Scripture Daily

Context No. 232 of 4322 · Hosea

Context · Reflection

Hosea 11:1-12: in context

1“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. 2They called to them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images. 3Yet I taught Ephraim to walk. I took them by their arms, but they didn’t know that I healed them. 4I drew them with cords of a man, with ties of love; and I was to them like those who lift up the yoke on their necks; and I bent down to him and I fed him. 5“They won’t return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent. 6The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans. 7My people are determined to turn from me. Though they call to the Most High, he certainly won’t exalt them. 8“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused. 9I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. 10They will walk after the LORD, who will roar like a lion; for he will roar, and the children will come trembling from the west. 11They will come trembling like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses,” says the LORD. 12Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, and the house of Israel with deceit. Judah still strays from God, and is unfaithful to the Holy One.

Hosea prophesied in the northern kingdom in the century before Assyria wiped it off the map. Chapter 11 is one of the tenderest passages in all the prophets, because in it God stops speaking like a judge and starts speaking like a parent remembering a small child.

The memories are physical. When Israel was a child, God says, I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. I taught Ephraim to walk and took him by the arms. I led them with cords of kindness, with ties of love, and I bent down to feed them. And the child grew and ran to the Baals, and did not even know who had been healing him. By the logic of the passage that should end in judgment, and for a moment it does: the sword, the Assyrian king, the ruined gates. Then God interrupts himself. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over? My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm. I will not carry out my burning anger, for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst.

The reason he gives is the surprising part. A person, pushed this far, would harden. God says the opposite. He will spare them precisely because he is God and not a man, as if mercy that outlasts every reason to quit is the thing that makes him God at all. Where in my life have I assumed God must be finished with me by now, when he is the one who does not give up the way a person would?

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