Hosea 1:6-2:1

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.

This name is far less complicated to understand than Jezreel. It means what it says right out.

Lo-Ruhamah Lo means no so No - Ruhamah and Ruhamah is a word in the general family of the word love - this is a compassionate, tender, merciful love. The Hebrew word is actually all the same letters as the word for a womb so just pronounced differently gives a different meaning. This not being an identical word to something in English is why you get quite the list of words from different translations:

ESV, NKJV, KJV, Darby, ERV, FSB : Mercy

NIV, GW: Loved

NET, Geneva: Pity

EMPH, CSB, HCSB: Compassion

Compassion and Mercy are the most common ways of translating the same word in other verses in the bible with compassion being a little more common. For the cultural context though this would relate to us a little more with calling a little girl unloved. Can you imagine walking through Walmart and overhearing a parent calling their kids name. “Hey, unloved come here.” It would grab your attention and make you say… um… why would anyone name their daughter that. It’s so sad.

So there will be no mercy or compassion on the house of Israel. If we remember last time the house of Israel is synonymous with the northern kingdom. And we know that Hosea is the last to prophesy in the northern Kingdom before it’s conquered by Assyria.

Hosea 1:7 ESV

But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

But the southern kingdom will be saved, but not militarily saved. They do get conquered by Babylon more than a hundred years later and taken into captivity. The Jews from Judah, the southern kingdom do keep their Jewish identity. Most of the Jews carried off by Assyria in the northern kingdom are no longer Jewish. They intermarry and don’t keep a lot of the traditions the same anymore. This group of sort of but not quite Jewish people are the one who become the Samaritans. Samaria was the capitol of the northern kingdom. So the northern kingdom will be gone, totally at some point, physically, politically, and culturally. Judah on the other hand will get defeated militarily but they do come back and retain their culture and scripture to rebuild.

Hosea 1:8–9 ESV

When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

From what I understand when she weaned No Mercy means this would have been about 3 years apart at a minimum. According to the Talmud ( a Jewish commentary and rule book for everything in life written around 500AD the minimum is 2 years the max is 5 for an orthodox Jewish mother to breastfeed. And now you know.

Just as direct here we get Not My People or Lo-Ammi. Again Lo is the NO or NOT. Am is the word for people descendants of the same father, and mi is the possessive where we would say ‘my’ so Not My People. Now… has anyone noticed anything about these 3 children… or more specifically something different said about Jezreel that wasn’t said about Unloved or Not My People?

This may be nothing… it might just many people reading into things but… Back in Verse three it says she conceived and bore him a son.... the other two children it just says she conceived and bore a daughter/son. I don’t know for sure… but does this mean the parentage might be in question? The Bible certainly never says so I’ll leave you with a possibility that we cannot know for certain and move on. If this were the Hebrew text we’d move to chapter 2 because the next two verses are where they start chapter 2… I think they had it correct… as we start a new subject

Hosea 1:10–11 ESV

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

This contrast might seem jarring but it’s going to keep happening. We will get judgment and hope in cycles many times. This should remind us of the promise we’ve talked about before. Gen 22:17 “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,” and Gen 13:16 “I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.” Remember at the beginning of this series that one of the purposes of the prophets is to remind people of the covenant of God.

Paul grabbed these verses to point out God’s plan in bringing in the world to the covenant is right here.

Romans 9:22–26 ESV

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

Is it not also true that the people who are not my people have been called my people… and the one called not beloved has been called beloved? The day we are unified with Christ Jew and Gentile alike is now and is coming. It says they shall appoint themselves one head and it says in Col 1:18-22

Colossians 1:18–22 ESV

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

They shall go up from the land some have taken to be the idea that this soon to be scattered people will come up out of the land and return to Israel. They actually come back to the land a few times, the most recent in History might be the most dramatic, it might also be the last we don’t know what the Lord has in store for the restoration of Israel or it’s timing. One thing is for certain great will be that day that the Lord plants that work. This change begins the judgement into blessing for the names. Jezreel isn’t about bloodshed anymore it’s about God planting his people back into the land. Then the other two continue with this in Hos 2:1 (another reason someone got the chapter division messed up)

Hosea 2:1 ESV

Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

Now these names are altered, the negative aspect is taken out and the name is a blessing.