|
About Jesus Steve Sweetman Hosea 3 Hosea's
Reconciliation With His Wife (ch. 3:1 - 5) In verse 1, God tells
Hosea to go and show love to his wife, or now I believe his former wife,
even though she is loved by someone else, this tells me that a
separation had taken place between Hosea and his prostitute wife as
noted in chapter 2, verse 2. As
Israel
left their God, so Hosea's wife left her husband, and as the text
states, "she was with another".
Now God wants Hosea to reach out to his adulterous x-wife and
show her love. God tells Hosea "to
show love her as the Lord loves Israel". The prophetic
analogy of Hosea's marriage continues.
Even though a divorce has taken place between God and Something to consider
here is that Gomer might not have wanted to receive love from Hosea at
first. My guess is that this
might well have taken a while. Imagine
Hosea going to where Gomer lived. Remember,
at this point she has a new lover who is probably her owner, as in,
slave owner. Most Bible
teachers feel that Gomer is now a temple prostitute slave again and
therefore he present lover is her owner.
I can't see this process of showing love just happened in an
instant. The same is true in
this prophetic analogies fulfillment.
I believe right now, in 2012, God has been showing love to
Israel. Note the words
"sacred raisin cakes" in verse 1.
In 2 Samuel 6:19 we see that King David, for one reason or
another, gave worshippers "raisin cakes" after they left the
temple worship. We don't
exactly know why David did this. It
was not a command from the Lord. Over
time, "raisin cakes" were incorporated into pagan worship.
We see this in Jeremiah 44:19.
Like many practices today in the church, they are being practiced
without any knowledge of their pagan roots.
Many Bible teachers believe that Israel
was worshipping Yahweh by means of pagan practices.
They actually thought their pagan practices were what God wanted.
They were so far removed from God's will they thought their lives
were exhibiting His will, but they weren't.
These "raisin cakes" actually evolved into a shape of a
female god of sex and fertility.
Hosea obeys God in verse
2. He goes to his wife and
actually buys her back. He
is purchasing her from her latest lover, who was probably a slave owner.
She was probably sold back into slavery and maybe used once again
in temple prostitution. Hosea brought her for 15
shekels of silver, which is roughly 6 ounces.
Fifteen shekels of silver is half the going price of a slave.
Why he paid 15 shekels and not 30 shekels we really don't know.
He also paid an homer and lethek of barley.
It's debatable, but this could be anywhere from 7 and a half
bushels to 12 bushels. It's
quite possible that Hosea did not have the 30 shekels of silver to pay
for Gomer so he had to pay the rest in barley.
This would tell us how motivated he was in buying her back.
Still, this is only speculation.
Verse 3 simply states
that once the purchase was made, Gomer was no longer permitted to commit
adultery. Hosea would be
faithful to her and she to him. My
guess is that this actually took place.
Gomer might well have finally reached the bottom.
She was now ready to be faithful.
I say this, because countless Old Testament prophecies speak of a
day when Concerning the purchase
price of Hosea's wife. The
purchase that God made to buy The first part of verse 4
says that Israel
will live many days with a king or a prince.
"Many days" was actually many years.
It's my thinking that the "many days" is still in
affect. After judgment came on both the north and the south, Verse 4 says that Also in verse 4 you see
that there would be no more "sacred stones".
It was the custom for Jews to set up "sacred stones"
when people met with God or had some kind of experience with Him.
They were meant to be a memorial of what took place at the
location where the stones were. See
Gen. 31:45, Josh. 4:15, 2 Sam. 20:8, 1 Kings 1:9, as some examples.
The problem arose when "sacred stones" were also used
in the worship of Baal. Also,
in Ex. 34:13 God condemned this practice.
Just why God condemned this practice seems to be a point of
controversy. Some say that
these stones were set up in a family's property and they worshipped
there and forsook worshipping at the temple on the feast days.
The other thing to understand is that it did become a means of
pagan worship as well. It appears to me, and others, as well, that the
Israelis were using stones used in pagan worship when they worshipped
Yahweh. As I said before,
they were so far from God they thought their form of worship was godly
when it wasn't. Note the word
"ephod" in verse 4. An
"ephod" became a portable idol.
These were little stone or wood objects that priests would
use to determine God's will, like rolling dice.
This would be similar to casting lots in the New Testament.
Whatever the case, and, however innocent these might have originally
been, they became and idol. I
suggest the same type of thing can be seen today in the church.
Something that is meant to be a tool of the Lord actually becomes and
idol. A building might be
one thing like this.
The word "idol"
in verse 4 refers specifically to household gods, of which existed even
in Israel.
Verse 5 says that
"afterwards", meaning, after the period of time that the text
has just described, a time when there would be no king or prince, no
sacrifices, or the other things mentioned in verse 4.
After this time Note the mentioning of
David here. "David
their king" refers to the Lord Jesus when He returns to earth.
David has always been seen as a prophetic image of Jesus.
There are a number of places in the Old Testament speaking of
King David in a future sense, such as this verse.
David the king is simply a Messianic portrayal of Jesus, the king
of the Jews. Literally, at
some future point, Jesus will be king of the Jews and He will rule from Israel. He will sit on David's
throne as the angel told Mary before Je This chapter ends with
the words, "they will come trembling to the Lord".
After what Israel
goes through in the Tribulation at the end of this age, they will
certainly come trembling to the Lord, as we all will, when we stand
before the Lord Jesus at the end of this age. Part of the reason for the
Great Tribulation is to bring
|