Hosea 10

Hosea’s prophetic ministry was at a time when there was material prosperity.  Things were better than in a long time.  God was behind the prosperity (2 Ki. 14:25-27).  But Israel’s spiritual state was growing worse as we see in Hosea 10.

·        10:1-2: Israel prospered financially.  What did they do with the money?  They built more altars, more shrines (sacred pillars) on high places.  Hosea says, their heart is divided.  How so?  These shrines sound like idolatry.  But …

·        10:3-4: They had made a covenant with the Lord which was a lie.  What is this speaking of?  Almost certainly what we saw back in Hos. 6:1-3 when they said all the right words to the Lord but were trying to please God with religious ritual and not in their daily lives.  In v3 the people were in rebellion, not bowing before the LORD as their king.  They questioned why they should bow to the LORD; what would He do for us?  And yet they had professed to come to the LORD.  Thus judgment was beginning to spring up in Israel just like the poisonous hemlock would spring up in the furrows of their fields.

·        10:5-6:  What or who did they fear?  They feared the calf of Beth Aven!  Beth Aven means house of wickedness.  It was a city near Bethel (Josh. 7:2), and is used by Hosea to contrast with Bethel which means house of God.  The golden calves set up by Jeroboam I were at Dan and Bethel.  Hosea is saying the people fear the calf at what is, in fact, not the house of God but the house of evil.  Thus the divided loyalty: people calling on God and yet doing so through the worship of the golden calf.  The fact is those calves would be carried off to Assyria (Jareb is his name but is a title meaning contender).

·        10:7-8: And as for the Northern Kingdom, her king is seen as cut off and the shrines of Aven destroyed.  The coming judgment will be so terrible the people will cry out for the mountains to cover or fall on them.

·        10:9-11:  The days of Gibeah (cf. Hos. 9:9) refer to the story in Judges 19-21 when Israel had gathered against Benjamin because of the terrible sin of the men of Gibeah.  The other tribes took a tough stance against sin.  But now the people of Israel are sinning as the men of Gibeah had sinned.  Thus God promises judgment, when He is ready.  Ephraim is a heifer trained to thresh grain; but God will harness her to pull the plow instead, a much harder work.

·        10:12-15: The picture of life as a farm where we reap what we sow is strong.  Israel sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind (8:7); now she is sowing wickedness and reaping iniquity.  God pleads with her to sow righteousness so she can reap mercy from Him.  Otherwise she will reap judgment.

We see again, in this chapter, not only the law of the harvest but a God who is able to see our hearts, who knows what we are sowing.  And because He knows, He will send the appropriate harvest.  Count on it!