Hosea

Take-Aways

It has been noted elsewhere that humanity’s sin is born out on the land (see Gen 3:17-19, 6: 5-13; Isa 24: 5-6). How often do we stop to consider the bloodshed caused by climate change? In addition to the victims of natural disasters, who number in the tens of thousands, there is a direct connection between climate change and political destabilization. As rivers and streams run dry and the land becomes barren, climate refugees are brought into closer and closer contact with one another and forced to compete for dwindling resources. After the drying of Lake Chad, competition for land led to the eruption of genocide in Darfur leaving 300,000 people dead. More than 50 percent of the world’s population lives within 40 miles of a shoreline. Rising waters and worsening droughts will force the mass-migration of billions of people, destabilizing regions and creating ungoverned spaces where terrorists can flourish. We have already witnessed this chain of events in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and currently see it in Somalia. Bloodshed follows bloodshed and the land mourns.

Calvin’s Commentary on Hosea

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom26.xi.ii.html

But some one may here object and say, that it is unworthy of God to be angry with miserable creatures, which deserve no such treatment: for why should God be angry with fishes and beasts? But an answer may be easily given: As beasts, and birds, and fishes, and, in a word, all other things, have been created for the use of men, it is no wonder that God should extend the tokens of his curse to all creatures, above and below, when his purpose is to punish men. We seek, indeed, for the most part, some vain comforts to delight us, or to moderate our sorrows when God shows himself angry with us: but when God curses innocent animals for our sake, we then dread the more, except, indeed, we be under the influence of extreme stupor.

We now then understand why God here denounces destruction on brute animals as well as on birds and fishes of the sea; it is, that men may know themselves to be deprived of all his gifts; as when a person, in order to expose a wicked man to shame, pulls down his house and burns his whole furniture: so also does God do, who has adorned the world with so much and such varied wealth for our sake, when he reduces all things to a waste: He thereby shows how grievously offended he is with us, and thus constrains us to become humble. This then is the Prophet’s meaning.

New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary

Hosea 4:1-3 introduces the 4-11 complex, while still preserving obvious links with chaps. 1-3. The “word of the Lord” given to Hosea in 1:1 is now delivered to the people of Israel, who are summoned to hear in 4:1. Like 2:2-15, 4:1-3 constitutes God’s legal complaint (Hebrew rib), this time brought against the inhabitants of Israel. The rib accuses them of lacking three qualities that would manifest their covenantal relationship with God: “faithfulness” (Hebrew emet), “steadfast love” (Hebrew hesed), and the “knowledge of God (Hebrew da’at). These attributes refer to the gifts Yahweh will bestow on his wife when he renews the covenant with all of creation on her behalf (2:18-20). Although the bride is given faithfulness (Hebrew emuna, 2:20), the people lack emet. Steadfast love is missing, and the bride who would come “to know Yahweh” has no such knowledge of God.

The absence of these covenantal qualities gives rise to a number of covenantal violations among the people (4:2). The five crimes singled out (swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery) are prohibited by the Decalogue (Exod 20:1-17; Deut 5:6-21). Anarchy in the land is epitomized in the vivid image of one bloody deed following another (cf. the bloodshed of Jezreel, 1:4).

The “therefore (Hebrew al-ken) that begins 4:3 highlights the infection of creation itself, resulting from the social iniquity of the land’s inhabitants. Human wickedness pollutes nature and all the creatures within it. This cosmic corruption is described as a drought: The land dries up, the inhabitants languish, and creatures perish. The reference to drought sets the tone for Hosea 4-11, accentuating the theme of barrenness that ensues from Israel’s covenantal transgressions. The infertility of the land contrasts with previous descriptions of cosmic abundance, flowing from the covenantal reunion of husband and wife (2:1823). Nevertheless, three hope passages within Hosea 4-11, intermingled with oracles of doom . . . set the stage for the reversal of this barrenness in Hosea 14.

An ecological, “green” consciousness is widespread throughout the world today. In some countries, “green” has even become a party platform. Such a consciousness comes as a positive reaction to troubling times, when biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons capable of wiping out our entire planet are being developed; when we exploit our natural resources without renewing them; when our rivers, our skies, our lakes, and our oceans become polluted with our toxic wastes. Our antiseptic, plastic-wrapped society detaches us from the land. We abandon our farms and concentrate in cities. Our supermarkets distance us not only from the arduous processing of the land’s products, but also from the sense of gratitude and respect for what the land has yielded.

In contrast, what is underscored in Hos 4:1-3 is the intimate moral, as well as physical, link between all of creation and a covenanted people. As an agricultural, pre-industrial society, ancient Israel was fully conscious of its interconnection with the land. The way its people lived their lives directly affected the rest of creation. When the people blessed God, the land blossomed forth in lush vegetation. When the people sinned, “the land mourned.”

The pollution of our own land provides ample evidence of the brokenness of our society. The destruction of its creatures and its resources indicts us for forgetting “our mother.” Hosea 4:1-3 recalls our bonds with the rest of creation and exhorts us to restore the harmony between us by setting our own lives in order (Vol. 7, pg 236-237).

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

The collection begins with a general introduction, a judgment on the whole people. The sons of Israel, sons of the promise who have received the land in fulfillment of the promise, have proved faithless. Fidelity (‘emet) and mercy (hesed) are the virtues proper to covenant relationships; their concrete working out is “knowledge of God,” i.e., action according to his moral will (c.f. 2:22). The catalogue of Israel’s sins in v 2 obviously recalls the Decalogue: precepts of the sort that were the condition for the continuance of the covenant have been violated and so the coveant is broken. 3. mourns: The alternate meaning of ’bl, “dries up,” fits better with what follows. When the covenant is broken, the object of the covenant, the land, is turned to desert and Israel reverts to its primitive, uncovenanted, unredeemed condition (p 222).