Hosea 7

 

God wants to heal all

 

1 When I would have healed Israel, then the evil of Ephraim was uncovered, and the evils of Samaria: for they work falsehood; and the thief comes in, and the troop of robbers plunders/strips outside. 2 And they do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have surrounded them; they are before my face. 3 They make the king glad with their evil, and the princes with their lies. 4 They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker when he stops stirring, from kneading the dough, until it is leavened. 5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with scoffers. 6 Their hearts are like an oven, while they lie in wait: their baker sleeps all night; in the morning it burns as a flaming fire. 7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings have fallen: there is none among them that calls to me.

 

• When we choose to follow other things we are choosing death.
• Everything we do is before the face of the Lord.
• God is life.
• Leavening the dough is pride puffing up man’s heart.

• Jeremiah 23:24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I will not see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth?

 

8  Ephraim, he has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. 9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he does not know it: yes, gray hairs are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know. 10 And the pride of Israel testifies to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.

 

• Ezekiel 18:32  I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, says the Lord GOD: therefore turn yourselves, and live.

11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt and they go to Assyria. 12 When they go, I will spread my net on them; I will bring them down as the birds of heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard. 13 Woe to them! For they have fled from me. Plunder them! Because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. 14 And they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds: they assemble themselves to spawn and drink wine, and they rebel against me. 15 Though I have trained and made their arms, strong yet they think evil against me. 16 They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this will be their scorn in the land of Egypt.

 

• Hebrews 12:6 whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.

• 1Peter 1:18 you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your empty way of life received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot

 

                                                Hosea 8

 

God’s anger is kindled against idolatry because it leads people to eternal death

 

1 Set the trumpet to your mouth. He will come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law. 2 Israel will cry to me, my God, we know you. 3 Israel has cast off the thing that is good: the enemy will pursue him. 4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes that I did not know: of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off. 5 Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off; my anger is kindled against them: how long will they be incapable of purity? 6 For from Israel it also came: the artisan made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria will be splinters.

 

• Psalm 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 5 They have mouths, but they do not speak: they have eyes, but they do not see: 6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but do not smell: 7 They have hands, but they do not touch: feet have they, but they do not walk: neither do they speak through their throat. 8 Those that make them are like them; so is every one that trusts in them. 9 O Israel, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.

• John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.

 

7  For they have sown the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind: it has no crops: the bud will yield no grain: if it does yield, foreigners will swallow it up. 8 Israel is swallowed up: now they will be among the Gentiles as a vessel in which is no pleasure. 9 For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim has hired lovers.

 

• God answered Job from out of a whirlwind (Job 38).
  
• He made man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7) like a potter makes a bowl or vase from clay, to hold something inside it.
• These vessels were not full of God but evil.
• They were hiring political and military help rather than calling upon God.

• Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

 

10  Yes, though they have hired among the nations, now I will gather them, and they will sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes. 11 Since Ephraim has made many altars to sin, altars will be to him to sin. 12 I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were considered as a strange thing. 13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of my offerings, and eat it; but the LORD does not accept them; now He will remember their perversity, and visit their sins: they will return to Egypt. 14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker, and builds temples; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities: but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its palaces.

 

                                               Hosea 9

 

God corrects iniquity

 

1 O Israel, do not rejoice for joy like other people: for you have gone whoring from your God, you have loved a harlot’s earnings on every grain-floor. 2 The floor and the winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail in her. 3 They will not dwell in the LORD’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean things in Assyria. 4 They will not offer wine offerings to the LORD; they will not be pleasing to him: their sacrifices will be like the bread of mourners to them; all that eat it will be polluted: for their bread will be for their soul. It will not come into the house of the LORD.

 

• They love money, and bribes.
• Whoring from God is trusting anyone or anything more than Him.
• God made man; God satisfies man’s soul.

• John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me will never hunger; and he that believes on me will never thirst.

5 What will you do in day of meeting, in the day of the feast of the LORD? 6 For behold, they are gone because of violence: Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles will possess them: thorns will be in their homes. 7 The days of visitation have come, the days of recompense have come; Israel will know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man raves insanely, for the multitude of your iniquity, and the great hatred. 8 The prophet is a watchman for my God over Israel, yet traps are laid in front of him wherever he goes. He faces hatred even in the house of God.

 

• God is love.
• Hatred comes from evil.
• Their hatred was great therefore their evil was great.
• The prophet trapped God’s people in God’s place of worship into false pathways that lead away from God.

 

9  They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity; he will visit their sins. 10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first-ripe in the fig tree in its first season: but they went to Baal-peor and separated themselves to that shame; they became an abomination like the thing they loved.

 

• Grapes in the wilderness were an unexpected delight.
• The first-tripe figs were a lovely surprise.
• This is how Israel was to God, but then they corrupted themselves.
• Gibeah was the city in Israel that became like Sodom and Gomorrah (Judges 19).
• The evenings entertainment was homosexual gang rape.
• There is no fulfillment apart from God’s provision.

• Judges 19:22 Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, surrounded the house and beat at the door, and spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into your house, that we may know him.

• Psalm 84:11 the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

 

God hates wickedness

 

11  Ephraim is like a bird; their glory will fly away, from the birth, from the womb, and from the conception. 12 Though they bring up their children, yet I bereave them so that there will not be a man left: yes, cries of grief to them when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim, as I have seen, is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre: but Ephraim will bring forth his children to the murderer. 14 Give them, O LORD: what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: I hated them there: I will drive them out of my house for the wickedness of their doings. I will love them no longer: all their princes are revolters.

 

• God is infinite purity and cannot love what is evil.

• Habakkuk. 1:13 You are of purer eyes than to behold/approve evil, and can not look on iniquity

• Jeremiah 2:19 Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

 

16  Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up. They will bear no fruit: yes, though they bring forth, yet I will kill even the beloved fruit of their womb. 17 My God will cast them away, because they did not listen to him: and they will be wanderers among the nations.

 

• Children go to be with the Lord at death.
• If these children remain alive they might be led to hell by their parents.
• God cast His people away because they would not listen to Him.

• Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

• Revelation 21:6 And he said to me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely.

 

                                               Hosea 10

 

The LORD corrects us because He loves us

 

1 Israel is a luxurious vine, he brings forth fruit to himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars; the better the land, the better he made the images. 2 Their heart is divided; now they will be found guilty: he will behead their altars, he will destroy their images. 3 Now they will say, We have no king, because we did not fear the LORD; what can the king do for us? 4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: so judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.

 

• Our fruit is to be to God, not ourselves.
• Man’s biggest idol is self.
• Hemlock is gathered in with the crops. It resembles grain. People die and no one knows why.
• This scripture warns us of lies mixed with the truth of God’s word, lies that poison our lives away from living in God’s presence.
• When God returned Israel from 70 years captivity they had no king from then on until the Lord comes.

• Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

• John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.

 

5  The inhabitants of Samaria will fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: its people will mourn over it, and its idolatrous priests that rejoiced on it, for its glory, because it has departed from it. 6 It will also be carried to Assyria for a gift to king Jareb: Ephraim will receive shame, and Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel. 7 As for Samaria, her king is cut off like the foam upon the water.

 

• Foam on water at the ocean just disappears.
• After the reign of King Solomon the nation of Israel divided.
• Jeroboam was the ruler of the northern kingdom, called Samaria.
• He made two golden calves and placed one at the north and one at the south of the land (1 Kings 12, 2 Kings 10).
• God foretold that these golden calves would be taken to Assyria.
• Idols lead the people to eternal death.

• Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and do not lean unto your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

 

8  Also, the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed: thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars; and they will say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us. 9 O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not catch up with them.

 

• Gibeah was a city of Benjamites that became like Sodom and Gomorrah (Judges 19, 20).
• Thorns and thistles remind us of God’s curse on the ground when Adam fell in Genesis 3.

 

10  It is my desire to correct them; and the people will be gathered against them, when I bind them for their two transgressions. 11 And Ephraim is as a heifer that is taught, and loves to thresh; but I harnessed her beautiful neck: I will harness Ephraim; Judah will plow, and Jacob will break his clods. 12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in love; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and rains righteousness on you.

 

• Loving God first and best is the first way to sow righteousness.
• We love God more as we learn more of Him in His word.
• If we just imagine what God is like without seeking the truth in His word then we are making an idol in our hearts.
• God is too wonderful to imagine.

• Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment.

• Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I admonish and train: be zealous therefore, and repent.

 

13  You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity; you have eaten the fruit of lies: because you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men. 14 Therefore an uproar will rise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed like Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces on her children. 15 He does this to you, Bethel, because of the evil of your evils: at dawn the king of Israel will be utterly cut off.

 

• They were trusting in their military strength, fortifications, and weapons instead of the Maker of heaven and earth.
• Remember that all evil originates with Satan, God’s enemy.
• When we turn from the Lord we are following evil.

• Judges 5:8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates.

 

                                                Hosea 11

 

God loves us, teaches us, and heals us

 

1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. 2 The more I called them, the more they went from me: they sacrificed to Baalim, and burned incense to carved images. 3 I also taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; they did not know that I healed them.

 

• Ephraim was the northern kingdom of Israel separated from Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel: separated by God after the reign of Solomon because of Solomon’s idolatries.
• Everything in scripture is for all people—that’s what we are told in scripture.

• 1Corinthians 10:11 Now all these things happened to them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world have come.

• Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, It is true, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons

 

4  I drew them with cords of a man, with wreaths of love: and I was to them as those that take the yoke off of their jaws, and I bent down and fed them. 5 He will not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian will be his king, because they refused to return. 6 The sword will remain on his cities. It will consume his branches and devour them because of their own counsels.

 

• How tenderly God treats us.
• God takes the bands of wickedness off (all the things that the world, the flesh, and the devil require of us) and feeds us the bread of life as we feed on Him in His word.

• John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me will never hunger; and he that believes on me will never thirst.

 

7  My people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, they would not exalt him together. 8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How am I to deliver you, Israel? How can I make you as Admah? How can I set you as Zeboim? My heart churns within me; my sympathy burns. 9 I 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 in the midst of you: and I will not enter into the city. 10 They will walk after the LORD: he will roar like a lion: when he roars, then the children will tremble from the west. 11 They will tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria: and I will place them in their houses, says the LORD. 12 Ephraim surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah still rules with God, and is faithful with the most holy.

 

• 1Samuel 2:30 those that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me will be lightly esteemed.

 

                                              Hosea 12

 

1 Ephraim feeds on wind and follows after the east wind: he daily increases lies and ruin. And they make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.

 

• They fed on wind instead of the God’s Word. Wind doesn’t fill.
• The lies were the idols that Assyria worshipped.

• John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me will never hunger; and he that believes on me will never thirst.

 

God sued His people

 

2  The LORD has a lawsuit with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his doings. 3 He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he was a prince with God:  4 Yes, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, he finds us there and speaks with us; 5 Even the LORD God of armies; the LORD is his memory/memorial name. 6 Therefore turn to your God: keep love and judgment, and wait on your God continually.

 

• God has been specific and clear.
• His commands and judgments tell us how live well and how to treat each other.
• They tell leaders, judges, and officials of the people how to decide court cases.
• God’s laws have a fairness that surpasses anything man has conceived.
• God’s laws have an eternal fairness that views the accounting that each of us must give before God when our life is over.
  
• God will call all nations to account.

• Micah 5:15 I will execute judgment in anger and wrath against the nations that have not obeyed me! (NIV)

 

7  He is a merchant, deceitful balances are in his hand: he loves to oppress. 8 And Ephraim said, Yet I have become rich, I have found substance: in all my labors they will find no iniquity in me that is sin. 9 And I, the LORD your God from the land of Egypt, will still make you to dwell in tabernacles as in the days of the appointed festivals. 10 I have spoken by the prophets. I have multiplied visions and used parables, by the ministry of the prophets. 11 Is Gilead evil? Definitely! They are worthless: they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal; yes, their altars are like heaps of stones in the furrows of the fields. 12 Jacob fled to the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. 13 And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved. 14 Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore he will leave his bloods on him, and his Lord will return his reproach to him.

 

• Balances of deceit speak of overcharging for goods and services. That is oppression.

• In verse 14 the word ‘blood’ is plural.
• The correct translation of Hosea 13:2 is ‘the sacrifices of men kiss the calves.’
• They were literal sacrifices of men, human sacrifice, strictly forbidden by God. It’s murder in the name of God—an astounding blasphemy.

 

                                              Hosea 13

 

1 When Ephraim spoke there was trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended through Baal, he died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molded images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding. All of it is the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, Let those who sacrifice men kiss the calves. 3 Therefore they will be as the morning cloud and as the early dew that passes away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor and like the smoke out of the chimney.  4 Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt, and you will know no god but me: for there is no savior beside me.

 

• Verse 2 speaks of literal sacrifices of men, human sacrifice, strictly forbidden by God.
• It’s murder in the name of worship—an astounding blasphemy because died to give us eternal life.
• This wasn’t some light frivolous worship they practiced to the false gods.
• These people were trying desperately to solve their problems and make their lives better.
• But God had showed them the true solution over and over.

• John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

• Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

 

5  I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. 6 According to their pasture, so they were filled; they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they have forgotten me. 7 Therefore I will be to them like a lion: I will watch them like a leopard by the way: 8 I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs and will rip the sack around their heart, and there I will devour them like a lion: the wild beast will tear them.

 

• A lion hidden along the path pounces unexpectedly.
• God is our only resort. If we turn from the one who made us, what hope can there be?

 

In God is our help

 

9  O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but your help is in me. 10 I will be your king: where is another that can save you in all your cities? And your judges of whom you said, Give me a king and princes? 11 I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath.

 

• What better king could we have than one who is everywhere, knows everything, loves us infinitely and has all the power in the universe?

• Psalm 121:2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.  3 He will not allow your foot to be moved: he that guards you will not sleep.  4 Behold, he that guards Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

• Revelation 17:14 These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and those that are with him are called and chosen and faithful.

 

12  The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hidden. 13 The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him: he is an unwise son for he resists being reborn. 14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction: pity will be hid from my eyes.

 

• 1Peter 1:18 you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your empty way of life received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot

• Revelation 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

 

15  Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the wind of the LORD will come up from the wilderness. His spring will become dry and his fountain will be dried up: it will plunder his treasury of every precious article vessels. 16 Samaria will become desolate; for she has rebelled against her God: they will fall by the sword: their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their women with child will be ripped up.

 

• Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?

• Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

 

                                                Hosea 14

 

1 O Israel, return to the LORD your God; for you have fallen by your iniquity. 2 Take words with you and turn to the LORD: say to him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: and we will give the calves of our lips. 3 Assyria will not save us; we will not ride on horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods: for in you the fatherless finds mercy.

 

• God has been a better Father to all of us than any of our earthly fathers.
• He planned us, created us in His image, gave us every breath and all that we have, never leaves us or forsakes us and sent His perfect Son to die for our sins.

• Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

 

God will heal our backsliding and love us freely

 

4  I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for my anger has turned away from him. 5 I will be as the dew unto Israel: he will bloom as the lily, and send out his roots as Lebanon. 6 His branches will spread, and his beauty will be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 7 They that dwell under his shadow will return; they will revive as the grain, and blossom as the vine: its scent will be like the wine of Lebanon.

 

• The lily grows tall and straight, extravagant in loveliness.

 

8  Ephraim will say, What do I have to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is your fruit found. 9 Who is wise, he will understand these things? Prudent, he will know them? For the ways of the LORD are right, and the just will walk in them: but the transgressors will fall in them.

 

• John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.

• Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

 

 

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SUMMARY:  Hosea 7-14

 

• God wants to heal all
• God’s anger is kindled against idolatry because it leads people to eternal death
• God hates wickedness
• The LORD corrects us because He loves us
• God loves us, teaches us, and heals us
• God sued His people
• In God is our help
• God will heal our backsliding and love us freely