Journal Through the Bible: Week 54 Wednesday

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Hosea 1:1-2:23

Does God issue any commands?

• God commanded Hosea to take a wife from among the fallen women.
• God commanded Hosea to name his firstborn son Jezreel. (Which means "God will sow.")
• God commanded Hosea to name his second child and first daughter Lo-ruhamah. (Which means "no mercy." This was to show that God did not feel sorry for the people of Israel concerning the things that were about to befall them.)
• God commanded Hosea to name his third child and second son Lo-ammi. (Which means "not my people." This was to say that God did not see them as His people.)
• God commanded Hosea to call his brethren Ammi (my people) and Ruhamah (mercy). 
• God commanded Hosea to plead with "your mother," meaning the people of Israel that begat him to tell "her," Israel to put away her idolatry which was unfaithfulness or "adulteries" to God.

Does God make any promises?

• God promised this curse: that He would avenge the blood of the people of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu and cause to cease the kingdom of Israel.
• God promised a curse when He named Hosea's daughter Loruhamah. He would take away the people of Israel out of their land.
• God promised mercy upon the people of Judah that did not extend to the people of Israel.
• God promised that even though the northern tribe of Israel were being spiritually divorced from Him because they had broken the covenant yet the Jewish people would still be as the sand of the sea that cannot be numbered. Most of those would come through the southern kingdom of Judah. 
• He promised that in the same place that it was said that they were not His people it would also be said that they are the sons of the living God and that the remnants would be joined together from Judah and Israel and appoint one leader for all of them.
• God promised that He would make it difficult for His covenanted people (who had broken their covenant with God!) to find their way to those with whom they were guilty of spiritual fornication and that they would desire to return to their first husband.
• God promised to cause His people much shame in the sight of the nations that they so adored, nations that could not and would not deliver them from God's punishment.
• God promised that the fields and vineyards would become forests that the animals would eat.
• God promised to bring punishment upon them for the worship of Baal and to make them despise the very name.
• God promised that the animals and birds would live safely in the land.

Does this passage teach anything about Jesus?

• Although the prophecy found in 1:11 concerning the consolidation of Judah with Israel once more and the appointment of a leader to bring them up out of the land was fulfilled when Babylon conquered Assyria and assimilated some of the Israelite captives along with Babylonian's own captives from Judah this prophecy also has a future fulfillment. Then they will appoint themselves one head which will be Christ Jesus.
• Revelation 2:4 Jesus tells the church at Ephesus that He had something against them because they had left their first love, which would be Him. It also means that they were like the people of Israel that had left their first love, God, as mentioned in Hosea 2:7. Jesus, the promised Messiah, was the first love that the Children of Israel had forsaken also.

Does this passage teach anything about yet-future events?

• In the prophecy concerning the salvation of the Jews in the book of Revelation all of the tribes of Israel are represented which is compatible with verse 1:11. In that day their chosen leader will be Jesus, the Son of David.
• As in verse 2:18, when the time of battle ceases in the land the animals and birds will dwell safely there without fear of being hunted. Isaiah tells us that in Christ's Kingdom even the lion and lamb will graze side by side.
• As in verses 2:19-23, God will forever be wedded to Israel in a faithful union where they will know the Lord (because Jesus is Emmanuel, "God with us" and He will always be present. Hence the New Jerusalem being His capital city in Revelation! Even the heavens and earth will be united. The earth will bring forth abundantly! The wedding vows will be, "Thou art my people!" and "Thou art my God!"