16. Hosea; When a nation becomes unfaithful. 

Hosea; When a nation becomes unfaithful to God.pdf

.                                               The book Hosea – Newsletters
.                                 All quotations from the New King James translation


An impressive report is written in the Book of Hosea, which describes what happens when God’s people fall into apostasy. It’s a guide for apostate Christians in these days. Apostate Christians who are moving in together or have a free sexual moral. Who have their offspring aborted or have accepted as normal, that children are raised by single parents. Or consenting to raising children against their gender. They are apostates who no longer consider marriage (the Divine union of man and woman) of importance and make no problem of letting themselves be genetically modified (vaccination mRNA) because they think that their pleasures and journeys are assured with it. For apostates and wicked ones, however, heavy weather is coming! Godless cheaters and deceivers can promise much, but God is not to be mocked:

 (Galatians 6: 7) 7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Theme: the great and forceful warning is imminent

An unusually severe warning will soon be given to humanity.  In what way many will experience and be able to handle this warning depends on their faith in the Creator and His Son. In the book of Hosea it is described how it could come to this, how the then people of God could become so distracted and desperate. Let’s start what happened after Solomon’s death.

After the death of King Solomon, the Jewish nation was split and two kingdoms arose, the southern 2-tribe kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital and the northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel with the city of Samaria as its capital: 

Judah – Israel

The first king of the northern 10-tribe empire, King Jeroboam, 931 BC, began golden calf worship. The word of God came to the prophet Hosea in the days when Jeroboam II was king of Israel (Hosea 1: 1).
The prophet Hosea was a contemporary of Amos in the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel.
Isaiah was God’s prophet in those days in the southern 2-tribe kingdom of Judah. 

The northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel is also called Ephraim, after the main tribe of Israel.

—————-——————————————————————————————–
Appendix:
The birthright of Reuben had been taken away and given to Joseph (1 Chron. 5: 1-2). Ephraim was given the position of firstborn (Jer. 31: 9):

(Genesis 48: 5, 14) 5 And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine….14 Then Israel (Jacob) stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.

The first king of Israel, Jeroboam, was a descendant of Ephraim (1 Kings 11:26). Jeroboam was crowned king in the city of Shechem.
Both Shechem and Bethel belonged to the territory of the tribe of Ephraim.
The golden calves of Jeroboam were brought to Bethel and the Dan region:

(1 Kings 12: 28-29) 28 Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!” 29 And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

In the listing of the 144,000 in Revelation 7: 4-8, Ephraim has been replaced by the name of Joseph and Dan has been replaced by the priestly tribe of Levi. Probably this has to do with the idolatry, with the aforementioned golden calf worship. It were also these two tribes, Ephraim and Dan, who had their territory in Samaria and who were deported to Assyria.
———————————————————————————————————— 

Israel was engaged in calf idolatry and Baal worship. The inhabitants sought protection from Egypt and Assyria instead of their God:

(Hosea 7: 11, 13) 11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense– They call to Egypt, They go to Assyria…… 13 Woe to them, for they have fled from Me! Destruction to them, because they have transgressed against Me! Though I redeemed them, Yet they have spoken lies against Me.
(Hosea 8: 7, 9) 7 “They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind….9 For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey alone by itself; Ephraim has hired lovers.
(Hosea 12: 1-2) 1 Ephraim feeds on the wind, And pursues the east wind; He daily increases lies and desolation. Also they make a covenant with the Assyrians, And oil is carried to Egypt. 2 The Lord also brings a charge against Judah, And will punish Jacob according to his ways; According to his deeds He will recompense him.
(Hosea 13: 1-2) 1 When Ephraim spoke, trembling, He exalted himself in Israel; But when he offended through Baal worship, he died. 2 Now they sin more and more, And have made for themselves molded images, Idols of their silver, according to their skill; All of it is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”

The prophet Hosea was the last prophet of Israel, before the people of Samaria were deported to Assyria:

(Isaiah 7:17) 17 The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house–days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.

The marriage covenant with the 12 tribes

God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham:

(Genesis 17: 7-9) 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” 9 And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

The Israelites became God’s personal possession on the basis of the covenant:

CSB (Exodus 19: 5-6) 5 Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, 6 and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation. These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”

The twelve tribes are referred to in the Bible as ‘the woman of God’.
God YHWH lived in the tabernacle or temple in the midst of His people, His wife.
Also, the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel is therefore referred to in the Bible as God’s woman:

CSB (Jeremiah 31: 31-32) 31 “Look, the days are coming”-[this is] the Lord’s declaration-“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 [This one will] not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-a covenant they broke even though I had married them“-the Lord’s declaration.
(Hosea 2: 2) 2 Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts;

Israel is like an adulteress who has betrayed her husband (God himself):

(Jeremiah 3:20) 20 Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, So have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord.

The idolatry of the wife of Hosea as a compare to Israel

In the book of Hosea, the marriage of Hosea to Gomer is compared to the riotous relationship of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel with God.
A prophet of God, Hosea, who had to take a wife of harlotry:

(Hosea 1: 2) 2 When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord.”

She bore him a son Jezreel and a daughter Lo-Ruhama. Afterwards she bore him another son:

(Hosea 1: 9) 9 Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, For you are not My people, And I will not be your God.

According to Douglas Stuart, Professor of Old Testament Studies, Hosea’s wife is not a literal prostitute, but tainted with idolatry: My favorite Mistranslations.
The prostitution described is a symbolic prostitution, a metaphor for idolatry. Just as the land of Israel was engaged in harlotry. This metaphor sounds logical.
It was the breaking of the covenant with God – which had been made with Abraham – and was later elaborated by the Law of Moses.
Hosea’s family is used as an example of what Hosea, as a ‘man of God’, must endure in pain and sorrow because his wife Gomer is engaged in idolatry.
God has to endure the same with the land of Israel as His wife.
However, the book of Hosea is also a prophetic report about God’s mercy on His adulterous people and His unceasing love for them:

(Hosea 11: 7-8) 7 My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, None at all exalt Him. 8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.

How could God give up Israel as Admah and Zeboiim, cities that were destroyed along with
Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness (Deut. 29:23).
With God, love is very intense for His people. Despite their idolatry, God continued to love them and was forgiving, but the nation did not repent and persisted in doing evil:

(Hosea 13: 6, 14) 6 When they had pasture, they were filled; They were filled and their heart was exalted; Therefore they forgot Me.… .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 is hidden from My eyes.

Here God even speaks of the resurrection from the dead. As long as you come back to Him. As Hosea is dishonored because his children are born of idolatry, so God is dishonored with Israel’s children of idolatry.
With the prophet Hosea, God gives Israel one last chance. He shows his love, hoping to persuade Israel to come back to Him. If Israel does not repent, then He will allow the kingdom of Israel to be destroyed by Assyria.
Again God orders Hosea to take a (other) wife of harlotry:

(Hosea 3: 1-5) 1 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.” 2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man–so, too, will I be toward you.” 4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.

This time this woman will put away her adultery and thus her idolatry and worship the true God. It is a reference – in the latter days – to the saints out of the Non-Jews or Gentiles. They are the ones Hosea will ‘have no intercourse with‘, the virgins or saints spoken of in Revelation who have not defiled themselves with idolatry:

(Revelation 14: 4) 4 These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

They are the ones who believed the antitypical King David, our King Jesus, and faithfully applied His words in their lives.

A new covenant

Eventually, the Judeans will be gathered together with the Israelites:

(Hosea 1:11) 11 Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel Shall be gathered together, And appoint for themselves one Head; And they shall come up out of the land….

It will become reality in the future what Hosea has recorded about them:

CSB (Hosea 2: 19-20) 19 I will take you to be My wife forever. I will take you to be My wife in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion. 20 I will take you to be My wife in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord.

The óne Head in verse 11 is the Lamb, the Christ, who paid the ransom sacrifice:

(Jeremiah 31: 31) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah….

Jesus made a New Covenant, which invalidated the old covenant with the Law of Moses, but which did not detract from the Abrahamic covenant:

(Matthew 26:28) 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
(Hebrews 8:13) 13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

The bride of Jesus and the great multitude of children of the living God

The 144,000 saints from the 12 tribes of the Israelites are also referred to as the bride of Jesus. These saints put faith in Christ and were purchased as firstfruits from both the Jews and non-Jews, the spiritual Israelites (Rev. 14: 4):

(Revelation 7: 4-8) 4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed: 5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed; 6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed; 7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed; 8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.

The tribe of Ephraim no longer appears in the list and has been replaced by Joseph, the tribe of Dan has been replaced by the priestly tribe of Levi (see also the inserted appendix).
Christ is their husband and the bride are the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem, the saints, the virgins who have not tainted themselves with idolatry:

(Revelation 19: 7-8) 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
(Revelation 21: 9-10) 9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

But not only the saints will be blessed, also a great multitude of Christians will be children of the living God, as the offspring of Abraham.
For the real Christian offspring of Abraham, see: 8. Young ones.
Abraham’s promised offspring would become as numerous as the sand of the sea:

(Hebrews 11:12) 12 Therefore from one man (Abraham), and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude–innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
(Hosea 1:10) 10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel Shall be as the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.‘ (see also Romans 9:26) 
(Revelation 7: 9) 9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

So the great multitude of baptized Christians will be called children of God. Our heavenly Father wants us to speak to Him in prayer:

CSB (Hosea 14: 1-2, 4-5) 1 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity; 2 Take words [of repentance] with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him: “Forgive all [our] sin and accept what is good, so that we may repay You with praise from our lips…. 4 “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from him. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; He shall grow like the lily, And lengthen his roots like Lebanon.

God YHWH would forgive the people of Israel if they only repented.

Weakened and apostate Christians

Hosea warned God’s people about the idolatrous way they lived.
Mercy and knowledge of God is more important than making sacrifices on an altar:

(Hosea 6: 6) 6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

The book of Hosea is an example for faithful Christians to keep urging weakened Christians to leave their wicked way.
In order not to be surprised by despair and misery, just like the Israelites.
The Israelites ignored God and were deported to Assyria:

(2 Kings 18: 11-12) 11 Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would neither hear nor do them.

That is why the book of Hosea also has a fulfillment in the last days:

(Hosea 10: 8) 8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, Shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”
(Luke 23: 28-30) 28 But Jesus, turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For indeed the days are coming in which they will say: Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed! 30 Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, Fall on us! and to the hills, Cover us!
(Revelation 6: 15-17) 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

For soon there will be another severe warning upon the earth when the Lamb opens the sixth seal (Revelation 6: 12-17):

(Revelation 6:12) 12 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood….

It will cause a great earthquake and the atmosphere will be filled with suffocating dust clouds, obscuring the celestial bodies.
According to our research, it may be a large debris field entering our atmosphere or impacting, which could be a signature of a brown dwarf star.
Or as it is written, a great earthquake like the one expected in Yellowstone National Park. That is a volcano that erupts completely about every 600,000 years. The last eruption was approximately 640,000 years ago. But it can also mean a war with nuclear weapons:

(Matthew 24: 6) 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Unfortunately, we do not know yet what the cause will be. But this warning will not be the end, the 7 trumpets and the 7 bowls will follow afterwards.
However, as God’s people, as Christians, we never need to fear.
Not even for the big, severe warning soon happening.
Therefore, as a Christian, do not let yourself be beaten down by the godless, now that the great day is near. Find the deeper meaning in God’s words, as Jesus did and who carefully applied God’s words in His preaching. Speak to God and ask for advice, ask for protection. That, you will certainly not be refused:

(Luke 11: 9-13) 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

As a Christian, do not let yourself be put into panic mode, but seek entertainment with other Christians and do pleasurable things such as making music or listening music. Speak fearlessly about the Christ and be convinced of the promised eternal life:

CSB (Psalm 37: 27-29) 27 Turn away from evil and do what is good, and dwell there forever. 28 For the Lord loves justice and will not abandon His faithful ones. They are kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked will be destroyed. 29 The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it permanently.

 

 

.                                                         The book Hosea – Newsletters

.                                 All quotations from the New King James translation


An impressive report is written in the Book of Hosea, which describes what happens when God’s people fall into apostasy. It’s a guide for apostate Christians in these days. Apostate Christians who are moving in together or have a free sexual moral. Who have their offspring aborted or have accepted as normal, that children are raised by single parents. Or consenting to raising children against their gender. They are apostates who no longer consider marriage (the Divine union of man and woman) of importance and make no problem of letting themselves be genetically modified (vaccination mRNA) because they think that their pleasures and journeys are assured with it. For apostates and wicked ones, however, heavy weather is coming! Godless cheaters and deceivers can promise much, but God is not to be mocked:

 (Galatians 6: 7) 7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Theme: the great and forceful warning is imminent

An unusually severe warning will soon be given to humanity.  In what way many will experience and be able to handle this warning depends on their faith in the Creator and His Son. In the book of Hosea it is described how it could come to this, how the then people of God could become so distracted and desperate. Let’s start what happened after Solomon’s death.

After the death of King Solomon, the Jewish nation was split and two kingdoms arose, the southern 2-tribe kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital and the northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel with the city of Samaria as its capital:
 

Judah – Israel

The first king of the northern 10-tribe empire, King Jeroboam, 931 BC, began golden calf worship. The word of God came to the prophet Hosea in the days when Jeroboam II was king of Israel (Hosea 1: 1).
The prophet Hosea was a contemporary of Amos in the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel.
Isaiah was God’s prophet in those days in the southern 2-tribe kingdom of Judah.
 

The northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel is also called Ephraim, after the main tribe of Israel.

 

———–————————————————————————————————-
Appendix:
The birthright of Reuben had been taken away and given to Joseph (1 Chron. 5: 1-2). Ephraim was given the position of firstborn (Jer. 31: 9):

(Genesis 48: 5, 14) 5 And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine….14 Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.

The first king of Israel, Jeroboam, was a descendant of Ephraim (1 Kings 11:26). Jeroboam was crowned king in the city of Shechem.

Both Shechem and Bethel belonged to the territory of the tribe of Ephraim.

The golden calves of Jeroboam were brought to Bethel and the Dan region:

(1 Kings 12: 28-29) 28 Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!” 29 And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

In the listing of the 144,000 in Revelation 7: 4-8, Ephraim has been replaced by the name of Joseph and Dan has been replaced by the priestly tribe of Levi. Probably this has to do with the idolatry, with the aforementioned golden calf worship. It were also these two tribes, Ephraim and Dan, who had their territory in Samaria and who were deported to Assyria.

———————————————————————————————————— 

Israel was engaged in calf idolatry and Baal worship. The inhabitants sought protection from Egypt and Assyria instead of their God:

(Hosea 7: 11, 13) 11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense– They call to Egypt, They go to Assyria…… 13 Woe to them, for they have fled from Me! Destruction to them, because they have transgressed against Me! Though I redeemed them, Yet they have spoken lies against Me.

(Hosea 8: 7, 9) 7 “They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind….9 For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey alone by itself; Ephraim has hired lovers.

(Hosea 12: 1-2) 1 Ephraim feeds on the wind, And pursues the east wind; He daily increases lies and desolation. Also they make a covenant with the Assyrians, And oil is carried to Egypt. 2 The Lord also brings a charge against Judah, And will punish Jacob according to his ways; According to his deeds He will recompense him.

(Hosea 13: 1-2) 1 When Ephraim spoke, trembling, He exalted himself in Israel; But when he offended through Baal worship, he died. 2 Now they sin more and more, And have made for themselves molded images, Idols of their silver, according to their skill; All of it is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”

The prophet Hosea was the last prophet of Israel, before the people of Samaria were deported to Assyria:

(Isaiah 7:17) 17 The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house–days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.

The marriage covenant with the 12 tribes

God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham:

(Genesis 17: 7-9) 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” 9 And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

The Israelites became God’s personal possession on the basis of the covenant:

CSB (Exodus 19: 5-6) 5 Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, 6 and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation. These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”

The twelve tribes are referred to in the Bible as ‘the woman of God’.
God YHWH lived in the tabernacle or temple in the midst of His people, His wife.
Also, the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel is therefore referred to in the Bible as God’s woman:

CSB (Jeremiah 31: 31-32) 31 “Look, the days are coming”-[this is] the Lord’s declaration-“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 [This one will] not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-a covenant they broke even though I had married them“-the Lord’s declaration.
(Hosea 2: 2) 2 Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts;

Israel is like an adulteress who has betrayed her husband (God himself):

(Jeremiah 3:20) 20 Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, So have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord.

The idolatry of the wife of Hosea as a compare to Israel

In the book of Hosea, the marriage of Hosea to Gomer is compared to the riotous relationship of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel with God.

A prophet of God, Hosea, who had to take a wife of harlotry:

(Hosea 1: 2) 2 When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord.”

She bore him a son Jezreel and a daughter Lo-Ruhama. Afterwards she bore him another son:

(Hosea 1: 9) 9 Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, For you are not My people, And I will not be your God.

According to Douglas Stuart, Professor of Old Testament Studies, Hosea’s wife is not a literal prostitute, but tainted with idolatry: My favorite Mistranslations.
The prostitution described is a symbolic prostitution, a metaphor for idolatry. Just as the land of Israel was engaged in harlotry. This metaphor sounds logical.
It was the breaking of the covenant with God – which had been made with Abraham – and was later elaborated by the Law of Moses.
Hosea’s family is used as an example of what Hosea, as a ‘man of God’, must endure in pain and sorrow because his wife Gomer is engaged in idolatry.

God has to endure the same with the land of Israel as His wife.

However, the book of Hosea is also a prophetic report about God’s mercy on His adulterous people and His unceasing love for them:

(Hosea 11: 7-8) 7 My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, None at all exalt Him. 8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.

How could God give up Israel as Admah and Zeboiim, cities that were destroyed along with

Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness (Deut. 29:23).
With God, love is very intense for His people. Despite their idolatry, God continued to love them and was forgiving, but the nation did not repent and persisted in doing evil:

(Hosea 13: 6, 14) 6 When they had pasture, they were filled; They were filled and their heart was exalted; Therefore they forgot Me.… .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 is hidden from My eyes.

Here God even speaks of the resurrection from the dead. As long as you come back to Him. As Hosea is dishonored because his children are born of idolatry, so God is dishonored with Israel’s children of idolatry.

With the prophet Hosea, God gives Israel one last chance. He shows his love, hoping to persuade Israel to come back to Him. If Israel does not repent, then He will allow the kingdom of Israel to be destroyed by Assyria.

Again God orders Hosea to take a (other) wife of harlotry:

(Hosea 3: 1-5) 1 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.” 2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man–so, too, will I be toward you.” 4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.

This time this woman will put away her adultery and thus her idolatry and worship the true God. It is a reference – in the latter days – to the saints out of the Non-Jews or Gentiles. They are the ones Hosea will ‘have no intercourse with’, the virgins or saints spoken of in Revelation who have not defiled themselves with idolatry:

(Revelation 14: 4) 4 These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

They are the ones who believed the antitypical King David, our King Jesus, and faithfully applied His words in their lives.

A new covenant

Eventually, the Judeans will be gathered together with the Israelites:

(Hosea 1:11) 11 Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel Shall be gathered together, And appoint for themselves one Head; And they shall come up out of the land….

It will become reality in the future what Hosea has recorded about them:

CSB (Hosea 2: 19-20) 19 I will take you to be My wife forever. I will take you to be My wife in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion. 20 I will take you to be My wife in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord.

The óne Head in verse 11 is the Lamb, the Christ, who paid the ransom sacrifice:

(Jeremiah 31: 31) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah….


Jesus made a New Covenant, which invalidated the old covenant with the Law of Moses, but which did not detract from the Abrahamic covenant:

(Matthew 26:28) 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
(Hebrews 8:13) 13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

The bride of Jesus and the great multitude of children of the living God

The 144,000 saints from the 12 tribes of the Israelites are also referred to as the bride of Jesus. These saints put faith in Christ and were purchased as firstfruits from both the Jews and non-Jews, the spiritual Israelites (Rev. 14: 4):

(Revelation 7: 4-8) 4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed: 5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed; 6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed; 7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed; 8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.

The tribe of Ephraim no longer appears in the list and has been replaced by Joseph, the tribe of Dan has been replaced by the priestly tribe of Levi (see also the inserted appendix).

Christ is their husband and the bride are the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem, the saints, the virgins who have not tainted themselves with idolatry:

(Revelation 19: 7-8) 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
(Revelation 21: 9-10) 9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

But not only the saints will be blessed, also a great multitude of Christians will be children of the living God, as the offspring of Abraham.
For the real Christian offspring of Abraham, see: 8. Young ones.
Abraham’s promised offspring would become as numerous as the sand of the sea:

(Hebrews 11:12) 12 Therefore from one man (Abraham), and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude–innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

(Hosea 1:10) 10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel Shall be as the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.‘ (see also Romans 9:26) 

(Revelation 7: 9) 9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,


So the great multitude of baptized Christians will be called children of God. Our heavenly Father wants us to speak to Him in prayer:

CSB (Hosea 14: 1-2, 4-5) 1 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity; 2 Take words [of repentance] with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him: “Forgive all [our] sin and accept what is good, so that we may repay You with praise from our lips…. 4 “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from him. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; He shall grow like the lily, And lengthen his roots like Lebanon.

God YHWH would forgive the people of Israel if they only repented.

Weakened and apostate Christians

Hosea warned God’s people about the idolatrous way they lived.
Mercy and knowledge of God is more important than making sacrifices on an altar:

(Hosea 6: 6) 6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

The book of Hosea is an example for faithful Christians to keep urging weakened Christians to leave their wicked way.
In order not to be surprised by despair and misery, just like the Israelites.
The Israelites ignored God and were deported to Assyria:

(2 Kings 18: 11-12) 11 Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would neither hear nor do them.

That is why the book of Hosea also has a fulfillment in the last days:

(Hosea 10: 8) 8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, Shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”
(Luke 23: 28-30) 28 But Jesus, turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For indeed the days are coming in which they will say: Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed! 30 Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, Fall on us! and to the hills, Cover us!
(Revelation 6: 15-17) 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

For soon there will be another severe warning upon the earth when the Lamb opens the sixth seal (Revelation 6: 12-17):

(Revelation 6:12) 12 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood….

It will cause a great earthquake and the atmosphere will be filled with suffocating dust clouds, obscuring the celestial bodies.

According to our research, it may be a large debris field entering our atmosphere or impacting, which could be a signature of a brown dwarf star.

Or as it is written, a great earthquake like the one expected in Yellowstone National Park. That is a volcano that erupts completely about every 600,000 years. The last eruption was approximately 640,000 years ago. But it can also mean a war with nuclear weapons:

(Matthew 24: 6) 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Unfortunately, we do not know yet what the cause will be. But this warning will not be the end, the 7 trumpets and the 7 bowls will follow afterwards.

However, as God’s people, as Christians, we never need to fear.

Not even for the big, severe warning soon happening.

Therefore, as a Christian, do not let yourself be beaten down by the godless, now that the great day is near. Find the deeper meaning in God’s words, as Jesus did and who carefully applied God’s words in His preaching. Speak to God and ask for advice, ask for protection. That, you will certainly not be refused:

(Luke 11: 9-13) 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

As a Christian, do not let yourself be put into panic mode, but seek entertainment with other Christians and do pleasurable things such as making music or listening music. Speak fearlessly about the Christ and be convinced of the promised eternal life:

CSB (Psalm 37: 27-29) 27 Turn away from evil and do what is good, and dwell there forever. 28 For the Lord loves justice and will not abandon His faithful ones. They are kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked will be destroyed. 29 The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it permanently.

 

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