Day 201—We are in the SEVENTH month of Bible reading. Praise God! Today, we read in another of the “minor prophets.”

    Day 201 – Hosea 1 – 7. (the prophet of God to the northern kingdom of Israel, during King Jeroboam 2nd)

Hosea calls the northern kingdom “Ephraim” for the largest tribe, like the southern kingdom is called Judah.

“Ephraim” is enjoying a time of peace and prosperity under Jeroboam 2nd, but also moral corruption and religious idolatry. His prophesies cover the last six kings in quick succession until the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians.

In this book, Hosea’s married life is a picture of the relationship between the LORD and Israel. Hosea was to take a prostitute wife and have children with her. He married Gomer, and she bore him a son, whom he named “Jezreel,” signifying the God would soon punish and put an end to the house of Israel, whose winter capital was Jezreel.

Gomer conceived again and bore Hosea a daughter. God said to call her “No Mercy” for he would have no mercy on the house of Israel.

After that, Gomer bore another son, whom Hosea was to name “Not My People” because Israel was now not his people and He was not their God.

Yet even in these sad names, Hosea prophesied that one day the children of Judah and the children of Israel would be gathered together and be called “Children of the living God.

In poems, Hosea tells of the adulteries of Israel, wild and elaborate, and God’s faithful seeking her home, giving her, at that time, Mercy, and calling her My People again.

In Chapter 3, God tells Hosea to go find his wife, who has gone back into prostitution, to pay her bills and bring her home. Like the children of Israel will return and seek their God.

In Chapter 4’s poems, Hosea shows how the LORD accuses Israel of her lack of faithfulness and knowledge of God. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected it.”   

“My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles.  For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore.”

“Hear this, O priests!  Pay attention, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you. “

A scary, sad picture that Hosea paints in chapter 4 is God saying, “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress, earnestly seek me.”

And, “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds for grain and wine…..”