Sermon Tone Analysis

Hosea is a profoundly heart impacting book.

Of the many truths that the book of Hosea proclaims, none of them is perhaps more transformative for the heart than the unveiling of the unimaginable grace of God.

God truly is as far above our comprehension as the heaven is above the earth, and yet through the message of the prophet Hosea God enables us to experience His grace in an unprecedented manner.

It also is a book that jolts the reader; it refuses to be domesticated and made conventional.

It does comfort the afflicted, but it most surely afflicts the comfortable.

It is as startling in its presentation of sin as it is surprising in its stubborn certainty of grace.

It is as blunt as it is enigmatic.

It is a book to be experienced, and the experience is with God.[1]

God’s grace can only be more fully understood if one understands it in terms of His faithfulness in covenant keeping.

So that mere human minds might have a reference point as to what the grace of God is like, God uses another relationship that is based upon a covenant- the marriage relationship.

It is within the comparison of the covenant relationship of Hosea and Gomer to the covenant relationship of God with Israel that one begins to understand the profound grace of God.

And this grace is immeasurably applicable for modern day readers.

Hosea is applicable for unbelievers who have yet to understand or experience the grace of God.

It is applicable for believers who have not yet deeply fathomed the grace of God displayed toward them.

It is especially applicable to husbands and wives as they see the grace of God in such intricate detail and are themselves invited to model that same kind of grace in their marriage relationship.

The vital question is what key truths does the book of Hosea present to its readers that enables them to experience the grace of God?

What does Hosea want modern day readers to understand in order to come to a fuller comprehension of the overwhelming grace of God?

There are three truths that are central to the book, and those truths center around three of Hosea’s children.

“The account of Hosea 1 is dominated by the births of three children, and these children are symbols of Israel’s future for both woe and weal.[2]”

I.

The Truth Concerning Jezreel

Before Hosea lists the incredible truths related to God’s grace by means of the naming of his children, we are given three verses that set the stage for the prophetic instruction of the book.

A. The Historical Setting

From the historical information given in v. 1 about the prophet Hosea one discovers that Hosea’s ministry was late in the history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Israel had rebelled and rebelled until it is was almost time for God to allow the Northern Kingdom to be conquered by the nation of Assyria.

“It is not clear from the book when Hosea’s prophetic activity ceased.

From the evidence in the book, one cannot discern whether Hosea actually witnessed the downfall of Samaria.

Broadly speaking, therefore, the prophet’s public work appears set in a fifty-year period, from 760 to 710 b.c., with the years 750–725 being the most likely setting.”[3]

The very first instruction given to Hosea by the Lord is found in v. 2.

Here Hosea is commanded to “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.”

Hosea, who is most likely a young man when God first gave him this command, was to go and marry a “wife of whoredoms.”

That is, God commanded Hosea to marry an immoral promiscuous woman.

Why would God do that?

The reason given in the latter part of v. 2 is “for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.”

In other words, God wants His people to understand what their spiritual unfaithfulness actually looks like and feels like to God.

And the closest way for God to communicate the gravity of Israel’s sin was to compare His relationship with Israel to the relationship of a man taking a promiscuous woman as his wife.

It is very important to understand the similarities in these two relationships.

What makes God’s relationship to Israel like a husband’s relationship to his wife is the idea of covenant.

To understand this one must understand what a biblical marriage actual means.

John Piper defines marriage this way, “Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman in which they promise to be a faithful husband and a faithful wife in a new one-flesh union as long as they both shall live.

This covenant, sealed with solemn vows, is designed to showcase the covenant-keeping grace of God.”[4]

This means that the closest earthly reference to the sin of Israel committing great whoredom in the land is the reference of a wife committing whoredom in the marriage relationship.

The key similarities is that both Israel and Gomer were guilty of breaking their covenants.

“Hosea was to be bound to this immoral woman in covenant union.

For better or for worse, the path of his life would join hers.

He would be like Yahweh, who also bound himself in covenant with a willful and wayward people (Deut 9:6).”[5]

It is for this reason that Hosea, obeying the commandment of God, took Gomer to be his wife.

And out of this union Gomer conceived and bore Hosea a son.

Back in v. 2 God told Hosea that he would have “children of whoredoms.”

It is unclear exactly what this means.

This could imply that at least some of Hosea’s children were born out of wedlock, that is, Hosea was not the father of these children.

Or it could mean as Garret argues, “in this context it seems to mean “children who bear the disgrace of their mother’s behavior.”

That is, this phrase anticipates that Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, and Lo-Ammi would bear the reproach of their mother’s conduct (see 2:4–5 [Hb.

2:6–7]).”[6]

B. The Meaning of the Name

In v. 4 God commands Hosea to name his son “Jezreel.”

The reason is given the latter part of the verse, “for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.”

The name “Jezreel” has little meaning to the modern day reader unless placed in its proper context with the rest of Scripture.

Hearing the names “Jezreel” and “Jehu” together would have immediately brought up the context of 2 Kings 9 and 10.

This passage is the account of Jehu putting to death the descendants of King Ahab.

In 2 Kings 9 Elisha anoints Jehu as king over Israel.

And in 2 Kings 9:7 Jehu is given instruction from the Lord to “smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.”

And Jehu did so in a very violent and bloody manner.

“According to 2 Kgs.

9:1–10, Jehu’s bloody purge of the house of Ahab fulfilled a prophetic command from the Lord.”[7]

In fact Jehu executed both the king of Israel and the king of Judah, he executed Jezebel, he executed Ahab’s seventy sons in Samaria, executed 42 relatives of the king of Juda, and he executed an entire temple’s worth of the worshipers of Baal (2 Kings 9-10).

It truly was a bloody purge.

So much so, that the name of the place “Jezreel” came to signify bloodshed in the mind of an Israelite.

“In the mind of an Israelite, Jezreel may have signified bloodshed in the same way that Chernobyl signifies nuclear disaster to a modern person.”[8]

Thus when Hosea named his son Jezreel it would have signified bloodshed or perhaps the idea of God’s wrath in the minds of the people.

C. The Application of the Name

A problem presents itself in the latter part of v. 4. God says “for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.”

The problem is that elsewhere in Scripture God commends Jehu for his zeal in finishing off the dynasty of Ahab.

In 2 Kings 10:30 God says to Jehu, “Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.”

If in fact Jehu obeyed the word of the Lord, why is God going to avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu?

The answer is found in the Hebrew word for “avenge” or “punish.”

As Garrett states, “The word translated “punish” pāqad has a wide variety of meanings (“attend to,” “appoint,” “visit,” “muster,” etc.), and its specific meaning in any verse is dependent on context.”[9]

This means the idea of Hosea 1:4 is not that God will avenge or punish the house of Jehu, but that God will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.

Why will God do this?

Because the House of Jehu failed to learn the lesson of Jezreel.

God destroyed the house of Ahab because of its spiritual adultery with Baal.

Now Israel and the House of Jehu are doing the exact same thing

Jehu himself had been the agent of God’s fury and personally had seen how terribly it fell upon an apostate dynasty.

But he and his household went on to repeat the apostasy of the Omrides and their predecessors (2 Kgs 10:31; 13:1).

God visited the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu because, in the final analysis, his dynasty’s rule was little better than that of Jeroboam I or of Ahab and Jezebel.

Jehu’s actions at Jezreel were, if anything, the main reason God did not eliminate his dynasty sooner (2 Kgs 10:30).[10]

D. The Truth Applied

God said to Hosea, call his name “Jezreel” or “bloodshed” or “wrath.”

Why should he do this?

Because God is going to bring the bloodshed / wrath of Jezreel upon the nation of Israel because of their spiritual unfaithfulness.

And God will not spare the nation of Israel from experiencing the full fury of His wrath

As Jehu carried out God’s command with a bloody purge, so God would bring that same kind of wrath upon the rest of the nation of Israel.

Some might be tempted to think, “That is pretty harsh.”

And herein lies the first vital truth that one must understand, if one is to see, in a fuller sense, the unfathomable grace of God.

And this truth is that Jezreel or bloodshed or wrath is exactly what the nation of Israel deserved.

It was not harsh, it was not excessive, it was not over the top.

It was in fact just, and righteous, and necessary.

God’s wrath for their sin was RIGHT!

And this truth is not just applicable to rebellious Israel.

This truth must be understood by everyone who reads Hosea, because everyone is Jezreel.

Everyone deserves bloodshed, everyone deserves God’s wrath.