“The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself” (1689 Baptist Confession, I.9).

Scripture illuminates Scripture, and one portion of the Bible must be interpreted through other portions. The full sense of Scripture is not manifold but one, just as Author Himself is one.

I always have that principle in mind as I lay out the texts that we will study each year. Each calendar year is a unit in my mind, and I strive to place texts together that will particularly build upon one another.

This year we have studied the Song of Songs and the first ten chapters of Numbers, and we will conclude the year with Hosea, which was evident to me from the moment that I chose the Song of Songs. Both are books that explore the depths of God’s love. The Song does so positively, celebrating the joys and pleasures of covenant faithfulness. Hosea does so negatively, lamenting the sorrow of a broken and unfaithful covenant.

Indeed, the two books are exact opposites in some ways. In the Song, the bride was the primary character. She spoke first, last, and most. Her passionate desire for her Beloved was the dominant theme of the book. In Hosea, however, the bride is a whore, adulterous and unfaithful.

Nevertheless, the love of God is displayed in both. G. Campbell Morgan rightly said, “We have in the Book of Hosea one of the most arresting revelations of the real nature of sin, and one of the clearest interpretations of the strength of divine love.” In this book, we see sin’s nature rightly, as a grief against our Maker, as well as His steadfast love for His people. “If one wants to read a OT book that shows the heart of God, this is the book” (EEC, Vol VII, 173).

Hosea is one of the most difficult books to outline, but the section before us is quite simple to follow. And it grounds the rest of the book. Verse 1 gives us the title and context. Verses 2-9 show us Hosea’s task and the summary of God’s judgment upon Israel. Verses 10-2:1 are the great reversal, promising the restoration of God’s people.

THE CONTEXT OF HOSEA // 1:1

The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hosea is not mentioned anywhere else in Scripture, so all we know of him is found here in this book. From the context of the oracles, he evidently ministered to the northern kingdom of Israel rather than to Judah.

Recall that after the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam divided the kingdom through his foolishness. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained wholly loyal to David’s descendants, while the rest of the tribes took a man named Jeroboam to be their king. Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah, while the kingdom of Israel established Samaria as its capital.

Hosea ministered during the reign of Jeroboam II, which were the latter days of the kingdom of Israel. Both kingdoms were experiencing a period of prosperity and relative security, but it would not last. The Assyrians were coming. They would pose great problems for Judah, especially during the reign of Hezekiah, but they would prove to be an existential threat to Israel. The Assyrians would sack Samaria and scatter the Israelites throughout their empire and then repopulate the northern kingdom with “people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim” (2 Kings 17:24). These would eventually become the Samaritans, a people with a very complicated history.

Hosea’s oracles warned Israel that their comfort and prosperity were fleeting, that destruction would come swiftly if they did not repent. Like so many throughout history, they ignored the warnings, and calamity came upon them like a robber.

Of course, even though his message is largely for Israel, four kings of Judah are listed, and we can safely assume that the book itself was preserved through the people of Judah. The message was for them as well. Though they had several godly kings, the people of Judah were just as prone to idolatry as Israel. They would outlast Israel, but they would still ultimately fall to the Babylonians.

A LIVING PARABLE // 1:2-9

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

This verse is a summary of the whole book. Israel’s unfaithfulness to the LORD is the primary subject, and Hosea is called to embody that sin. Indeed, so extreme is the task given to Hosea that many suggest that it is purely symbolic. But that goes completely against the plain reading of the text. Yahweh gave this command to Hosea, just like He commanded Ezekiel to lie on his side and eat bread cooked over dung. He will also command Hosea to give prophetic names to his children, just as He did with Isaiah.

God wanted Hosea’s marriage to be a living picture, an enacted parable, of God’s covenant with Israel. Thus, Hosea was commanded to take a wife of whoredom. Though some commentators disagree, this seems to imply that Hosea was to take a wife who already possessed a reputation for herself rather than simply a woman who would give herself to whoredom.

But most importantly, she represents Israel. “For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” God is explicitly comparing their idolatry to adultery. The comparison is fitting because both are the breaking of a covenant. Israel belonged to the LORD in a similar way to a wife belonging to her husband. Thus, when Israel worshiped other gods, it was like a wife chasing after other lovers.

Ezekiel will note that idolatry is even worse than prostitution because rather than being paid, it extracts a payment. And that is always true of sin. It promises pleasure, but we trade away our souls in order to experience it. It is whoredom, giving ourselves away.

So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”

While Jezreel literally means “God sows,” it was a place of violence and bloodshed. It was where Ahab seized Naboth’s vineyard by having the man killed. Later, Jehu slaughtered the surviving members of Ahab’s family in the valley. Richard Phillips writes:

With this sordid history, Jezreel became a symbolic name for bloodshed. Much as Watergate is associated in America with political corruption. If you can imagine naming a child Chernobyl for the Russian nuclear disaster or Auschwitz for the Holocaust, then you can guess what it meant for Hosea’s son to bear the name Jezreel.

God states that He will punished the house of Jehu. Interestingly, the slaughter of Ahab’s descendants was prophesied and then condoned. So, this judgment is not given because of that slaughter. Instead, Jehu did not turn away from the idolatry that the previous kings had committed. The dynasty that God used to judge Ahab would, therefore, fall under the same judgment themselves.

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

Lo-Ruhamah. No Mercy.

When the Assyrians came, the LORD did not show Israel mercy. They were defeated, destroyed, and deported throughout the nations.

Assyria would lay siege to Jerusalem, but God would deliver them. The LORD Himself would strike down a hundred thousand soldiers in the night. As foretold, God Himself delivered them.

When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

Lo-Ammi. Not My People.

That is a terrifying statement because the signature covenantal expression throughout Scripture is: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” Mutal belonging is the essence of being within a covenant. The refrain of the Song of Songs purposely evoked the same formula: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

Now Hosea gives us the language of a fractured covenant. You are not my people. And so it would be. In 2 Kings 17, we find a shocking description of Paul’s warning in Romans 1. After centuries of acting like the nations around them, Yahweh gives Israel over the nations. They are scattered, and most of the northern tribes entirely lose their ethnic identity as God’s people. God’s words here are not hyperbolic nor exaggerated. God does, indeed, cast off His people for a time.

This, of course, is always the consequence of sin. It breaks relationships both with one another and ultimately with God. And it always, to some degree, is bloodshed because sin’s wage is death. Adam and Eve did not die on the spot whenever they ate the fruit, but they did surely die.

Just as with Jezreel, sin sows bloodshed, forsakes mercy, and ends with alienation from God.

MERCY FOR NO MERCY // 1:10-2:1

Then, in verse 10, something amazing happens:

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

Notice that this is a reversal of each judgment that came before. Not My People become my people again. No Mercy receives mercy. Jezreel, the place of bloodshed and violence, becomes the place of God’s gathered and reunited people.

Why does the LORD immediately promise to reverse His judgments?

God is not bipolar, nor does He have a divided heart. He is not wavering between mercy for His people and wrath against their sin. Both the judgments and the subsequent mercies are true, and both reflect the heart of God.

And this is not revelation that is new to Hosea; rather, it was revealed to Moses in Exodus 34, after Moses asked to see God’s glory. The LORD passed by the prophet proclaiming His name and goodness:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the father to the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.

There is the answer. God’s self-revelation begins with His mercy and ends with His justice, and there is no contradiction between them. He is just in His mercy and merciful in His justice. Both are attributes of His divine being.

Notice also the attributes between the two. Gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Those are the attributes where Yahweh’s mercy and justice mingle. He is patient. His love does not change every time we sin. He is faithful to His covenant, even when we are unfaithful. He forgives sin. But He will also not clear the guilty.

That is the connective fiber that holds the judgments and promises of restoration together in Hosea and throughout Scripture. God is merciful and just. Because of His great mercy, He is slow to bring His wrath upon us. But we should never presume upon His patience. As Peter says, God is slow to judge the world, giving everyone an opportunity for repentance. But for those who refuse, judgment will come.

Indeed, repentance is the destination of the book of Hosea. The final chapter will give us one of Scripture’s best passages on what it means to return to the LORD in repentance. And throughout the book, God’s message is for His people to choose His mercy, not His judgment.

And because God is abounding in steadfast love, even His judgment is ultimately working toward restoration. Israel was truly punished, and He withheld His mercy from them as the Assyrians destroyed their land. They lose their kingdom, and the covenant appears to be broken.

But that is not the final word. Paul cites verse 10 in his epistle to the Romans, where he understands it to apply far beyond the physical descendants of Israel that were scattered among the nations. Here is the context:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make know the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those who were called not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved.’ And ‘in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” there they will be called sons of the living God.’

Yahweh’s restoration of Israel from their scattering within the nations is also a promise that God will bring the Gentiles into His salvation. Those who were also not God’s people are destined to become God’s people, and those who were without mercy were to receive mercy.

1 Peter 2:9-10 affirms this as well:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter is also applying Hosea to Christians. And verse 9 is explicitly covenantal language referring back to Exodus 19, where God told Israel at the base of Sinai that they would be His treasure possession, a holy nation, and a kingdom of priests. And it is now applied to Christ’s church. We who walked in darkness have beheld the very light of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, our study is not complete until we set our eyes upon Christ, the greater Hosea. He is the faithful Son who came into the world to redeem an unfaithful people. He is also the true and better Bridegroom.

Again, we were not like the Bride in the Song of Songs who is madly in love with her Beloved. We were Gomer. A people of spiritual whoredom, who constantly chase after gods that are not gods. Of course, our gods are much more subtle than the Baals and Ashtaroth of ancient Israel, but they are nonetheless real.

Christ too has taken a wife of whoredom whenever He redeemed us. And He delivers us from our faithlessness through His faithfulness, through the perfect mingling of mercy and justice. Christ alone is the answer to how God can “by no means clear the guilty” while also “forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin.” Christ took all of our judgment upon Himself, which means that all of our sin is fully paid for. None of it is swept under the rug. Neither does God simply pretend it never happened. Instead, His wrath was fully poured out against our sin, but that judgment fell upon Christ. God, therefore, remains just, and we receive His overflowing mercy and grace. Thomas Watson wonderfully puts it this way: “He received wrath with no drop of mercy so that we can receive mercy without one drop of God’s wrath.”

That is the great exchange and redemption. That is how Christ has redeemed His bride whom He is now cleansing with the water of His word “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

Indeed, even though Jezreel became synonymous with bloodshed, it literally means “God sows.” Thus, the great day of Jezreel is when God will plant His united and restored people. Christ has accomplished this with the shedding of His own blood.

That, of course, is what we proclaim each week at the Table. Jesus restores us to the Father and to one another. Both male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free are gathered together into the kingdom of God. For we were lost in the darkness of our sin, the bread and the cup are God’s visible declaration: ‘You are my people, and you have received mercy.’