Hosea 2
Verse 4 re-emphasises the point that actions deeply injure
God when they are borne of a heart faithful to Him – they are the offspring of
unfaithfulness. In this chapter, God is addressing the fact that we are enticed
by the fancies of ‘another’ (ie: the provision of the world or even of our
self). In actual fact, verses 5 and 8 don’t even compare. Where the lover
provides food, water, wool, linen, and the like, the true husband provides
grain, wine, oil, and ‘lavished her on silver and gold’. I think the distinction
between the lover’s ‘food’ and the husband’s ‘grain’ should not be overlooked;
‘food’ is ready-made and processed, but ‘grain’, though providing the
essentials of food, gives the wife freedom to make what she likes. Where the lover gives wool and linen, the
husband ‘lavishes silver and gold’, which again enables the wife to have
freedom in the fabrics the wife purchases. Although God’s gifts might appear
simpler and require effort from us, they are given with incomparably more
freedom and room for growth. God never gives us less than best, most perfectly
shown in the gift of His son.
This reading of verses 5-8 sets us up for understanding the
husband’s response to the wife’s unfaithfulness. It is not to disown her, but
to ‘allure her’ (v.14). The husband designs to show his wife just how
irresistible he is, to draw her back to himself through willingness. This could
be seen as reflecting the Calvinistic theology of ‘irresistible grace’; once we
have seen the grace of God in its fullness, we could not possibly walk away
(though this is a simplification). In v.15, the husband longs for his wife to
be as she was in her youth, no longer calling him ‘master’, but ‘husband’.
Jesus says to His disciples in John 15:15, ‘I no longer call you servants, but
I call you friends, for a servant does not know his master’s business’. Husband
and wife are partners for life; friends walk together through thick and thin.
Do we really appreciate that this is the level of intimacy God desires with us?
Verses 19-20 display the way in which the husband woos his
wife to win her heart back. ‘I will betroth you to me forever’, he says, ‘in
love and compassion’. The sadness is the undeserving unfaithful merely
acknowledge the Lord (v.20). Marriage is a decision, but without the love of
the heart it will soon become very empty and painful. Are we guilty of coldness
in response to God’s warmth? Do we really let God in to our hearts, or only
into our minds?
(member of the congregation)