Hosea calls on Israel to humble themselves before God and return to Him (v1,2). He acknowledges that they have done wrong, and that God has dealt with them and broken them, but he assures them that He will revive them and bind them up. There is an interesting phrase here – “…. After two days He will revive us and on the third day He will raise us up”.
Is this an amazing look forward to the resurrection of Jesus? It seems to be and that is wonderful.
Hosea urged the people to ‘pursue the knowledge of God’, to know God better. The reason for this was that God can be relied upon every new day, and that He would provide the rain they needed. Israel had no artificial irrigation schemes, they relied totally upon God to water their crops in the different seasons, former and latter rains (v3).
God has promised to provide all our needs, not wants but needs.
It seems that their apparent repentance was not so genuine as God said, in v4-6, ‘Ephraim and Judah, what shall I do to you?’ They were going through the motions, using the right words but the genuine article was missing, it was shallow as we shall see in 7:3. One writer has said that we are never in greater danger than when we assume that God will forgive us long as we go through the outward form of repentance. A lot of this comes in our ‘worship’ which is often restricted to our music in our churches. I’ve said it elsewhere but singing and music is only part of our worship, and I cringe every time the leader says- ‘Now we will have a time of worship’. Just what have we been doing before and will do after? In Amos 5:21 we read that God said that He despised their feasts, whereas in Psalm 51:17 said that He will not despise a broken and contrite heart.
God levelled at them that their ‘faithfulness’ was like the morning cloud which passes away like the dew. It didn’t last long. God desired mercy rather than sacrifice. In other words, He wants our genuine actions of the heart rather than giving things up, where we try to make it look good, but it is only an outward show. Some religions demand fasting but it is purely a ritual, there is no change of heart. Jesus used these words about the religious leaders of His day in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 – it was superficial rather than a deep spiritual outpouring. It was one thing to bring animals for sacrifice, but God really wanted them in a deep spiritual relationship with Him. We can give our offerings, thinking that we have done our bit for God and then walk away and carry on as before. This is faithlessness and hypocrisy.
They, like all humankind, sinned by treachery, even the priests were murderers on their way to worship. They were prostituting themselves and defiling themselves. There would be a harvest for Judah, not Israel, when they return from exile in Babylon (v7-11).
