• Sign in

• Home
• Write for World-Wide Bible Studies
• Sign in
• About
• Contact

Hosea 7 - Pride Goes Before the Fall

Northern Exposure
Hos 7:1-2 When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria; for they deal falsely; the thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside. But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face. God wants to heal the land. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Never the less, the king of Israel lied to the king of Assyria. Israel attempted to hire Egypt as mercenary help against Assyria because Israel wanted to avoid paying Assyria tribute. Their double-dealing did not pay off. Assyria quickly learned of the deception. Israel’s lies were literally the catalyst for Assyria’s invasion.

Self Destruct Sequence
Hos 7:3-7 By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery. They are all adulterers; they are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers. For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire. All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me. The king in Samaria and the rich merchants of his court were very pleased with themselves for the plans hatched to deceive Assyria. They were fools. Hosea likens their stupidity to leaving an oven fire untended while preparing bread to bake. The king and his lobbyists grew so rich from their deceptions that their greed became their undoing. The were so eager for capital gain that they plotted against each other even while they plotted together against Assyria, Egypt, and their own public. They were so eaten up that when Assyria finally attacked, Israel was unable to organize and mount a successful defense. In the end all of the elite of Israel were so consumed with their evil pursuits that none would call upon YHWH when their hour of desperation was upon them.

Their Sins Are Getting Old
Hos 7:8-9 Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. By financially, religiously, and politically mingling with the surrounding pagan cultures, Israel was becoming diluted without realizing it. Israel began its slide into obscurity more than two centuries earlier when it broke away from Judah following Solomon’s death. According to the book of II Kings, each king of Israel grew increasingly more evil than the one before until Samaria was finally crushed. In their worldly wisdom Israel grew more prosperous. They traded with their neighbors, intermarried, and practiced religious tolerance. To many Americans free trade, free love, and freedom of religion sound like utopian ideals. God was warning Israel that they were self-deluded with grandiose egos. They imagined their prosperity was at their own hands and their fates were their own to decide. A similar attitude is common in America and many other countries today. The reality of Israel’s situation as seen through the eyes of omniscient God was radically different. If Israel’s fall is any indication of God’s response to unfaithfulness then perhaps we should be giving more consideration to the purity of our faith.

Pride Goes Before the Fall
Hos 7:10 The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him, for all this. This verse echoes Hos 5;5. In both places pride testifies against Israel. Humility and love are the highest commands. Pride flies in the face of both. Just as Eve’s pride betrayed her so Israel’s pride betrayed them. The dove is often

Senselessness
Hos 7:11-12 Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. As they go, I will spread over them my net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. The dove is often associated with hope and peace. We draw this image from the passage in Genesis where Noah sends the dove and it returns with the olive branch (Gen 8:11). Another passage of hope where the dove is a powerful symbol is found in Mt 3:16 when Jesus is baptized and John saw “the Spirit of God descending like a dove.” Doves are notoriously easy going creatures. A bit noisy and messy perhaps, but they don’t mind people very much and they seem to thrive in most environments. This also makes them easy to capture and thus seemingly silly. In this passage Hosea specifically mentions the attempt made by Samaria to court Egypt to support them against Assyria. Israel was already paying tributes to Assyria. The tribute worked something like a tax, but in reality it was a bribe to keep the brutal Assyrians from plundering by force. Either way it was against God’s will for Israel to pay other nations for their own security. Israel wanted to try to work a better deal so they began courting Egypt. In about 725 BC Hoshea, king of Israel refused to pay the tribute to Assyria and sent a message to Pharaoh asking for help. Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, discovered Hoshea’s plan. He captured Hoshea and imprisoned him. For three years he assaulted Israel until finally Samaria and all of the territories of the Northern Kingdom were subdued. In 722 BC the conquest was complete. God promised Israel would be captured like doves and that was a perfect description because, like doves captured in a net, the people were gathered up and removed from their homeland as exiles. 2 Ki 17 provides a complete and detailed report of the fall of Israel, the capture of King Hoshea, the exiling of the people, and the reasons why God allowed Israel to be punished – exactly as Hosea prophesied.

They Could Have Done Better
Hos 7:13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. This passage contains phrases which are difficult to translate into English and even more difficult to accurately interpret regardless of language. There is no doubt that Israel was about to face mortal crisis. It is clear God would have rescued them had they not stubbornly remained in rebellion. As long as they remained attached to the foreign gods, their worship of YHWH was at best tainted and more accurately it should be described as an abomination. Their false worship made a lie of their original faith. “Wailing on their beds” and “gashing themselves” for grain and wine are very likely references to cult practices including ritual prostitution and self-mutilation or perhaps tattoos. These practices were intended generate bountiful crops. God was their source of strength and they forsook Him for pleasures that seemed right in to their broken human thinking. The Hebrew term translated “Redeem” literally means to “buy back” in the legal sense. The fall of Israel is not what God wanted, but because the people rejected God so completely they were going to have to face dire consequences. Hos 7:16 contains some very difficult to translate and interpret language, but the basic idea is that they look everywhere except to God and heaven. Hosea aptly compares them to a defective bow that can’t shoot straight. The final phrases regarding the tongue and Egypt, though difficult to translate clearly, are essentially are saying that Samaria’s leadership will be slain for talking to Egypt. As the record of 2 Ki 17:4 shows, this came to pass exactly as Hosea predicted. Hosea’s prophecy for Israel applied directly and specifically to Israel. In spite of its startling accuracy of detail, the lessons intended for the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah are eternal, unchanging, and as applicable today as they were in the second half of the eighth century BC. God desires pure and honest worship. He is creator of the universe and redeemer of all the lost who would seek Him first and only. We play a dangerous game when we pretend religion yet live our lives with hearts cold to the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Majoring in the Minors

Hosea Chapters:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

• Home
• Terms of Service
• Privacy
• Categories
• Writers' Guidelines
• Write for World-Wide Bible Studies
• Tag Cloud
• About
• Contact