God's Mercy Through Hosea' Children

What is the only biblical ground for divorce? Unfaithfulness - adultery within marriage (Matthew 5:32, 19:9). Would not Hosea, then, married to a woman who repeatedly abandoned the sanctity of their marriage for mere enjoyment of adultery - have every right to abandon her? Yet in spite of her blatant disregard for his faithfulness and unconditional love, Hosea even seeks out his sinful wife, buying her back after she sells herself into prostitution. This marriage points out the state of Israel as she disregarded the word of the Lord. God, the faithful husband and lover, has taken as wife the whore Israel. She was no more faithful to Him than Gomer, disregarding His commands that she should take no other lover, Israel abandoned her God and sought after the adultery of worship- syncretism with other Gods. Hosea's unconditional love reflects God's unconditional love for His wife, the people of Israel.

Because of the historical context of Israel's spiritual adultery and the judgement, God shows His people that they are in desperate need of His mercy. God establishes the state of Israel's heart by delivering Gomer to Hosea as wife- creating a parallel between His relationship with His people and Hosea's relationship with Gomer. Hosea is commanded to buy back his wife from the life she has chosen of whoredom. Wolff suggests that Gomer (symbolizing Israel) was unable to repress her urge to adultery, and so had literally sold herself into sin- thus she was drawn out of temptation by Hosea's purchase of her (62). He further suggests that the amount Hosea paid to reclaim his wife was thirty shekels, the price of a slave (Wolff 61). Therefore, Gomer was now the legal property of Hosea- just as Israel's redemption and preservation from Egypt make her God's property. For a time, Hosea chastises his wife by a "desert" experience similar to that of Israel, who also was purposed solely for her God.

Yet it is in mercy that God, as paralleled by Hosea's actions, allows Israel to experience only His words void of His presence. This time of distance is a period of "enforced chastity" (Stuart 66) both for Gomer and for Israel. This demonstrated the extent of God's jealousy that He be the sole Lover of His people. God symbolizes His chastisement of Israel through Gomer's children. By following the change of names of Hosea and Gomer's children, one sees Israel's journey from adultery to repentance and restoration to God.

God reveals His mercy to Israel through the names of Hosea's children, allowing a chance for repentance.� The names of the children born to Gomer in her adulterous state reveal God's justice towards Israel- chastisement for their sin in order to draw them back to Him. Piper points out that the name of Hosea's first child, Jezreel, refers to the slaughter and bloodshed of Jehu, a former king in Israel. By declaring bloodshed as one of Israel's children out of her sin, Hosea reveals the state of Israel's heart: their idolatry has led to bloodshed. But this is not all Jezreel indicates as an offspring of sinful Gomer- God also declared that due to Israel's sin, there will be bloodshed in judgement (Stuart 28). This threat of punishment- execution according to Stuart- will come in God's timing to the unrepentant whore of Judah- repaying the offspring of Jehu for continuing on the tradition of its father at Jezreel.

Hosea's daughter, Lo-Ruhamah (no/without compassion), is described by Stedman as a symbol that God would no longer have compassion on His people if their hearts persisted in rebellion. As Israel's disregard for the Lord's commands continued, God's removal of His compassion from an ignorantly rebellious people drew near in the form of judgement. Lo-Ruhamah is derived from the Hebrew root word for womb, meaning as a whole to be without tender, parental love and compassion (Stuart 31). In fact, the Hebrew form of the name Lo-Ruhamah indicates that Israel will find no mercy in God's eyes (Wolff 20). God promises that He will remove His fatherly tenderness and favor for Israel if their repentance is not soon and sincere.

Not only does sin birth physical death and destruction, but through Hosea's third child, Lo-Ammi (not My people), God warns Judah that her sin will bring about separation from Him. This suggests that Israel is not of the same clan, flesh and blood, of the Lord- a sort of revealing of the adultery of God's people (Wolff 21). Since obedience conveys kinship to the Lord (Stuart 32), Israel's disobedience negates God's adoption and selection of her as His people- dissolving her relationship with God. This is the state we find the people of Judah in at the beginning of Hosea's prophetic service, a syncretistic people compromising their sanctity as God's people to fornicate with pagan religions and practices. As religious as Judah remained, she was ignorant that her idolatry displeased God through the misguidance of her leaders who had abandoned God (VanGemeren 110). Thus, God's mercy to Israel was evidenced through His revelation to Judah of His displeasure and swiftly approaching wrath through Hosea, that she might have a chance to repent and be reconciles to Him.

God's mercy to His people is continually evidenced by disclosing it to the faithful remnant. Though all of Judah refused to whole-heartedly turn from her wickedness and repent to the Lord, God did not condemn to whole of Israel as unfaithful when their remained some who still sought to honor His name. Judah sought to regain God's favor through the religious acts of repentance without truly sorrowful hearts that they had grieved their God (VanGemeren 113). Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that Hosea does not promise hope in God to all Israel, "physical Israel... but the regathered remnant of faith." (Penner)

The hope extended to the remnant of His faithful despite imminent judgement is the hope of restoration. While God weeps over the fall of Judah after the footsteps of the wayward Northern Kingdom, His justice commands punishment for the sins of those who have abandoned Him. Once again, Israel is faced with a wilderness- more spiritually than physically this time- such as they wandered in for forty years after abandoning the God who had just saved them from Egypt (VanGemeren 115). Yet God still indicates that Judah, unlike Israel and Samaria, contains those that still fear God (Hosea 11:12). In spite of this period of wandering, God promises a return to His faithful, redeeming the nation who audaciously turned in spite from her redeemer.

While Israel is indeed in exile from her God, God is in a way mercifully removing her from His presence that He might sanctify her and return her to Himself as pure- for God cannot stand that which is not Holy. "The experience of judgement, likened to a return to the desert, was intended to bring some to their senses and the recognition that Yahweh is Lord." (VanGemeren 116) Hosea 1:6-7 indicates that the Lord is through with having mercy on the Northern Kingdom, but will to continue to have mercy upon the faithful in Judah. Sweeney points out that God's judgement on the Northern Kingdom dynasty of Jehu as well as the promise of a future Davidic monarch emphasize God's redemptive promises to the remnant of Judah over the idolatry of the Northern Kingdom. However it seems God promises Judah redemption over the Northern Kingdom, God intends to redeem all of Israel.

"It was Israel as a whole that was the original bride of Yahweh, and surely therefore the united Israel would be the partaker of the final glory." (Robertson) The discipline Hosea enforced towards Gomer seems to explain the spiritual desert through which the Israelites

wandered while in captivity/exile. During their period of absence from the land their ancestors worshipped on, Israel was not wholly free to worship Yahweh. However, during this time of silence from God, Israel was purged from idolatry (Robertson). While God judges sin of His people through the nations, He is merciful in His judgement- purging their sins so that Israel might be reconciled to Him. The reversal of the names of Hosea's children, God sets Israel into a "desert" time, a reversal of the covenant, because Israel has turned from the original covenant set between her and her Holy Lover. This reversed language in Hosea's prophecy is also a merciful warning of the future if Judah does not repent and turn back to God instead of following after the wayward children of the Northern Kingdom (Dennison).

Finally, God demonstrates His mercy through the promise of a healing love through renewed covenants and new designation of "His people." As Hosea predicts the purification of Israel, he distinguishes who God's people really are: those who are willing to enter into a betrothal of faithfulness "in righteousness, and in judgement, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies" (Hosea 2:19, KJV) with their Holy God. Henry's commentary describes Israel becoming a people to God as those who choose obedience, and He will live in unity with them as their God. Covenantal renewal is shown in the names of Hosea's children. Just as Hosea purchases Gomer out of her sin and renews their marriage, so God promises to redeem Israel out of the judgement she has brought upon herself and renew their marriage vows in a restoration of His covenant with her. God reclaimed Israel as His bride and the Israelites as His children by changing the names of Hosea's children.

Hosea's son whose name was Jezreel (meaning bloodshed) is changed to a positive meaning rather than that of curse: God no longer calls for judgement in the slaughter that took lace in Jezreel, but the name seems to indicate God's blessing. More so than the blessing of increased fertility or Jezreel's memory becoming an honor rather than disgrace, this renaming indicates a release from "the covenant curses of national death and deportation." (Stuart 40) It is also suggested that the changing of Hosea's eldest son's name reveals God's mercy to Israel in looking forward towards "the day of Jezreel." This is a proclamation of salvation and unification of Israel under one leader- turning a land once filled with blood into a place brimming with shalom (Wolff 25).

Lo-Ruhamah (no/without compassion) is restored to Ruhamah, bringing God's grace and compassion back to His people after they have repented of their rebellion and restored from judgement. This demonstrates "Yahweh's love overcomes His anger" (Wolff 26). After God's people have completed their time of punishment, God's heart was softened towards Israel, who had been the object of His wrath, and He interacted with them in compassion once again rather than judgement (Henry). God declares He will have pity upon Israel when seeing their pain, offering hope in spite of the coming judgement, that indeed He will have mercy on His people in spite of all their wrong to His Holy person (Sweeney).

The final child, Lo-Ammi, by whose name God symbolized that the Israelites had become children of adultery through Israel's idolatry, is also give a new name: Ammi. In their cry of repentance, God will restore Israel as His children on condition that they obey Him. This eschatological position of sonship points even beyond God calling His people out of exile, promising His faithfulness to those who love Him and obey Him (Dennison). The Lord's mercy is evidenced throughout the book of Hosea in both an immediate and eschatological manner through the names of Hosea's children.

While God uses Hosea's unfaithful wife, Gomer, to represent the state of Israel's idolatrous heart, the effects of this adultery fall onto the children of unfaithfulness, the Israelites. The Israelites have abandoned their commitment to God to worship only Him and have fallen into syncretism, over which God deals out judgement. God decrees that He will judge them in remembrance of innocent blood they have spilt, removing His compassion from their rebellion, and even to the point of no longer calling them His people. Yet it is because of His great love for them that God judges Israel- purifying them in order to commune with Him in His Holiness. Eschatologically, God promises mercy from His judgement for Israel through the restoration of His covenants to Israel after He "buys her back" from captivity. In promising this redemptive mercy, God changes the names of Hosea's children to give Israel a hope for the future. God promises He will justify the wrongs done to His people, that His heart will be turned towards His people in compassion again, and that His people will be those who obey Him.

As believers today, we need to recognize that the God we serve has not changed between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament cannon: He is just as merciful and loving towards those of us who are His children today as to His children before Christ. We who have faith shown through our obedience to God have been given the name of "Christians," followers of Christ. How are we bearing His name as His chosen people? Have we in the Church become as Israel, engaged in syncretistic worship of both our God and other gods? How are we showing to this world that the name we bear is truly Holy? While God is merciful, He is jealous over the sacredness of His name. We must not forget that as bearers of His name, we are called to be Holy, even as He is Holy. How are we keeping that testimony to His name?