Hosea 3:1
Then the LORD said to me, "Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and offer raisin cakes to idols."
Sermons
God's Forgiving LoveT. G. Selby.Hosea 3:1
Idolatry and Self-IndulgenceRobert Tuck, B. A.Hosea 3:1
Love in ChastisementHosea 3:1
The Love of GodDean Farrar, D. D.Hosea 3:1
The Love of the Lord Toward the Children of IsraelJ.R. Thomson Hosea 3:1
Hosea Detains Gomer in SeclusionC. Jerdan Hosea 3:1-5
Love to the AdulteressJ. Orr Hosea 3:1-5














This chapter, like Hosea 1., is written in prose; all the other twelve being rhythmical. It deals, as Hosea 1. does, with the personal life of Hosea, giving one further glimpse of the bitter domestic sorrow by which God made him a prophet. The same wonderful providence which had led him to marry Gomer at the first now impelled him to rescue her from the wretchedness into which she had fallen. And his own quenchless love for his erring wife became a parable to him of Jehovah's infinite compassion towards Israel.

I. HOSEA'S NEW RELATION TO GOMER. (Vers. 1-3.) For we take the "woman" here to be Gomer, and "her friend" to be the prophet, her husband. After she had borne him three children (Hosea 1:3-9), she fell into adultery and forsook him. It would seem, too, that she by-and-by became the slave of her paramour. But Hosea, as he sat in his blighted home, thought of poor Gomer with compassionate tenderness. She was still "beloved of her friend." He felt that he must seek her out, and say to her (as King Arthur said to Guinevere), "I loathe thee, yet I love thee." He resolved to buy her back. Her ransom cost him in money only one-half of the ordinary price of a female slave; the rest of the payment being made in barley - the usual coarse food of the class to which she now belonged. The inexpensiveness of the ransom shows to what a depth of degradation Gomer had fallen. This was so great, indeed, that the prophet could not at once restore her to her place at his table, or to the other rights of a dutiful wife. He will bring her home at first only as his ward. He will protect her from her sins. He will test her penitence by a lengthened probation, looking forward, however, to the time when the "receiving" of her again shall be as "life from the dead" to his long-widowed heart. It is pleasant to think of Gomer as not only rescued from her sinful courses, and by-and-by restored to her earthly husband, but as eventually also won back to the love of Jehovah. It is delightful to cherish the hope that the three children too became God's; their original names being purged of their vile associations, and becoming suggestive of spiritual blessing (Jezreel, Ruhamah, Ammi), so that

"When soon or late they reached that coast,
O'er life's rough ocean driven,
They would rejoice - no wanderer lost -
A family in heaven!"


(Burns.)

II. THE SYMBOLIC MEANING OF THIS NEW RELATION. (Vers. 1, 4, 5.) Generally, it is a sign of Jehovah's love towards Israel, notwithstanding her idolatry and sensuality (ver. 1). It reflects the debasement, to which sin leads, the discipline which God metes out to the penitent, and the irrevocable covenant of love which he makes with those who return to him. Hosea's family history stands out as a picture and a prediction. In particular, his new relation to Gomer foreshadowed:

1. Israel's long seclusion. (Ver. 4.) Although the primary reference of the passage is to the ten tribes, the prophecy really embraces the whole Hebrew nation. God has not utterly rejected Israel; she is still "a people near unto him;" but he does not meantime dwell with her as of old. The specific features of her seclusion are noted in the six "withouts" of the verse, and these arrange themselves naturally into three pairs. The whole representation strikingly describes what has been the actual condition of the Jewish nation during the last eighteen hundred years.

(1) Without civil polity. It had been a passion with Israel to have a king. But within three generations after the Lord gave Hosea this oracle, the tea northern tribes were "without a king, and without a prince." And when at last "Shiloh" came, "the scepter" finally "departed from Judah" also. That was a memorable day on which the spiritual leaders of the nation professed so emphatically their willing subjection to the world-power: "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15); but during all the subsequent centuries Jerusalem has "sat solitary," and "is become as a widow."

(2) Without temple service. The temple was the center of the Hebrew religious system. When it was destroyed the Mosaic ritual collapsed. Such worship as the Jews now offer is conducted "with maimed rites." How sad that they should be "without a sacrifice"! Sacrifice was the very soul of the Hebrew worship. Every sinner needs a sacrifice of atonement before he can stand in God's gracious presence; but the poor Jew, who still clings to the old covenant, has none. It follows that he is also "without an ephod." The ephod was part of the dress of the high priest. In the breast of it were the Urim and Thummim, by which Jehovah gave responses. But now, alas! to the Jew "the oracles are dumb." He has no altar, no priest, no access!

(3) Without gross idolatry. In Hosea's time the nation was attempting to combine the worship of Jehovah and of the Baalim; but the Lord tells him that for "many days" the people shall be without any god, true or false. They shall be "without an image," i.e. any public monument of idolatry such as the two golden calves were. And "without teraphim," i.e. those portable household gods which were sometimes kept as tutelary deities, and worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity. It is a fact that ever since the Assyrian exile the Hebrew nation have not been able to endure any gross idolatry. They doubtless break the first commandment after the more refined fashion of civilized peoples; many Jews, e.g., are money-lovers, and "covetousness is idolatry." But they have been at least free from the guilt of setting up "an image" or of worshipping "teraphim." Israel was to "abide many days" in this long seclusion; and it has already lasted for two millenniums. During all that period the Jewish nation has been the miracle of history. Its situation since Christ came is one of the most convincing of the external evidences of Christianity. And that situation shall continue until Messiah, the Prince of the house of David, shall assemble all the children of Jacob under his spiritual scepter.

2. Israel's final restoration. (Ver. 5.) This is to take place "afterward" - "in the latter days," i.e. in gospel times, and as one of "the last things" of the Christian dispensation. Both Jewish and Christian commentators understand by "the latter days" the Messianic economy, which was to be ushered in by the advent of the Messiah himself. The restoration shall be characterized by:

(1) Religious earnestness. They shall "seek Jehovah their God," and make the most assiduous efforts to find him. The Jews as a nation are not yet doing this. It is true, doubtless, that there are many devout families among them - many who cherish the deep piety which Sir Walter Scott has expressed so beautifully in his "Hymn of the Hebrew Maid," in ' Ivanhoe.' But among the cultured Jews much skepticism prevails. Many are pantheists, like the eminent Jew Spinoza. And among the mercantile Jews there is often an excessive devotion to wealth, together with indifference to all religion. "In the latter days," however, the Hebrew nation shall diligently "seek Jehovah their God."

(2) Loyalty to King Jesus. They shall resume also the allegiance to the royal line of David which the ten tribes renounced when they apostatized from Jehovah under Jeroboam I. The Jewish rabbis themselves acknowledge that "David" in this verse means the Messiah. But Christendom is persuaded that he began to reign eighteen hundred years ago, and that he is reigning still. Jesus of Nazareth is "the Root and the Branch of David." His birth Gabriel announced beforehand to his mother (Luke 1:32, 33); and Israel, at the time of her restoration, shall accept that angelic oracle and rejoice in it.

(3) Holy reverence for her Divine Husband. Israel "shall fear Jehovah and his goodness." She shall have such a grateful remembrance of his loving-kindness in forgiving her adultery as shall constrain her to the most vigilant obedience. "In the latter days" her heart shall say "Amen to the devout sentiment of the ancient psalm, There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared" (Psalm 130:4). She shall find that to know the Lord (Hosea 2:20) and to partake of "his goodness" are blessings inseparable from each other.

CONCLUSION. The threatened isolation of Israel has been abundantly fulfilled; and shall not also the promised restoration? If ver. 4 has already become matter of history, and so very marvelously, may we not expect that ver. 5 shall also, in the Lord's time? We are sure that it shall. Jehovah's promise must be fulfilled. "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" - C.J.

According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel.
The substance of this chapter is, that it was God's purpose to keep in firm hope the minds of the faithful during the Exile, lest being overwhelmed with despair they should wholly faint. The prophet had before spoken of God's reconciliation with His people; and He magnificently extolled that favour when He said, "Ye shall be as in the valley of Achor, I will restore to you the abundance of all blessings; in a word, ye shall be in all respects happy." But, in the meantime, the daily misery of the people continued. God had indeed determined to remove them into Babylon. They might therefore have despaired under that calamity, as though every hope of deliverance were wholly taken from them. Hence the prophet now shows that God would so restore the people to favour, as not immediately to blot out every remembrance of His wrath, but that His purpose was to continue for a time some measure of His severity. We hence see that this prediction occupies a middle place between the denunciation the prophet previously pronounced and the promise of pardon. It was a dreadful thing that God should divorce His people, and cast away the Israelites as spurious children; but a consolation was afterwards added. But lest the Israelites should think that God would immediately, as on the first day, be so propitious to them as to visit them with no chastisement, it was the prophet's design expressly to correct the mistake, as though he had said, "God will indeed receive you again, but in the meantime a chastisement is prepared for you, which by its intenseness would break down your spirits, were it not that this comfort will case you, and that is, that God, though He punishes you for your sins, yet continues to provide for your salvation, and to be, as it were, your husband." When God humbles us by adversities, when He shows to us some tokens of severity and wrath, we cannot but instantly fail, were not this thought to occur to us, that God loves us, even when He is severe towards us, and that though He seems to east us away, we are not yet altogether aliens, for He retains some affection, even in the midst of His wrath; so that He is to us as a husband, though He admits us not immediately into conjugal honour, nor restores us to our former rank. So we see how the doctrine is to be applied to ourselves.

( John Calvin.)

I once visited the ruins of a noble city on a desert oasis. Mighty columns of roofless temples stood in file. Gateways of carved stone led to a paradise of bats and owls. All was ruin. But past the dismantled city, brooks, which had once flowed through gorgeous flower gardens, still swept on in undying music and freshness. The waters were just as sweet as when queens quaffed them two thousand years ago. And so God's forgiving love flows in ever-renewed form through the wreck of the past.

(T. G. Selby.)

The dark sad story which Hosea pathetically shadows forth in his first three chapters taught him the chief lesson of his life. For he accepted God's dealings with him, and found that though the chastening was grievous, it brought forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness in his soul. By virtue of his holy sub missiveness he became one of the greatest of the prophets, and in the fall, the punishment, and the amendment of an adulterous wife, he saw a symbol of God's ways with sinful men. For the lesson which he learnt was this. If the love of man can be so deep, how unfathomable, how eternal must be the love of God! First of all the prophets he rises to the sublime height of calling the affection with which Jehovah regards His people "love." In Amos God is beneficent, and knows Israel; in Joel God is glorious and merciful; but Hosea introduces a new theological idea into Hebrew prophecy when he ventures to name the love of God. Hence, Prof. Davidson, referring to Duhm, says: "Amos is the prophet of morality, of human right, of the ethical order in human life; but Hosea is a prophet of religion." And to what unknown depths cannot God's love pierce! Agonising experience had taught him that human love, so poor, so frail, so mixed with selfishness — human love, whose wings are torn and soiled so easily, and which droops before wrong like a flower at the breath of a sirocco, — even human love, though disgraced by faithlessness, though dragged through the mire of shame, can still survive. Must not this then be so with the unchangeable love of God? If Hosea could still love the guilty and thankless woman, would not God still love the guilty and thankless nation, and by analogy the guilty and thankless soul? That is why, again and again, the voice of menace breaks into sobs, and the funeral anthem is drowned, as it were, in angel melodies. He saw the decadence and doom of Ephraim; he saw king after king perish by war and murder; he heard the thundering march of the Assyrian shake the ground from far; he knew that the fate of Samaria should be the fate of Beth-arbel; and yet, in spite of all, in his last chapter his style ceases to be obscure, rugged, enigmatical, oppressed with heavy thoughts; and to this doomed people he still can say, as the message of Jehovah, "I will love them freely, for Mine anger is turned away." It is so intolerable to the prophet to regard God's alienation from His people as final, that from the first he intimates the belief that they would repent and be forgiven, and become numberless as the sands of the sea, and that Judah — of whom at first he thought more favourably than at a later time — shall be joined with them under a single king.

(Dean Farrar, D. D.)

Who
The connection here pointed out between the idolatry of heart that seeks after other gods, and the self-indulgence in life that seeks after flagons — large quantities — of wine, is so truly universal, through all the ages it has been in evidence, and even now it constantly reappears, so that it may be regarded as necessary and essential. All nature religions, all pagan religions, all heathen religions are sensuous and sensual. All philosophical religions are, though in more subtle forms, sensuous, as may be illustrated in the personal history of Comte the positivist. It would be possible very widely to illustrate this fact. But when it is established, and the strongly marked contrast of the Jehovah and the Christian religions is pointed out, it remains to be considered why this connection between two apparently unrelated things should have become established. Two reasons may be suggested.

I. ALL OTHER RELIGIONS SAVE THE JEHOVAH RELIGION ARE HUMAN INVENTIONS. They therefore tend to foster the pride of man, to strengthen his self-will, and encourage him in doing what he likes. Jehovah religion, being authoritative revelation, brings man's will into subjection and obedience.

II. ALL OTHER RELIGIONS ARE, IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER, NATURE RELIGIONS. And the root idea of nature religions is the glorifying of sexual relations. The worship is virtual sensual indulgence, and thus all forms of sensual indulgence are encouraged. The Jehovah religion alone requires righteousness and purity.

(Robert Tuck, B. A.)

People
David, Hosea, Israelites
Places
Jezreel
Topics
Adulteress, Beloved, Cakes, Flagons, Friend, Gods, Grape-cakes, Husband, Israelites, Love, Loved, Lover, Lovers, Loves, Loveth, Paramour, Raisin, Raisin-cakes, Raisins, Sacred, Sons, Though, Towards, Turn, Turning, Wife, Wine, Yet
Outline
1. The Lord's intended future kindness to Israel, not withstanding their wickedness,
2. illustrated by the emblem of Hosea's conduct toward his adulterous wife.
4. The desolation of Israel before their restoration.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 3:1

     1085   God, love of
     4404   food
     4458   grape
     5277   criminals
     5709   marriage, purpose
     5717   monogamy
     6189   immorality, examples
     8299   love, in relationships

Hosea 3:1-2

     4363   silver
     5242   buying and selling

Hosea 3:1-3

     5702   husband
     5712   marriage, God and his people
     6242   adultery

Hosea 3:1-5

     7775   prophets, lives

Library
Whether Devils have Faith
Whether Devils Have Faith We proceed to the second article thus: 1. It seems that devils do not have faith. For Augustine says that "faith depends on the will of those who believe" {De Praed. Sanct. 5). Now the will whereby one wills to believe in God is good. But there is no deliberate good will in devils. Hence it seems that devils do not have faith. 2. Again, faith is a gift of grace, according to Eph. 2:8: "For by grace ye are saved through faith . . . it is the gift of God." Now the gloss on
Aquinas—Nature and Grace

The Millennium in Relation to Israel.
"And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land" (Gen. 15:17, 18). Here the two great periods of Israel's history was made known to Abram in figure. The vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamp intimated that the history of Abraham's descendants was to be a checkered one. It was a prophecy in
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

The Night of Miracles on the Lake of Gennesaret
THE last question of the Baptist, spoken in public, had been: Art Thou the Coming One, or look we for another?' It had, in part, been answered, as the murmur had passed through the ranks: This One is truly the Prophet, the Coming One!' So, then, they had no longer to wait, nor to look for another! And this Prophet' was Israel's long expected Messiah. What this would imply to the people, in the intensity and longing of the great hope which, for centuries, nay, far beyond the time of Ezra, had swayed
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Shaking of the Heavens and the Earth
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Yet this once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land: and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts. G od shook the earth when He proclaimed His law to Israel from Sinai. The description, though very simple, presents to our thoughts a scene unspeakably majestic, grand and awful. The mountain was in flames at the top, and
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Progress of the Gospel
Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world. T he heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1) . The grandeur of the arch over our heads, the number and lustre of the stars, the beauty of the light, the splendour of the sun, the regular succession of day and night, and of the seasons of the year, are such proofs of infinite wisdom and power, that the Scripture attributes to them a voice, a universal language, intelligible to all mankind, accommodated to every capacity.
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Cæsar and under the Pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas - a Voice in the Wilderness
THERE is something grand, even awful, in the almost absolute silence which lies upon the thirty years between the Birth and the first Messianic Manifestation of Jesus. In a narrative like that of the Gospels, this must have been designed; and, if so, affords presumptive evidence of the authenticity of what follows, and is intended to teach, that what had preceded concerned only the inner History of Jesus, and the preparation of the Christ. At last that solemn silence was broken by an appearance,
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Redemption for Man Lost to be Sought in Christ.
1. The knowledge of God the Creator of no avail without faith in Christ the Redeemer. First reason. Second reason strengthened by the testimony of an Apostle. Conclusion. This doctrine entertained by the children of God in all ages from the beginning of the world. Error of throwing open heaven to the heathen, who know nothing of Christ. The pretexts for this refuted by passages of Scripture. 2. God never was propitious to the ancient Israelites without Christ the Mediator. First reason founded on
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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