Read Hosea 9:1–10:2
Questions from the Scripture text: What isn’t Israel to do (Hosea 9:1)? Why not—what have they done? What will the Lord debilitate (Hosea 9:2)? Where won’t they dwell (Hosea 9:3)? Where will they go instead? What won’t they be permitted to do with their wine and grain (Hosea 9:4a–b)? What effect will this have on the rest of their consuming of grain (verse 4c–f)? What rhetorical question does Hosea 9:5 ask? Why is this such a question (Hosea 9:6)? What days have come (Hosea 9:7, Hosea 9:8)? What help don’t they have? Why not? How will God deal with them, and why (Hosea 9:9)? In what condition was Israel before the Lord adopted them (Hosea 9:10a–b)? But how did the Lord receive them (verse 10c–d)? And still how did they treat Him (verse 10e–g)? What is another way that the Lord will chasten them (Hosea 9:11-14, Hosea 9:16)? Even by making them to be like whom (Hosea 9:13)? What is the Lord’s disposition toward them (Hosea 9:15)? Why? Now what will He do? Why (Hosea 9:17)? For whom had Israel used their material blessings (Hosea 10:1)? And what did they multiply, as their blessings multiplied? How will God respond (Hosea 10:2)?
How did God respond to Israel’s sin? Hosea 9:1–10:2 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word, publicly read, in the holy assembly on the coming Lord’s Day. In these nineteen verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that God responded to Israel’s sin by removing from him all the blessings of the covenant.
This passage consists of declaring Israel’s sentencing for breaking the covenant. The Lord will remove the blessings of their prosperity (Hosea 9:1-2), their holiness for worship (Hosea 9:3-6), their responsiveness to the Word of God (Hosea 9:7-9), and their fruitfulness to produce holy generations (Hosea 9:10-16). As they would not give Him their whole self, He will reject them, hold them guilty, and destroy the remnants of their wicked works (Hosea 9:17–10:2).
The Lord will remove their prosperity, Hosea 9:1-2. They thought that they were bringing forth fruit from themselves and for themselves (Hosea 10:1a–b), and therefore they have committed the adultery (Hosea 9:1) of attributing their prosperity to “God” as they imagine Him, and devoting it unto Him in their own way (Hosea 10:1c–e)—which Scripture repeatedly teaches us is to worship another god altogether. So the Lord will take away that prosperity (Hosea 9:2) that they neither enjoyed as from Him nor employed as for Him. What a blessing it is to receive everything as from the Lord and for the Lord. And if we do not, let us hope that the Lord will treat us like true children and afflict us in our material things.
The Lord will remove their holiness for worship, Hosea 9:3-6. They were a consecrated people, eating consecrated food, in a consecrated land. They offered to the Lord all of their first-fruits. From the same fields and vineyards came offerings for the Lord and food for their tables. Clean animals could only be slaughtered as sacrifices, with all of the blood and the fat being offered to God, and whatever meat they enjoyed coming from the portion that God “shared” with them in their offerings. But, they are now being removed from the consecrated land to the lands of the nations (Hosea 9:3a–b, Hosea 9:6). And they will eat from portions not consecrated to the Lord. In Assyria (Hosea 9:3c), even those things that come from clean animals will not have been consecrated as they were in the land. Their eating is going to be divorced from worship (Hosea 9:4). They will be unable to be a people consecrated unto the Lord’s worship (Hosea 9:5).
What a blessing it is to live as worshipers of God! To know that the whole of our life flows into and out of drawing near to Him in the public worship on the Lord’s Day, so that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, that too is consecrated unto Him (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:31). And what a curse it is when we cannot attend public worship, when we do not attend public worship, or when we do not either come to public worship in the right mindset or carry that devotion back home with us.
The Lord will remove their responsiveness to His Word, Hosea 9:7-9. Hosea 9:7 can mean either that their preachers and spiritual shepherds have fallen into the folly and insanity of false doctrine, or that they continue to have faithful preachers and shepherds, but they refuse to listen to them. Either one would be consistent with judgments that we see elsewhere in Scripture, but it is probably the first one. For, “Israel knows.” They know that the days of punishment have come, and the days of recompense have come. But as is often the case when a faithful preacher sounds the solemn warning, the people treat him as if he is a fool or a madman. Their “enmity” enters the house of God (Hosea 9:8c), and because of their response, the faithful preaching (verse v8a) becomes to them not a help but a snare (verse 8b). Isaiah and Hosea were preaching that if the Lord were not leaving them a remnant, they would be altogether destroyed. But the people rejected their, and the other latter prophets’, preaching. May the Lord ever give us submissiveness to the “strange” preaching of His Word, so that we are corrected and grown by it—rather than concluding that the preacher is stupid or crazy.
The Lord will remove their fruitfulness to produce holy generations, Hosea 9:10-16. The language of the Lord finding them in the wilderness refers back to His constituting them a church upon gathering them out of Egypt. Though they were wild/sour grapes (Hosea 9:10a–b), in His eyes (and provision), that generation were the very first sweet figs of a great harvest to come in succeeding generations (verse 10c–d). But before even the next generation could be reared, Israel’s long history of spiritual adultery had already begun (verse 10d–e, cf. Numbers 25:1–3). So the great covenant blessing of His being God to them and their children would be a place in which they would be particularly afflicted (Hosea 9:11, Hosea 9:12, Hosea 9:13, Hosea 9:14, Hosea 9:16). This same grievous chastening comes to congregations today. Either they do not bear children, or their children die young, or their children suffer the spiritual slaughter of wandering away from God, and either into “churches” with false worship/ doctrine or no church at all. When this happens, it is not time for a revamped youth program or “livelier” worship, but for repentance!
The Lord rejects them altogether, Hosea 9:17–10:2. Hosea 9:17 summarizes the sentence, and Hosea 10:1 summarizes the offense. Hosea 10:2 describes it in relational and covenantal terms. Rather than loving YHWH, their God, with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, their heart has been divided. They are guilty not merely of rule infractions, but of rejecting God Himself. And He will destroy the remnants of their sin. God give you, dear reader, to see sin not merely as a rule infraction, but as that hateful rejection of your own covenant God, which rejection you yourself hate with all your heart—just as you love Him with all your heart.
How do you view and use the good things that God has given you? How much do you value being able to gather for public worship? How does it bear out in your life that you value the faithful preaching of the Word? How does the fruit of the womb as a covenant blessing shape your desire/approach/effort to marriage and bearing/rearing children?
Sample prayer: Lord, we have treated Your good gifts as if they are from us. And we have indulged ourselves in them apart from glorifying You or enjoying You. We deserve to have all our good gifts taken away. And, we have not heeded the faithful preaching of Your Word. Forgive us, and don’t permit for our preaching to become foolish and unfaithful. Our generation has often failed to conduct ourselves as belonging to You, and we deserve for the next generation to perish, rather than belonging to You. So, forgive us, we pray! Do not reject us or cast us out of Your presence. For, Your Son has been forsaken in our place, for our sin, so that we may receive as He deserves. Give us according to Christ’s worthiness, and according to the love in which You gave Him to be ours, we ask in His Name, AMEN!
Suggested Songs: ARP51AB “God, Be Merciful to Me” or TPH433 “Amazing Grace”
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