Scripture Daily

Context No. 768 of 4322 · Hosea

Context · Reflection

Hosea 12:1-14: in context

1Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt. 2The LORD also has a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his deeds he will repay him. 3In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he contended with God. 4Indeed, he struggled with the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication to him. He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with us— 5even the LORD, the God of Armies. The LORD is his name of renown! 6Therefore turn to your God. Keep kindness and justice, and wait continually for your God. 7A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud. 8Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich. I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.” 9“But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt. I will yet again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast. 10I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables. 11If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field. 12Jacob fled into the country of Aram. Israel served to get a wife. For a wife he tended flocks and herds. 13By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. 14Ephraim has bitterly provoked anger. Therefore his blood will be left on him, and his Lord will repay his contempt.

Hosea is pleading with the northern kingdom in its last days, and he reaches back to the man they are named after. God has a case against Jacob, he says, and then he retells the ancestor's story: the baby grasping his brother's heel, the man wrestling with God at Peniel. But note how Hosea says Jacob prevailed. Not by cunning, which had failed him again and again, but by weeping and begging for favor. The lesson he draws is simple and clean: return to your God, keep love and justice, and wait continually for your God.

Then he turns to what Israel has actually become. A merchant with false scales in his hand, who loves to defraud. And worse than the cheating is the self-satisfaction on top of it. Ephraim says, surely I have become rich, I have made myself a fortune, and in all my gain they will find no iniquity in me that is sin. There it is: prosperity turned into a certificate of innocence. Because the money came in, the man decides he must have done nothing wrong, and the crooked scales in his hand are hidden behind how well he is doing. God's answer cuts under it: I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt. Your wealth did not make you; I did, and I am not fooled by the balance sheet.

Ephraim used his success as proof that no one would find any sin in him. Where do I let the fact that things are going well stand in for actually being in the right?

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