Daily

Context No. 1955 of 4322 · Hosea

Context · Reflection

Hosea 6:1-11: in context

1“Come! Let’s return to the LORD; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds. 2After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him. 3Let’s acknowledge the LORD. Let’s press on to know the LORD. As surely as the sun rises, the LORD will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.” 4“Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. 5Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning. 6For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there. 8Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood. 9As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes. 10In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled. 11“Also, Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.

Hosea calls the people to return to the LORD, who tears but heals, wounds but binds up; let us press on to know him, and he will come to us like the rain. But God laments their fickle devotion: your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that disappears early. And he names what he truly wants from them: for I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Their religion was busy with sacrifice; their hearts were far from mercy and from knowing God.

The line at the heart of this passage is one Jesus himself quoted twice: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. God is saying that what he truly wants is not the outward machinery of religion, the sacrifices, the burnt offerings, the observances, but the inward reality: mercy, a heart that loves and shows compassion, and the knowledge of God, a genuine relationship with him. The people were busy with religious ritual while their hearts were empty of mercy and far from knowing God; and God says he prefers the mercy and the knowing to all their sacrifices. There is a searching truth here about the difference between religion and what God actually wants. It is possible to be busy with the outward forms of faith, the observances, the rituals, the religious activity, and yet to be missing the very things God most desires: a merciful heart and a real knowledge of him. Sacrifice without mercy, religious observance without a heart for God and neighbor, is not what God wants; he desires mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus pressed this on the religious people of his day who were meticulous in ritual but hard toward others: go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. The danger is to substitute the outward forms of religion for the inward realities God wants, to be diligent in observance while lacking mercy, to keep up the machinery of faith while our hearts are far from knowing God. This calls us to examine what our faith actually consists of. Is it mainly outward observance, or does it include the mercy God desires, a heart of compassion toward others, and the genuine knowledge of God, a real relationship with him? God does not want our religious activity as a substitute for these; he desires mercy, not sacrifice, and to know him more than all our burnt offerings. The forms of religion are meant to serve the realities of mercy and the knowledge of God, not to replace them; and where the forms are kept but the realities are missing, we have given God what he did not ask for and withheld what he wanted.

Is my faith mainly outward observance, the forms and rituals of religion, while lacking the things God most desires, a heart of mercy toward others and a genuine knowledge of him, and can I hear his word, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, as a call to give him not merely religious activity but the merciful heart and the real relationship he actually wants?

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