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Hosea 10 - Do Unto Others...

Set ‘em Up – Knock ‘em Down
Hos 10:1-2 Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. The first verse of this chapter acknowledges Israel’s prosperity. As prosperity increased, idolatry increased. The better their financial situation, the more they gave credit to false gods. People who worship idols are not true to YHWH or, as Hosea says, their hearts are false. God has allowed them the freedom to choose and they are guilty of choosing to worship creation rather than the Creator. Their guilt weighs against them. They are not free of consequence just because they include YHWH in among the gods they worship. Hosea prophecies that God will destroy the false idols they worship and the places where the people worship them. In modern society our false gods take on a different appearance, but the net result is still the same. We prosper and we credit ourselves for our success. We build our IRA’s and hang flat screen televisions in our living rooms and drive as much car as we can afford. Not that all these items are inherently evil, but when our materialism replaces the Creator and provider of our things we become the very guilty people Hosea condemned here. Our success, though delightful in its season, will not last forever.

Empty Human Wisdom
Hos 10:3-4 For now they will say: “We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord; and a king—what could he do for us?” They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. The more successful we are, the more confident we become in our own prowess. Evil cannot abide authority. The wealthy merchants of commercial religion became so self-assured they felt they no longer needed a king. This is not to say they thought their nation could go without political and economic leadership. What it really meant was that those in high positions felt they were above the law and authority of the sitting king. In the last few decades before the fall of Samaria a half-dozen rulers sat on the throne of Israel. Several of those rulers attained the throne through murderous deceit. They wheeled and dealed with insincere platitudes and smooth talking lies. The old axiom, “you reap what you sow,” is common in biblical literature. Their poisonous lies were like seeds that sprung up as weeds. Evil seed yields a crop of evil. This truth is as universal as it is eternal.

Where’s the Beef?
Hos 10:5-7 The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced over it and over its glory—for it has departed from them. The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king.  Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. Samaria's king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters. “Beth-aven” is a sarcastic reference to Bethel. Bethel means house of God but Beth-aven means house of iniquity. Bethel in the South and Gilgal in the North were the two biggest centers of idolatry in the Northern Kingdom. The use of a calf idol was nothing new to Israel. The people made a calf idol in the wilderness while Moses was off getting the Ten Commandments the first time. Later, shortly after the death of Solomon, Jeroboam made a pair of golden calves and told the people that these idols led their ancestors out of Egypt (1 Ki 12:25-33). One of the calves went to a temple in the region of Dan and the other was setup in a temple in Bethel. After two centuries the people identified their culture with these symbols. Hosea sees the fear and sadness that will come when these symbols are captured and hauled away. When the people wake up to the fact that YHWH is their God, not some bit of tribute fodder, they will realize the shame of their sin. Finally, the king will be gone. The Hebrew term used in verse 7 to describe what is on the water is open to some interpretation. KJV and NJSP translations refer to foam on the water. ESV and TLB indicate a twig or chip or wood floating away on the water. Regardless of the technical ambiguity, the message is clear. God’s punishment includes elimination of Israel’s king. The simple meaning is that Israel’s king would vanish. Beyond the obvious removal of the king reigning at the time of God’s wrath, Hosea was also speaking of the elimination of the office of king. The obvious assertion is that the entire government would cease to exist. With poetic beauty, the image of disappearing like foam or a twig being carried off by the sea also illustrates the carrying away of the glory of Samaria by the sea of Assyria’s military.

You Can’t Hide
Hos 10:8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us.” In the context of Luke’s gospel, the Lord Jesus was being led to the site of the crucifixion when he paused to speak to the mourners. He told them to mourn for themselves and their children because a day was coming when “they would say to the mountains, ‘fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘cover us.’” (Lk 23:30) The Lord’s quotation of Hosea’s prophecy suggests that Hosea was speaking of something greater than the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC. In the book of Revelation the Apostle John records a series of visions. The apocalyptic visions include the opening of seven seals. When the sixth seal is opened John sees the sun darkening, the moon like blood, stars disappearing, a great earthquake and great wind. He also sees people hiding in caves calling out to the mountains, “fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come” (Rev 6:16-17). Although these same cosmic signs of John’s sixth seal were displayed during the crucifixion, both Jesus’ reference to Hos 10:8 and the greater context John’s vision appear to point to a final wrath dealt to unrepentant humanity at the end of time. Aven means iniquity. The places of iniquity shall be destroyed. These things that became sin to Israel would be destroyed. The reference to thorn and thistle growing on their altars were literally fulfilled in the period after the exile of the Northern Kingdom when the populations of Bethel and Gilgal were essentially eliminated. If this were just the first fulfillment, a literal fulfillment that symbolically foreshadows a later event, then it may also mean those belonging to Satan (thorn and thistle) would change the face of sin (grow up on their altars) at the last days. Even if both Jesus and John were speaking of the crucifixion itself and all the celestial and geological signs of the sixth seal being fulfilled there, it is still ominous to imagine the power of God’s wrath on the unrepentant. Certainly at the end of time all that is sinful is eliminated.

Remember Gibeah
Hos 10:9 From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued. Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah? Gibeah is the scene of one of the darkest accounts in Israel’s history as documented in Judg 19-20. In short, a Levite and his concubine stop for the night in Gibeah, a small town in the region of Benjamin. Local men come to the house where he’s staying and demand the owner send out the Levite to sodomize him. The owner refuses, but to prevent massacre he turns over the concubine to the men. By dawn she’s been abused to the point of death and left on the doorstep. The Levite takes her body home, cuts it up into pieces, and sends the pieces to leaders of the other tribes with an explanation and a call to war against Benjamin. The call is answered and Benjamin is nearly wiped out. This was a horrid crime answered by war. Hosea is condemning the Israel of his own day as being no better than the tribe of Benjamin at Gibeah. Those vivid images of rape, murder, and brother fighting brother to the death were intended to get attention. It also demonstrates the degree to which God hates idolatry. In the context of end times prophecy, if one can imply this passage is in context with the previous verse, it also indicates that wrath will overtake the unjust at the end of time.

All in Due Time
Hos 10:10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity. When the disciples inquired of Jesus when the end of time would come, Jesus told them it is unknown to all, including himself, except for the Father in heaven. God is sovereign and will do as He pleases when He pleases. This may make God sound fickle, but the reality is that His divine plan is established. As it relates to ancient Israel, Hosea was saying that the wrath coming to Samaria was coming according to God’s good timing. The term “double iniquity” may refer to political and religious sin, past sin as with Gibeah and current sin of adultery, the two calves of Dan and Bethel, or simply the extent of sin in Israel. Regardless of this curiosity, the point made to Hosea’s Israel is that they would face enemies with nowhere to run and would be God’s punishment for unrepentant sin.

Judah’s Role
Hos 10:11-12 Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. In this case a “trained calf that loved to thresh” refers to the former days of Israel when the people were pleased to do God’s will. God protected Israel from its enemies for centuries because of His love for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. Under the Lord’s protection, Israel flourished. The days when patriarchs, judges and kings led the people in faithfulness were a thing of the past by Hosea’s time. For their rebellion God would withdraw favor. Israel would be forced to stand on its own. Located in essentially the geographic center of civilization, the region was a coveted point of control for international trade. Maintaining control of the territory without God’s involvement would be difficult at best. With Israel’s duplicity and internal corruption it would prove impossible. From a spiritual standpoint, hard work (yoke and plow imagery) indicated that the previously cherished law of God would become a heavy weight around the neck of the rebellious people. God implores his rebellious people to soften their hard hearts by turning back to righteousness. In exchange for repentance God promised to pour out blessings on them.

Do Unto Others…
Hos 10:13-15 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off. Once more we read another variant of “you reap what you sow.” In this case the seed is self-deception. Israel put its faith in its warriors and weapons rather than the Creator. Because they put faith in their military, their military will be destroyed. The specific event at Beth-arbel is lost to antiquity, but it can be reasonably assumed that Shalman was a reference to an earlier Assyrian king, probably Shalmaneser III, who reigned a few decades before Hosea’s era. The Assyrians were infamous for their brutality and vile destruction of innocent life. It was another of the Shalman family, Shalmaneser V, who rose against Israel. Although not mentioned in scripture, Assyrian records indicate it was his successor, Sargon II, who finally defeated Israel in 722, presumably immediately following his rise to power. Beth-arbel is believed to refer to a Irbid, a village in the area of Gilead to the east of the River Jordan. Regardless of the unknown particulars, the memory of the destruction of Beth-arbel would have certainly been vivid in the minds of Hosea’s contemporaries. Hosea was claiming that the guilt of Israel warranted a similar punishment for the entire nation. Dawn was the normal time of day for a battle to begin. The original text also leaves room for interpreting it to mean that the fall of Israel’s monarchy will come quickly like the dawn. Interestingly, King Hoshea of Israel was captured suddenly and held captive for a period of about 3 years until the conquest of Samaria was complete (2 Ki 17:4-6).

Majoring in the Minors

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

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