Hosea 8-9

[00:00:00] You are listening to the through the Bible's studio series with Pastor Nate Holdridge. Join us as we continue our study through the Old Testament book of Hosea. Here's Nate. God's case against the people of Israel in the ten northern tribes of Israel specifically

[00:00:29] is being built here in the book of Hosea. And in turning to the 8th chapter, the 14th verse tells us that they forgot their maker. And really what the people of Israel had done was break the covenant that they were in with God.

[00:00:46] And the prophet Hosea is there declaring to the nation that judgment is imminent. And of course, the judgment that they specifically would receive was the judgment of being carried away captive or scattered by the armies of Assyria.

[00:01:06] God is going to continually use the imagery of being brought back into slavery in Egypt. But they weren't really heading too Egypt. They were going to Assyria and God would specifically make that claim and give that prophecy.

[00:01:23] It says in verse 1 of chapter 8, as this declaration of judgment continues, he says, set the trumpet on your lips. That kind of phrase means that the sound of the war alarm has come and the trumpet of

[00:01:40] judgment which would come in the form of the Assyrians turning against them in battle. The people of Israel had tried to make peace treaties with the Assyrians had tried to develop a cozy relationship with the people of Assyria.

[00:01:57] But this plan would backfire against them and the trumpet of war would sound. And so he says, set the trumpet to your lips. One like a vulture, he says in verse 1 is over the house of the Lord because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.

[00:02:15] Now when I read the house of the Lord, my mind from this vantage point naturally goes to the temple in Jerusalem, but God is dealing with the northern ten tribes in this prophecy who did not have Jerusalem or the temple.

[00:02:33] And so when he says one like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, he's speaking of the house of God or the dwelling place of God, the nation of Israel itself. And so he gives the image of this vulture circling over the nation of Israel because

[00:02:54] they've transgressed God's covenant and rebelled against his law. So there was this vulture like figure that was ready to swoop down and destroy the nation of Israel. It's interesting because, of course, years earlier when God had made the initial

[00:03:12] covenant with the people of Israel, in Deuteronomy 28 verse 49, he explained that the breaking of the covenant would mean many things but one thing that would mean is that the Lord would bring a nation against you from far away from the end of the earth, swooping

[00:03:30] down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand and many translations actually translate Jose I, chapter 8 verse 1 to mean that there was a eagle that was circling over the house of the Lord. And so you have this promise now.

[00:03:48] They broke in the covenant and there would be one swooping down like an eagle that these nations that would come against the people of Israel. He says in verse 2, he says to me, they cry, my God, we Israel know you.

[00:04:07] Now again, this was lip service that the people of Israel at this moment of emergency were offering to God. They didn't truly know the Lord. This was simply a false profession. They profess with their lips.

[00:04:24] They say, God, my God, we Israel, you know, we're named after you, we know you. But the God had already said in chapter 4 that his controversy with the people was that there was no knowledge of God in the land and that they in chapter 4 verse 6 were destroyed

[00:04:45] for a lack of knowledge. They didn't really know the Lord and Jose V verse 4 says that a spirit of hoarding was within them and they did not know the Lord. Here though, they clearly know his name.

[00:05:02] They know things about him but they do not legitimately understand or know the Lord. It was a simple face value profession. But there wasn't anything real, nothing that was deep or consequential inside of their lives or hearts.

[00:05:20] They didn't really truly know the Lord and I think that probably gives us some kind of word of warning concerning the false professors even in our modern era. We must be so careful that we don't simply with our lips profess to serve the Lord.

[00:05:37] With our lips profess to love the Lord. With our lips profess to be devoted to an obedient to the Lord but that we would in the totality of our lives. Actually, know the Lord. This is what God says about them in verse 3.

[00:05:53] He says Israel has spurned the good, the enemy shall pursue him. Sort of the bottom line of what God saw with the people of Israel is that they had spurned the good. They had rejected God's clear moral and ethical requirements.

[00:06:11] Amiss had said in Amiss 5 verse 14 and 15, he said, seek good and not evil that you may live. So the Lord, the God of hosts will be with you as you have said, hate evil and love good. Amiss prophesied and pleaded with the people of God about.

[00:06:29] So here you see that God's people Israel, they were actually spurning the good. God pronounces the judgment. He says, so the enemy will pursue him. These nations will come against him and pursue him in battle.

[00:06:45] Now for us in our modern era, for us as Christians we should be thinking in our own minds, let me not be the kind of person that would ever spurn the good. Paul said in Philippians 4 verse 8, finally brothers whatever is true, whatever is honorable,

[00:07:03] whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. I think oftentimes Christians spend their time wondering, what am I allowed to view? What am I allowed to intake?

[00:07:24] What am I allowed to do with my lives rather than asking the question, what is the good? And how can I engage more and more with that which is good? And that's what Paul said in Philippians 4 verse 8, it isn't for you to just figure out

[00:07:40] what is bad and to stay away from those things. But whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, put your life in your mind upon these things.

[00:07:56] God in verse 4 says of the people, he said, they made kings but not through me. They set up princes but I knew it not. One of the crimes that the people of Israel had committed is that they had tried to produce their own dynasties.

[00:08:15] They had created national leadership without ever consulting God. The one scholar said that at this point, they already made nine different attempts at establishing a fresh dynastie. Of course, one of the massive illustrations of that was the origination of the Northern Kingdom in general.

[00:08:40] In general, they were one unified nation until Solomon died and his son, Rahabon became and Jeroboam established after a revolt, the ten Northern tribes as a nation. And sort of put himself out there as the next king for these people to possess and

[00:09:04] established idolatry and all of that for them in order to keep their hearts loyal there in the north. But this kind of went on and on. And so God says, you continue to make these kings for yourselves but not through me.

[00:09:19] I haven't been involved in this entire process. And then he says in verse 4, he says, with their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction. And so of course, that initial king in the north, Jeroboam, he had been worried that

[00:09:41] the people there in the ten Northern tribes would remember the worship of God in the temple in Jerusalem long for it and would desire to return to Jerusalem for worship and would eventually want to reunite with the two southern tribes.

[00:10:00] And so what Jeroboam did is he established in Dan and Bethel the worship of these two golden calves. And he announced to the people, here are your gods. And so of course this was reminiscent of the sin that Aaron had produced way back when

[00:10:20] the people had been brought out of their slavery in Egypt and they'd asked when Moses was absent up on the mountaintop they'd asked Aaron to produce a God for them and he made for themselves, made for them a golden calf to worship.

[00:10:34] This is sort of the revival of that initial sin all the way back in the book of Exodus chapter 32. And so God says, I have spurned your calf verse 5. I've spurned your calf of Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

[00:10:55] Where it is from Israel, a craftsman made it. It is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. Now the actual golden calves were not located in the city of Samaria but Samaria was the capital city of the north.

[00:11:14] And so it seems as if God just attributes these calves to the cities are to the capital city of Samaria. God says, though, in verse 6, he says, it's from you, a craftsman made it and the announces, it is not God.

[00:11:36] Now the interesting thing is that when Aaron had built the golden calf initially, he had said to the people of Israel, these are your gods. Oh Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and Jeroboam when he revived this sin, he repeated 1 Kings 12, 28.

[00:11:57] He said, behold, your gods, oh Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and God here announces over these golden calves, he says, it is not God. You wanted something visible to worship.

[00:12:16] You wanted to believe that this was the God that prospered you and delivered you. But it is not God. And so God just speaking about it and notice of course, there in verse 5 he says, I've spurned your calf of Samaria.

[00:12:32] They had spurned the good, but God spurned their idolatrous ways, literally him saying, your calf stinks in my presence. For they verse 7, so the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. But they had been so into that which could not prosper them, could not help them, could

[00:12:54] not bless them. And so God says, you know, you're so into idolatry and intermarriage with the nations around you and these horrible pagan practices and worship systems, you're so into that. That's like sewing to the wind.

[00:13:12] There's nothing there and you're going to reap the whirlwind and the whirlwind was a symbol of the divine judgment of God. Paul says in Galatians 6, verse 7, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one soes that will he also reap.

[00:13:33] And so they had sewn to the whirlwind. They would reap the whirlwind. It just bohoves us as Christians to sow to righteousness, to sow to the things of God, to sow to a holy life.

[00:13:47] There's the reaping of great fruit in that kind of life but for them God announces, the standing grain has no heads. It's yield no flour. If it were to yield strangers would devour it so God says, you know, I'm going to judge your crops.

[00:14:03] There will be no heads on your grain, no flour and if there were strangers would devour it. Israel, he says in verse 8, is swallowed up. Already there among the nations is a useless vessel and this is imagery that God uses

[00:14:20] from time to time in the prophets speaking of people, groups as a useless vessel. And here he uses it of his own people. He says they're not helpful. They're useless at this point a useless vessel.

[00:14:38] Of course, Jesus when he went into the temple, he spoke and said, it's is it not written. My house shall be called a house, a prayer for all nations but you have made it a den

[00:14:50] of robbers that the people of Israel because of sin had been rendered useless to the nations. But had they been righteous? Had they been in prayer? Had they been godly? They would have been useful to the nations, especially in their evangelistic appeal.

[00:15:08] It is interesting that sin, fruces, are evangelistic appeal in this world. It is through a righteous and good and holy life that we become useful vessels in the hands of God. For they verse 9 have gone up to a Syria, a wild donkey wandering alone, e. from

[00:15:30] his hired lovers. Though they hire allies among the nations I will soon gather them up and the king and princes shall soon arrive because of tribute. So God here announces about them.

[00:15:45] He says, listen, they went up to a Syria trying to make a peace treaty trying to make an ally with a of a Syria. And God compares it to prostitution. He says, you went and hired lovers. You're paying for romance.

[00:16:05] You're like a wild donkey in sort of a rebellious kind of animal in our mind's eye, a wild donkey wandering alone. And what God promises in verse 10 is that the day is coming where these very people

[00:16:18] that you tried to make an alliance with, they're going to put a tribute on you and the king and your princes will soon arrive because of that tribute. Because E from verse 11 has multiplied ulters for sinning. They have become to him ulters for sinning.

[00:16:39] Now some versions translate this as that Israel had built ulters for the sin offering, but that those very ulters that had the intention of the sin offering had become ulters for sinning. The ESV that I'm reading from says that E from is multiplied ulters for sinning, they

[00:17:02] have become to him ulters for sinning. But either way, these ulters apparently, they just weren't the place or the way in which God wanted to receive sacrifices. And the reality here is that they had created an opportunity for sin.

[00:17:24] And anytime you create an opportunity for sin, you will use the opportunity you've created to actually sin. The Bible is very clear that we must give no opportunity for sin. Galatians 5 verse 13 do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

[00:17:49] We're not to give opportunity for that flesh. We want to make sure that the flesh does not have a chance if we're not giving it a stronger opportunity for sin. Ephesians 4 verse 27, Paul writes and give no opportunity to the devil.

[00:18:07] So often we fall into sin because we give the enemy and we give our flesh opportunity and we're to be a people who look around and say, I don't want to give opportunity. These people had made the opportunity by creating these ulters for sinning and they

[00:18:24] became to him ulters for sinning. He says in verse 12, we're it to write for him my laws by the 10,000s, not just the 10 commandments, but 10,000s of laws. He says they would be regarded as a strange thing. They hated the word of God.

[00:18:43] As for my sacrificial offerings verse 13, they sacrificed meat and eat it but the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. They shall return to Egypt again the imagery that God is using that they would go back

[00:19:02] into slavery, not actual literal Egypt. The message is that they were going to a place of slavery and that would be for them at this era, a Syria. But God is saying you're just taking a step backward.

[00:19:18] You came from Egypt and now you're going back into slavery as a result of your sin. He says for Israel verse 14, has forgotten his maker and built palaces and Judah has multiplied four to five cities.

[00:19:36] So I will send a fire upon his cities and it shall devour her strongholds. God was not forgotten by them intellectually or absolutely but he was forgotten by them in neglect and rejection.

[00:19:54] We might say it was a moral forgetting of God and so God announces a judgment upon them and he specifically says that I'm going to judge even Judah and all of their fortified cities and their large palaces.

[00:20:10] In other words, he's saying you know all of this large yes, I'm going to crush it which is great for us to help us understand that big does not always equal blessed. They had the palaces, they had the fortresses but God was not in them.

[00:20:29] Now chapter 9, after promising that this judgment of going back to Egypt was coming, God says in verse 1, rejoice not, oh Israel. Some people think that chapter 9 is actually Hosea delivering an address at the beginning

[00:20:50] of the feast of in-gathering or the feast of harvest and that he was standing up during this time of what would normally be celebration and saying do not rejoice during this time. He says verse 1, exult not like the peoples for you have played the whore for saking your

[00:21:11] God. You have loved a prostitutes wages on all threshing floors. Now previously God had said to them that they had hired lovers for themselves. Chapter 8, verse 9, but here God says you're not hiring them. You're actually hiring yourself out.

[00:21:31] You are the prostitute in this image and of course all of this is going back to the Hosea, Gomer, imagery that overshadows the entirety of Hosea's prophetic ministry and what he's saying to them, you guys have played the prostitute.

[00:21:50] You have not been faithful to the living God and he says specifically you might ask a question, how had they done this? And the answer is to realize where they had done this and Hosea says that they had done this on all the threshing floors.

[00:22:08] Now this is language that would surround the worship of bail and they had thought that bail had fed them they thought that bail had provided for them and they had worshiped him on their threshing floors and actually performed idolatrous, cultic worship acts there on the threshing floors.

[00:22:33] And God says no, threshing floor and wine that verse 2 shall not feed them and the new wine shall fail them. So I'm going to touch their crops and destroy them. They shall not verse 3 remain in the land of the Lord, but he from shall return to Egypt

[00:22:49] and they shall eat unclean food in a Syria. So again the imagery of returning to Egypt, but we see literally where they were going was a Syria. They shall eat unclean food he says in a Syria.

[00:23:04] We know from 2 Kings 17 verse 6 and other places of course that the Assyrians did eventually come against Israel. And carry the Israelites away to the Assyrian territories. God says in verse 4, He says they shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord.

[00:23:28] And their sacrifices shall not please him. It shall be like mourners bred to them, all who eat of it shall be defiled. For their bread shall be for their hunger only. It shall not come to the house of the Lord.

[00:23:43] What will you do on the day of the appointed festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord? And so here Ozeha is saying listen, your crops are going to be touched and then this festival

[00:23:55] of in gathering and harvest is going to come and what are you going to do on that day? What will you do when you're in captivity and these days come around on the calendar and the feasts for the Lord?

[00:24:10] You won't have any opportunity to celebrate God while you're far away from the Promised Land in captivity. You're not going to be able to pour out these drink offerings to the Lord. He says, forbehold verse 6, they are going away for destruction but Egypt shall gather

[00:24:31] them again that imagery of going back to Egypt. Memphis shall bury them. Now, Memphis was an Egyptian city known very well as a burial place there in Egypt. So what do you have in Memphis? Will you have a foreign graveyard?

[00:24:52] And what God is saying to them, a foreign graveyard will be your final destruction. And so this is very ominous. He's saying with this imagery that they are on their way to death in a Syria. Wouldn't it just be a simple captivity but hardly anybody would return?

[00:25:13] There would be a massive amount of people who actually died in a Syria. He says, they're at the end of verse 6, nettles shall possess their precious things of silver, horns shall be in their tents.

[00:25:29] In other words, you're going to be carried away captive and your belongings back in Israel, your tents and your silver will be overtaken by thorns and nettles and weeds. It will become overgrown because it is vacant. The days, verse 7 of punishment have come.

[00:25:50] The days of recompense have come. Verse 7 is real, shall know it. The prophet is a fool. The man of the Spirit is mad because of your great iniquity and great hatred.

[00:26:03] The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God yet a fouler's snare is on all his ways and hatred is in the house of God. Here we see how the people of Israel treated are prophet Armand Hosea.

[00:26:19] First of all, what they said about him out loud was that he was a fool and that the man of the Spirit, that's Hosea, that he was crazy, that he was mad. And then, so they declared these evil things about Hosea but then in verse 8, we read

[00:26:37] that the fouler's snare was on all his way, ways and hatred in the house of his God. So we know that they were actually violently lashing out against Hosea. But God speaks of Hosea and says, the prophet is a watchman.

[00:26:55] Hosea's ministry was that of warning the people of Israel. And the truth is, is that as long as prophets were preaching to the people, there was hope of God's mercy and grace embedded in the prophetic message, all of the rebukes,

[00:27:12] all of that harsh tone coming from God to correct them embedded in the prophetic message was the hope of God for the repentance of the nation. But now Hosea, what a man. He cared more for God's opinion than for the opinion of man.

[00:27:32] He says in verse 9, he says, they have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibbia. He will remember there in Nickwitty, he will punish their sins. Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel God said in verse 10, like the fruit of

[00:27:51] on the fig tree and its first season, I saw your father's. God said, I saw you. I found you. You were like delicious, delectable fruit. I could not resist you. I wanted you. I loved you. I loved for you. I found you in the wilderness.

[00:28:08] But they came, verse 10, to bail peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame and became detestable like the thing they loved. Now here in verse 9 and 10, God speaks about two horrible moments in Israel's history. He says, that's what this current day is like.

[00:28:29] It's like the days of Gibbia. Now when you read, Judges chapter 19, you read of this horrible moment where a man had a concibine which was shameful in and of itself. Took her to a town in Gibbia, a town of Benjamin. There in Gibbia, there was gross militant homosexuality.

[00:28:53] They wanted the man to know him carnally. The man sent out his concibine whom they abused all night to the point of death. And it was just an ugly scene in the nation of Israel.

[00:29:08] Everyone else at that moment said such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. It was a dark day in Israel's history and God says, it's like that now.

[00:29:25] And then he also refers in verse 10 to the moment in bail peor which is a reference to numbers 25 when the people of Israel wandered. The men of Israel wandered and began to practice sexual immorality fornication and

[00:29:44] the worship of bail with the Moabite women due to the counsel of bailem. Feneas rose up in jealousy for God and killed a couple of people and the plague of God stopped but it was an ugly moment in the nation of Israel and God judged them deeply.

[00:30:06] And God says in both ways, those days have returned in northern Israel at this time. Ephraim's glory verse 11, shall fly away like a bird. I think God is saying, I'm your glory and I am now going to leave you. He says no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

[00:30:28] They're about to experience a massive population slow down even if they bring up children. I will bereave them till none is left. Woke them when I depart from them. Ephraim as I have seen was like a young palm planted in a meadow.

[00:30:44] So Israel was in a good spot but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. They got it led them well but they were leading themselves to disaster. Give them old Lord verse 14. So Hosea begins to pray.

[00:31:02] He says give them old Lord and then he interrupts his own prayer and says, what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Hosea wants them not to be able to have children because to have children in that kind of spiritual condition

[00:31:20] was actually harming the children. He says, hold back their womb. Every evil of theirs is in Gilgile. Therefore I began to hate them, God says, because of the wickedness of their deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more.

[00:31:36] All their princes are rebels. Now we read this and it might be difficult for us to think of God saying I begin to hate them. But the definition of what God is meaning by that statement is found there in verse 15. I will love them no more.

[00:31:52] In other words, you go back to the Hosea, Gomer, imagery and the wife has run. She's prostituted herself and she's removed herself from the place or the position of being able to receive the love of God or the love of her husband upon her life.

[00:32:13] God says, I will love them no more. They'll be removed from me. I will love them no more. E from verse 16 is stricken. Her root, their root is dried up. They shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will put their beloved children to death.

[00:32:29] My God will reject them because they have not listened to him. They will be wanderers among the nations. And so the prosperity of the nation of Israel, God says, I will judge them. I will judge their crops, but I will also judge their offspring.

[00:32:47] They will have children no more. They will be banished to a Syria. Great destruction pronounced from the hand of God. God bless you. Thank you for listening. For additional resources and teachings or to contact us, please visit us at