Hosea
Key Learnings from Wednesday Bible Study
December 2023 - March 2024
General Revelation - Evidence of God in Nature (Observations)
Special Revelation - God revealing Himself through his Word. (In this case, by speaking directly to Hosea and to us through His written word)
Blood of Jezreel - A rich history of murder.
Whore - immoral, unfaithful, unclean, unscrupulous, unlawful, unworthy, and corrupt
Hosea - “God saves” Children - God Scatters, No-Mercy, Not-my-people
The word picture given is ugly and bloody. Damaged.
A family metaphor is used to describe the severity of our bad behavior
God is faithful
Valley of Achor - The troubled valley near Jericho; a consequence of the sin of Achan
Trouble will turn into Joy; Despair into hope.
A new relationship with God; Husband (Ishi), instead of Master (Baali)
Unacceptable conduct: A divorced woman who remarries and divorces could not then return to her first husband. And yet….
God saves us only out of his mercy and undeserved love.
Emphasis added: We are unworthy.
Messianic prophecy in Hosea 3:5 - The Northern Kingdom did not follow the Davidic Kingship.
2023
- The most important differences in the English New Testament are not due to manuscript divergence but to the way in which translators view the task of translationTranslations
• Literal equivalent: Word for word translation directly from the original languages.
• Dynamic equivalent: Translating words, idioms, and grammatical constructions of the original languages into modern day equivalents.
• Paraphrase equivalent: Translating the ideas from one language to another, with less concern about using the exact words of the original.
• Closest natural equivalent: Translating into readable English the meaning as expressed in natural American English by using common English punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and word choice.
- CS Lewis
• The Laws of Nature - What does happen, not what ought happen
• The Law of Human Nature - What ought to happen not what always happens
• Bad behavior isn’t the same thing as what is inconvenient to us.
No Faith. No Knowledge. Brings Grief & Death
The Church, Husbands, Wives, Fathers, and Mothers are culpable in the culture of faithlessness & ignorance
More geographic locations
• Gilgil - 1st Beachhead into the Promise Land and later HQ of Elijah and Elisha. Now referenced as a place of wickedness.
• Beth-aven - A Golden Calf location - “House of wickedness”
Hosea 5 Part 1
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel:
• Reuben
• Simeon
• Levi
• Judah
• Issachar
• Zebulun
• Dan
• Naphtali
• Gad
• Asher
• Joseph (later Ephraim and Manasseh)
• Benjamin
Hosea 5 Part 2
When people forget God they look for salvation elsewhere.
A history of facing adversity, and frantically searching for earthly solutions.
Place Identity - The makeup of a people's identity. 1) The bond between people & places. 2) The symbolic meaning people have with places.
Gilgil - 1st Beachhead into the Promise Land and later HQ of Elijah and Elisha. Now referenced as a place of wickedness.
Beth-aven - House of idols… golden calves where worshiped there
Mizpah - A common noun meaning “watchtower, or guardpost”. Most frequently Mizpah refers to the town of Benjamin
Mount Tabor - Northern Board marker. Place where the brothers of Gideon were slain
Gibeah - Saul’s HQ and execution place of Saul’s descendants.
Ramah - Home of Samuel where the elders ask Samuel to appoint a king over them.
Ephraim - Jeroboam I, First king of Israel was an Ephraimite, rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam.
Benjamin - The history of the tribe contains a sad record of a desolating civil war in which they were engaged with the other eleven tribes. The first king of the Jews was Saul, a Benjamite.
Judah - The Southern Kingdom
2024
- A rich and complex history is a threat to simple, one-dimensional narratives.
- Insidious narratives are used to shape identities
• Narratives overcome strong resistance to persuasion
• Acceptance more likely without time for reflection
- Defending the right of the past to speak to us and to future generations.
• Erasure of monuments is insidious because erasure is to limit interpretations
• Keeping monuments allows a multiplicity of interpretations and meanings
- Destruction of monuments
• Breaks the tactile link to the past
• Removes collective memory and thereby cultural identity
• Removes the ability to assess and reassess history
• Harder to understand the place of these monuments with a culture context
• Eliminates identities that are unlocked, validated, and explained
- God desires a steadfast love and knowledge of Him, not mindless adherence to rituals.
- God desires faith
More Places:
Adam - north of Jericho. At this spot the waters of the Jordan River were stopped to create a dry pathway for Israel to enter Canaan.
Gilead - Site of a rebellion against David. Idolatry
Shechem - Place where Abram received the promise. Location of Dinah incident. Capital city for Jeroboam. Site of more atrocities.
Descriptions of our depravity:
Oven —Our lust/sins hangs on like the baker’s oven holds its heat (Failure to control)
Cake - A disgusting mess. Half baked
Grey Hair - Past our prime
Dove - Bird brains. Doomed to get caught because we are brainless.
2018
Treacherous Bow (Hosea 7:16) - Undependable and dangerous to those who use it
Weather Vane - blown in whatever direction.
- Animal Metaphors
• Vultures - circle the dead and dying
• Wild Donkeys - cannot be ridden
• Calfs - a long association with idols.
- Worship god of our own making
2018
- Word of God (Review)
• Living Word - Jesus
• Written Word - Scripture
• Visible Word - Sacraments
• Spoken Word - Preached
Matthew connects Jesus’ life’s journey with the troubled journey of the people of Israel. Where Israel fails, Jesus succeeds.
Israel is God’s firstborn son (Exodus 4:22)
Jesus is the Son of God/Son of Man - The Word that became flesh and dwelled among us.
Admah & Zeboiim = Sodom & Gomorrah
- Israel chases shadows of no substance.
- Jacob’s struggles were of substance.
- Be like Jacob, not like Israel.
- Feast of Booths - connected to Jesus
• God’s presence and provision
• Provision of living water and of light
• Fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham
- Paying for sex is cheap. A false relationship. A false security.
- Clean Vs Unclean Animals: Split hoof & chews its cud.
2018
• Peor- Where Balaam advised that the Midianite girls should make the young Hebrews fall in love with them and then make the Hebrew youths abandon their God.
• The affair with Baal-peor, shows the moral decline that occurred in the wake of contact with idolaters. A sin that came from within.
• Memphis, Egypt: False security.
• Are their similarities between the account fo the Fig Tree in Mark 11 and Hosea 9:15-17?
Covenants - A formal relationship that listed benefits and punishments.
- Genesis 15
Gibeah - Days of Gibeah’s sin: The story of a certain Levite’s visit to Gibeah (Judges 19-20) and the similarity to Lot’s hospitality to Angels in Sodom. More bad news.
Hosea 10:8 may be a description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Thorn and thistles on their altars similar to Jesus’s crown of thorns and crucifixion on the cross up on a hill.
Jesus quotes Hosea 10:8 on the road to gethsemane to the people following Him, after Simon of Cyrene tasked to carry His cross.
• Hosea speaks of elimination of Northern Kingdom as a nation and as a separate people
2018
Connection between the luxuriant vine (v10:1) and the Parable of the rich man (Luke 12:16-21).
• Forgetting that it is God who is responsible for our abundance.
• Wealth of this world is going to be taken away
General Revelation - Evidence of God in Nature (Observations)
Special Revelation - God revealing Himself through his Word. (In this case, by speaking directly to Hosea and to us through His written word)
Blood of Jezreel - A rich history of murder.
Whore - immoral, unfaithful, unclean, unscrupulous, unlawful, unworthy, and corrupt
Hosea - “God saves” Children - God Scatters, No-Mercy, Not-my-people
The word picture given is ugly and bloody. Damaged.
A family metaphor is used to describe the severity of our bad behavior
God is faithful
Valley of Achor - The troubled valley near Jericho; a consequence of the sin of Achan
Trouble will turn into Joy; Despair into hope.
A new relationship with God; Husband (Ishi), instead of Master (Baali)
Unacceptable conduct: A divorced woman who remarries and divorces could not then return to her first husband. And yet….
God saves us only out of his mercy and undeserved love.
Emphasis added: We are unworthy.
Messianic prophecy in Hosea 3:5 - The Northern Kingdom did not follow the Davidic Kingship.
No Faith. No Knowledge. Brings Grief & Death
The Church, Husbands, Wives, Fathers, and Mothers are culpable in the culture of faithlessness & ignorance
More geographic locations
• Gilgil - 1st Beachhead into the Promise Land and later HQ of Elijah and Elisha. Now referenced as a place of wickedness.
• Beth-aven - A Golden Calf location - “House of wickedness”
Hosea 5 Part 1
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel:
• Reuben
• Simeon
• Levi
• Judah
• Issachar
• Zebulun
• Dan
• Naphtali
• Gad
• Asher
• Joseph (later Ephraim and Manasseh)
• Benjamin
Hosea 5 Part 2
When people forget God they look for salvation elsewhere.
A history of facing adversity, and frantically searching for earthly solutions.
Place Identity - The makeup of a people's identity. 1) The bond between people & places. 2) The symbolic meaning people have with places.
Gilgil - 1st Beachhead into the Promise Land and later HQ of Elijah and Elisha. Now referenced as a place of wickedness.
Beth-aven - House of idols… golden calves where worshiped there
Mizpah - A common noun meaning “watchtower, or guardpost”. Most frequently Mizpah refers to the town of Benjamin
Mount Tabor - Northern Board marker. Place where the brothers of Gideon were slain
Gibeah - Saul’s HQ and execution place of Saul’s descendants.
Ramah - Home of Samuel where the elders ask Samuel to appoint a king over them.
Ephraim - Jeroboam I, First king of Israel was an Ephraimite, rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam.
Benjamin - The history of the tribe contains a sad record of a desolating civil war in which they were engaged with the other eleven tribes. The first king of the Jews was Saul, a Benjamite.
Judah - The Southern Kingdom
God desires a steadfast love and knowledge of Him, not mindless adherence to rituals.
More Places:
Adam - north of Jericho. At this spot the waters of the Jordan River were stopped to create a dry pathway for Israel to enter Canaan.
Gilead - Site of a rebellion against David. Idolatry
Shechem - Place where Abram received the promise. Location of Dinah incident. Capital city for Jeroboam. Site of more atrocities.
Descriptions of our depravity:
Oven —Our lust/sins hangs on like the baker’s oven holds its heat
Treacherous Bow - Undependable and dangerous to those who use it
Cake - A disgusting mess. Half baked
Grey Hair - Past our prime
Dove - Bird brains. Doomed to get caught because we are brainless.
Weather Vane - blown in whatever direction.
Now Animal Metaphors
• Vultures - circle the dead and dying
• Wild Donkeys - cannot be ridden
• Calfs - a long association with idols.
Word of God (Review)
• Living Word - Jesus
• Written Word - Scripture
• Visible Word - Sacraments
• Spoken Word - Preached
Worship god of our own making
Paying for sex is cheap. A false relationship. A false security.
Peor- Where Balaam advised that the Midianite girls should make the young Hebrews fall in love with them and then make the Hebrew youths abandon their God.
The affair with Baal-peor, shows the moral decline that occurred in the wake of contact with idolaters. A sin that came from within.
Memphis, Egypt: False security.
Clean Vs Unclean Animals: Split hoof & chews its cud.
Are their similarities between the account fo the Fig Tree in Mark 11 and Hosea 9:15-17?
Covenants - A formal relationship that listed benefits and punishments.
Gibeah - Days of Gibeah’s sin: The story of a certain Levite’s visit to Gibeah (Judges 19-20) and the similarity to Lot’s hospitality to Angels in Sodom. More bad news.
Triiip didn’t see the connection between the luxuriant vine (v10:1) and the Parable of the rich man (Luke 12:16-21).
• Forgetting that it is God who is responsible for our abundance.
• Wealth of this world is going to be taken away
Triiip seemed more willing to agree that Hosea 10:8 may be a description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Thorn and thistles on their altars similar to Jesus’s crown of thorns and crucifixion on the cross up on a hill.
Jesus quotes Hosea 10:8 on the road to gethsemane to the people following Him, after Simon of Cyrene tasked to carry His cross.
• Hosea speaks of elimination of Northern Kingdom as a nation and as a separate people
Matthew connects Jesus’ life’s journey with troubled journey of the people of Israel. Where Israel fails, Jesus succeeds.
Israel is God’s firstborn son (Exodus 4:22)
Jesus is the Son of God/Son of Man - The Word that became flesh and dwelled among us.
Admah & Zeboiim = Sodom & Gomorrah