“There is one text in the Bible that, as God is my witness, I never read without trembling” (Morgan, Hosea, 72). That text is found in Judges 16. In that chapter, Samson is asked multiple times by Delilah to reveal the secret of his strength. Finally, after giving her false answers, verse 16 tells us that he finally told her the truth about his hair after she vexed his soul to death with her pleas. He then falls asleep in her lap, and a Philistine cuts his hair. Delilah then wakes Samson up, saying that the Philistines were upon him. And verse 20 tells us: “But he did not know that the LORD had left him.”

Samson is a fitting picture of Israel in our text this morning. So far, in the oracles of the LORD in Hosea 4-14, Yahweh presented His evidence against Israel in chapter 4 and His verdict and judgment chapter 5. Now, in chapters 6-7, Israel is called to repent of their sin, but their ignorance has blinded them. As 7:9 will state, they do not know that their strength has left them. Indeed, the great question of these two chapters is simply: what does genuine repentance look like?

This oracle can be divided into three broad sections:

1. 6:1-3 is a call for repentance.

2. 6:4-7:3 displays the problems with Israel’s repentance.

3. 7:4-16 use four similes to show what false repentance looks like.

RETURN TO THE LORD // 6:1-3

“Come, let us return to the LORD;
          for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
          he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
          on the third day he will raise us up,
          that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
          his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
          as the spring rains that water the earth.”

One commentator argued that these verses are not a genuine call to repentance but rather a synchronistic call to repentance. But I am not convinced that he is correct. Instead, this appears to be a genuine call to repentance that is strategically placed in the center of the book because it anticipates chapter 14.

Notice that the ESV places these verses in quotation marks because they do not appear to be the oracle of Yahweh but a voice from among the people. Some suggest that it is Hosea himself speaking. Perhaps it is collective voice of God’s faithful remnant among His people. After all, just there were 7000 in the time of Elijah or Ruth and Boaz during the time of the judges, so the LORD always preserves a remnant of His people. There are always those who remain faithful even during unfaithful times.

Regardless of who exactly is speaking, this is a call to repentance, which looks forward to the ultimately restoration of Israel. Of course, that is exactly what chapter 2 predicted. Indeed, notice how verse 1 aligns with Hosea 2. Severe discipline will be followed by tender discipline and covenantal restoration. This voice encourages the people to submit to God’s wounds and subsequent healing.

Of course, we may very well wince at the thought of God wounding anyone. Consider, however, a surgeon. An incision is a wound upon a person, but it is done with a greater healing in mind. The wounds of the LORD are the same. They are for the purpose of an overall healing.

Then we have the language of resurrection in verse 2. The point, in the immediate context, is that Yahweh’s restoration of His people will be swift. Two or three days is not a literal timeframe for the physical restoration of Israel. Of course, it is impossible for us not to connect this to Christ’s resurrection, which began the spiritual restoration of Israel. Indeed, this may have been one of the passages that Paul had in mind whenever he says in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ rose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. Again, the physical restoration of Israel does not happen within two or three days of their exile, but the restoration is begun with Christ’s resurrection on the third day from the grave. His return will bring the restoration of Israel to its physical fulfillment.

True repentance leads to restoration and resurrection. In verse 3, we also see that true repentance is ultimately about knowing Yahweh. Indeed, notice the life-giving images that following the knowledge of the LORD. He is as the dawn. As certain as the sun will rise in the east, so is the LORD. Though clouds of adversity sometimes hide His face, He is nevertheless the very light by which we see. Seeking the LORD does not require secret and esoteric knowledge. He has revealed Himself clearly in His Word.

Yahweh is also like rain, like showers and spring rains. He is like life-giving rain upon dry and cracked earth. The knowledge of Yahweh gives life to our dry and thirsty souls.

God is the light and life of His people, and true repentance is always about knowing Him. It is the very opposite of everything that we have seen from Israel so far in the Hosea. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” “They do not know the LORD.” “‘And they forgot me,’ declares the LORD.”

This is perhaps the most important contribution of Hosea to the overall theology of repentance. Repentance must ultimately be about knowing the LORD.

But will they actually do it? 

That is the question that the remainder of our text answers.

LIKE A MORNING CLOUD // 6:4-7:3

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?

I hear an echo in these questions of Exodus 33:4-6. In those verses, after the idolatry of the golden calf, Yahweh commanded His people to remove all of their jewelry and ornaments, saying, “that I may know what to do with you.” It is like a father considering how to best discipline his wayward child.

In verse 4, we have a simile that describes the overall problem with Israel’s repentance, and notice how it is connected to image of Yahweh in verse 3: Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Israel’s love for the LORD is like a morning cloud or an early dew, both of which vanish in the full light of the sun. Even though Yahweh is as consistent and as life-giving as the sunrise, Israel’s love is a fleeting as early morning fog. They do express their love for the LORD from time to time, but it is fickle and fading.

Verses 5-6 are also the negative of verse 3:

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
          I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
          and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
          the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Though they have God’s law and have been sent the prophets, their repentance is not from knowledge of Yahweh. They offer Him sacrifices, of course. And they think that their offerings will please God. However, the LORD makes His heart clear: For I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Jesus will use this very verse to rebuke the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, teaching that sacrifices themselves were never the point. God always desired the love of His people.

Too many people believe that the New Testament is radically different from the Old. They believe that God demanded nothing but works and obedience in the Old, but Jesus changed everything into grace and forgiveness. That is not the case at all. Jesus revealed and fulfilled the heart of the Old Testament. We saw this in the Beatitudes last year, which were each rooted in Old Testament Scriptures that Christ put together into a list of the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. In the same way, God speaks clearly here: sacrifices themselves were never the point. Yahweh always desired that His people know and love Him, so that they may also glorify and enjoy Him.

But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. Verse 7 again reminds us that Israel broke the very covenant that they promised to obey. God gave them His law, and He continued speaking to them through the prophets. Their ignorance, therefore, is not like that of the nations around them. They had the oracles of God, yet they chose not to read them, not to hear them, not to obey them. Just as Gomer did not stumble by accident into her adultery against Hosea, neither did Israel accidently commit idolatry. Their ignorance was willful.

Gilead is a city of evildoers,
          tracked with blood.
As robbers lie in wait for a man,
          so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
          they commit villainy.
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
          Ephraim’s whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.

Verses 8-10 describe Israel and her priests as robbers. This is connected to the LORD’s accusation against the priests in 4:8 that the priests fed on the sins of the people. They encouraged offerings and sacrifices because they profited from them. But they did not teach the people the law and knowledge of the LORD. Thus, all Ephraim is defiled in their whoredom.

Verse 11 adds Judah to the judgment: For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed. In a terrifying irony, Yahweh promises a harvest for Judah. Normally, a harvest is a time of joyful celebration, but in this context, the harvest is the painful discipline of the LORD upon them. As Paul tells us in Galatians, whatever a person sows is what he will then reap, and Yahweh will state in 8:7, “they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind.”

Of course, Yahweh promises to ultimately heal His people, as we see in 7:1. but in order to do so, He must reveal their iniquity and expose their evil deeds. But as verse 2 makes clear, they do not consider their evil. They are like the adulteress who “eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong'” (Proverbs 30:20).

But their sin is ever before the face of Yahweh.

Finally, this section ends with the lamentation that the king and princes are made glad by the people’s sin. Just as the religious leadership was wayward, so was the political leadership.

FOUR PORTRAITS OF FALSE REPENTANCE // 7:4-16

Israel is not earnest in her repentance. In the remaining verses, the LORD gives us four portraits of what their false repentance looks like.

The first simile is that Israel is a heated oven. The picture is that Israel is consumed by her passions. Their sinful desires burn within them continually. And this is indeed what often keeps us from the truly repenting. There certainly are cases where a person does not repent because of pure apathy and coldness of heart, but often the passion and love is simply not for the LORD. In Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that “we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…” And as 1 Peter 2:11 says, those passions still wage war upon our souls. Before Christ and if we are left to our devices, we often love our sin and desire to stay in it. Even though we know its wages are death, we choose the momentary pleasure that it gives.

Indeed, as displayed in verse 7, sinful passions always ultimately devour us if we do not get a mastery over them. They smolder all night and blaze into flame in the morning.

The second picture is found in verses 8-10. Ephraim is a cake not turned. These are not birthday cakes being discussed but small pieces of bread. Most were probably not sweet, though 3:1 mentioned raisin cakes. Somewhat like making a pancake today, these little cakes of bread needed to be flipped over halfway through baking. If they were not flipped, they would be burnt on one side and raw on the other. Something half-baked is, therefore, wholly unpleasant.

But what made Israel half-baked? They absorbed the religious elements of the nations around them. Even when they worshiped Yahweh, they did so as if He were like one of the pagan deities. They mingled their worship with the Canaanites, and they didn’t ever realize that it was happening, that their strength was vanishing. They were like Samson.

The same sort of danger is still present within the church. Christ calls us to be in the world but not of the world. Yet worldliness is perpetually pulling upon our hearts. Often in ways that are difficult to notice. In Ephesians 2:2, Paul says that we all once followed “the course of this world.” And in 1 John 4:3-5, the spirit of the antichrist is tied to worldliness:

This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

Again, that is one of the perpetual dangers for God’s people: imbibing the world and letting the surrounding culture shape us more than God’s Word. And it happens slowly like gray hairs upon the head, bit by bit so that it goes unnoticed.

And if God did not excuse the ignorance of Israel, what excuse do we have today? We have the full counsel of God’s Word. We have personal copies of the Scriptures. We can even have them read to us through audiobooks. We should saturate ourselves in the Word so that we have the vision to proper ask ourselves whether there is worldliness that is devouring our strength. Are their patterns of worldly living and worshiping that we have absorbed from the world around us? Is our worship like an unturned cake because it is mixed with the philosophies and ideas of the world?

The third picture of false repentance is a silly dove in verses 11-12. As we note last week, Israel continuously made alliances and treaties with Egypt and Assyria because they were between those two great powers. Whichever seemed most powerful at the time was the one that they gave tribute and allegiance to. Of course, those were the very nations that threatened their existence. Indeed, Israel thought that Assyria would save them, but Assyria would be their destruction and desolation.

They were silly and without sense, like a dove that looks around rather than up for its deliverance. A dove only needs to remain in the air to avoid being trapped in a snare. It is only when the dove is on the ground that it is in danger. Likewise, if they would simply look up and keep their eyes upon Yahweh, they would be safe from all their enemies. None would be able to harm them. But their look around for worldly saviors rather than up to Yahweh.

We find the fourth simile in verse 15-16. Although the LORD made Israel strong, they devised evil against Him. Notice that they have returned. Again, they are exhibiting a kind of repentance. But it is not upward. It is toward Egypt, Assyria, and false gods that cannot save. Their repentance is like a treacherous bow, which is worse than useless. If a bow cannot be trusted to fire the arrow forward, then it is danger to wield. The modern comparison would be using a faulty pistol. Who would take the risk of using a firearm that may just as easily explode in your face? Their repentance is likewise treacherous. They think that it will bring them back into God’s grace, but it will leave them wounded instead.

Indeed, verses 13-14 pronounce woe upon them. Like Esau, they weep bitterly. They cry to the LORD with great lament and tears. But the tears do not come from their heart. They mourn for the grain and wine that Yahweh has taken away from them. They still desire the gifts over the Giver and are sorrow only for the goods that they have lost, not because Yahweh has left them.

Notice how all these pictures fit together. Israel’s love is like a morning cloud that vanishes in a moment. They appear to return to Yahweh for a moment, but their repentance proves false. Like blazing over, the passions of their flesh keep them from God. Like an unturned cake, their worldliness hinders their repentance. Like a dove that is silly and without sense, their foolishness has them turning to other “saviors” instead of the LORD. Like a treacherous bow, they ultimately wound themselves.

Is there nothing but woe then for us? How can anyone truly repent whenever we find our own wayward hearts reflected in this text? Thanks be to God, we look to Christ. In Acts 5:31, Peter and the apostles say of Jesus: “God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

Through the prophets, God commanded His people to repent. Through Christ, God gave His people repentance. Of course, Jesus also proclaimed repentance. The summary of His ministry was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” But Christ does not merely command us to repent, as the prophets did. He grants us repentance as a gift.

He secured our forgiveness through His dying in our place, taking each and every one of our sins upon Himself. Yes, the cross of Christ exposes our sin and reveals the depths of our need, but it is also the true tree of life for us in Him. It is indeed where sorrow and love flow mingled down. It is sorrow because there we see our sin placed upon the Lamb of God, who alone was white as snow. Yet it is love because Christ freely chose to give His life for us. As He said, “No one takes my life from me.” And through His sacrifice, He secures not only our forgiveness but also our repentance through sending us His Spirit to revive our hearts and make us new.

Indeed, the love of Christ is a sure as the dawn and as life-giving as showers of rain upon dry earth. As long as there is breath in our lungs, we can return to Him and be forgiven. The tragedy is that few of us actually turn to Christ until we do in our distress. Samson did the same. Even though he did not know that Yahweh had left him, Samson called upon the LORD after having his eyes gouged out and humiliated by his enemies. So would Israel eventually return to God in true repentance but only in the distress.

May our repentance be swifter than that. Let us come to Christ before our distress presses us, whether for the first time or the thousandth time. After all, repentance marks the beginning of our relationship with Christ, and it is the true mark of a believer afterward. Let us abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against our souls so that we are not like an oven blazing out of control. Let us carefully model our lives and worship around God’s Word rather than the world sot that we are not like unturned cakes. Let us turn to the LORD rather than false saviors so that we are not like silly doves. And let us come to LORD who tears that He may heal and strikes down that He may bind up so that we are not like a treacherous bow, piercing ourselves with our sin.

Indeed, as we come to Table this morning, let us come in answer to the beginning of our text: Come, let us return to the LORD. In this bread, we are reminded of the body of Christ, which was torn so that we may be healed. In the cup, we are reminded of Christ’s blood, which flowed as He was struck down that we may be bound up to God. In our baptisms, we are united with Christ in His death and raised with Him in His resurrection, that we may live before Him. Let us taste and see the goodness of our God in this Table as we press on together to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, which is eternal life.