Hosea 11:1-11 Commentary

In Context

The book of Hosea levels charges of infidelity against God’s people through an allegory in which Hosea is married to an unfaithful woman. This is compared to Israel’s idolatry, folly, foolishness and unfaithfulness and the bulk of the book is taking up with God’s judgment, punishment and condemnation.  Hosea 11 stands out within the whole book for the way it offers a reminder of God’s faithful love.  This means you, as a preacher, have a choice to make.  You could sing an uncomplicated ode to the faithful love of God *or* you can preach this text in its larger context, recognizing all of the way God’s love is complicated, most especially the ways our actions ignore and challenge God’s love for us.

What is Wrong with You?

Wallace Hartsfield, in his commentary on Hosea, housed in The Africana Bible, suggests three answers to the concerns God levels against Israel in the book of Hosea.  He applies them to his context in the Black Church in the US, which is not my context.  I will use his observations to generalize about 1) the temptation of assimilation and the role of identity in the church and 2) the move from grief and suffering to anger and acting out against others.

The greatest accusation leveled against Israel is that they have broken the commandments at their very start by welcoming and worshiping other gods.  While every expression of Christian faith is enculturated and we see this through the lens of an Incarnate God (born in time, place, language, culture, etc.) as a good thing, it is also the case that the claims of culture can overshadow the commitments of faith.  Hartsfield sees this in the way “Israelites are continually depicted as breaking relationship with Yahweh to partake in the perceived  benefit of Canaanite culture. In Hosea, this reality is more pronounced, for Yahism, the Israelites’ religion, seemingly has been totally compromised because of Israel’s infatuation with Canaanite culture.  Note the argument here is not that culture is bad and to be avoided at all cost.  Rather, culture is the necessary water we swim in and, as Christians, its claims do not define us.

Second, Hosea tells a deeply personal story of betrayal, grief, shame and punishing response.  Most of us either have similar stories or have walked with loved ones through something similar.  The old adage goes, “hurt people hurt people.”  We see this in Gomer’s painful life experience causing her to revert to actions that hurt Hosea.  We see this in the way that Hosea’s pain at being betrayed cause him to punish Gomer.  But what God does, especially in chapter 11, is demonstrate that God is not like us in this.  Our actions have caused pain and sorrow for God, from which God would have every right to respond with retaliatory punishment and aggression. But God doesn’t. God chooses a non-violent response and, although it is not the point of the passage, God calls us to recalibrate our desire for vengeance to his way of settling suffering with love that forgives.

“Meager but Compelling Messages of Hope”

In his commentary on Hosea, housed in The Africana Bible, Wallace Hartsfield offers this evocative assessment of the Lectionary pericope within the scope of the whole Hosea narrative. It is meager because the majority of the story focuses on God’s anger and punishment of Israel’s idolatry, foolishness and (in a word) sin.  But it is compelling in that, over and against Israel’s sin, God is imaged as a patient and loving parent or, as Hartsfield puts it, “a frustrated parent addressing a wayward child, who cannot follow through with previously planned punitive actions consisting of disowning and ultimately destroying the child.”

Images of Parental Love

Unfortunately, those of us who read Scripture in anything other than its original language sometimes miss out on the beautiful imagery in the original.  Thankfully, Biblical scholars can unearth some of these for us, as Robert Alter does with Hosea 11. For example, where verse three says God taught Ephraim to walk and took him by the arms, we actually have a loving portrait known to most parents — the act of holding a child by the hands as they take their first tentative steps in the world.  How about that image in verse four, of God lifting Israel so that they could be cheek-to-cheek.

It’s as though, in verses 1-4, God is paging through a photo album or scrolling through saved photos on his phone, remembering this beloved child at every endearing season of development. And then, in verses 5-7, God as parent is remembering all the instances their child was not “camera-ready,” All the moments not memorialized on Facebook or Instagram.  The painful words, actions and memories wash over God in that moment.  Interestingly, Alter highlights the strangeness of the language in these verses, very unusual vocabulary and grammar.  What parent hasn’t been rendered speechless on occasion but the strange misbehaviors of their children!

But all of it moves us toward verse 8, which, according to Alter, “Marks a turning point: although Israel has provoked God, He is unwilling to consign it to destruction.” No matter the provocation, loving fidelity wins out.

Illustration:

This would be a great week to partner with some parents in your congregation—maybe at various stages of the parenting journey—to discuss the nature of frustration, disappointment on the one hand and patience and love on the other.  From parents of newborns who haven’t had an eight-hour stretch of sleep in months, to parents of toddlers who are practicing having their own opinions, to teens making dumb—sometimes dangerous—choices, even the struggle of releasing, while still loving, adult children. How does the actual experience of parenting challenge and aid our understanding of God as parent, as depicted in Hosea 11.

The fact is, this metaphor is fraught with painful pastoral touch points. So the better course of wisdom would be to invite these conversations.  This might mean an open call to jump on a mid-week zoom or targeted asks of parents in various stages to meet together in a group or with you individually.  It also means taking some time in prayer and your congregational directory to anticipate, in advance, whether there may be some important follow-up pastoral visits.