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February 19, 2004
hosea and gomer
i had a long talk with my roommate, brian, last night about the story of Hosea and Gomer from the old testament:
Hosea 1:2-3 (NIV)so Hosea marries Gomer knowing full well what she currently is and where she has been. soon enough, there are children born. because of the wording used later in this chapter, it is strongly suspected that the second and third children were not even Hosea's. Gomer continued to act as an adulteress and prostitute, and chapter 3 shows a bit more:
2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Hosea 3 (NIV)we see here that God uses the story to show us what we really are. we, as followers of God and as the church, are Gomer. we repeatedly prostitute ourselves to whatever attracts us. sometimes we realize that our lives were better with God, but as a whole we sell ourselves to what only takes and never gives.
Hosea's Reconciliation With His Wife
1 The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, "You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you."
4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
i can understand all of this, and see the truth of it.
what i cannot understand in this story is Hosea. he goes into a marriage knowing full well what he is getting in to. and the hard part of his marriage is not just the decision or the ceremony, but the living with the reality that your wife, now your own flesh, is sharing herself with other men! each time you look at your children, you see your wife's infidelity in their faces. and which guy was it? did he pay, or did he really love her? which is worse? how do you have the strength to live each day? how can you love your children when each day being with them shows how little your own wife loves you? and after all that, how can you forgive her, knowing full well she will sleep around again?!?
Hosea loves God so much that he is willing to choose a prostitute to spend his life with. he loved God so much that he got up every day and was able to handle the pain, because Gomer's love was not what was the most important thing to him: it was his love for God. so did he really even love Gomer, or did he just love God? was he detached from the pain, or did he face it head on?
at this point i have to look at the allegory. Hosea represents Christ, and Gomer represents us. Chrsit died on the cross for us, not just because God wanted Him to, but because He also loved us that much! So that means Hosea loved Gomer unconditionally. because his love was rooted in the love of Christ, he was able to love Gomer even when she threw it back at him. he lived every day with the pain of what Gomer almost continually did to him, and was still vulnerable.
it still gets me back the the question: how did Hosea choose to do this in the first place? what would his friends advise him to do? clearly it seems they would be against it for his own good, and rightly so. going against the community concensus was just what Hosea would have done. what God asked Hosea to do clearly seems to violate biblical principles of wisdom in decision making. how do we as Christians reconcile this? i see that this example of Hosea and Gomer is the clear exception to the rule, but what part of it? God certainly does not ask all men to marry prostitutes, nor can i understand how He ever would. i know Hosea wanted to follow Christ above all things, and i can understand him doing as asked because he knew the request clearly came from God.
why did God ask him to do this? what hosea did was separate from the allegory. he was a real person. he actually went through all this pain at the request of an all loving God. for me, i guess it all boils down to the same thing as the story of Job. how could God do this? i guess i have moved on from not understanding Hosea, and now i see i don't understand God.
what piece of His character am i missing? is my logic just incorrect? i really want to Understand this. i have never really struggled with this quite in this way...
Entry posted by byscuits on February 19, 2004 03:35 PM
Comments
That's it?
Comment posted by Jill at February 19, 2004 03:52 PM
it's in process. sometimes i leave things up for formatting before it's done. i'll send out a notification email.
Comment posted by the biz at February 19, 2004 03:59 PM
My only response to your question is, " I don't know," and i'm not sure that you or i or anyone can ever REALLY know. I think knowing is often over rated. What really matters is the application, to the extent we understand, and how we allow God to change us because of the application. That sounds trite, but i really do believe it. Historically, marriage was much different then. Perhaps there are aspects of this time that might bring a different light on this story...to somehow make the task asked of Hosea more human. But I don't know. That's where i always end up.
I'm sure this insight was extremely helpful.
Comment posted by Elisabeth at February 20, 2004 05:36 PM
how did Hosea choose to do this in the first place?
He heard God. He was Tiiight with God.
What would his friends say?
Gentile friends: Probably something like "you be crazy." But if they are followers of Jesus and at around the same maturity level, they would respect what the bro heard from God (of course not blindly respecting it, but probably with a healthy amount of prodding and "testing of the spirits") and also SEE the allegory, and thereby support brother Hosea. If they are "naive-but-good-friend followers of Jesus," they probably *should* say to him: Dude, God bless. we be prayin' for you. You talkin' to someone you repsect spiritually about this stuff?
Why did he do this?
I've talked with my 'rents about this particular case a few times. Basically, from the ruminations of an entire family, we came up with:
God wanted someone who UNDERSTOOD His heart and His pain, and in doing so, will be able to deliver a more "lovingly stern" and "sincerely urgent" message to the people that God loves.
This is in line with the way God communicates through the OT prophets (Elijah had to lay on his side for like, a hundred days or something) someone else had to tie a belt, bury it, and then find it again... Jonah was provided shade by this plant that God grew, but then the plan withered... all these "allegories" (and in Jesus' time, since He IS the word, His words, in parables - these are all teaching tools). This is why I firmly believe that God desired for ALL of us to learn. Learning is an extremely fundamental thing. Learning what? Knowledge. However, the definition of what knowledge is has been skewed over time (now, it is more about math science, or frankly, anything that can make money). However, the knowledge the Bible talks about is Relational Knowledge (as shown clearly in James). love and knowledge are tied tightly together ("may your love abound with knowledge...." somewhere in Ephesians). However, even though knowledge is learned "relationally," it does not omit us to learn knowledge in other contexts, as well (reading, writing, researching, etc.) it's when we do those things DEVOID of the people around us, then it immediately puts us in darkness, and it's harder to see God in what we do and where we are.
Secondly, the reason why this is in line with a GOOD God, is that when God calls us to follow Him, it's not gonna be "grab your hot cocoa and smores." He calls us to be crucifed with Him. What challenges me so much, is when I hear about Christians going through intense sufferings and beatings in other countries, just because of their faith, and come out PRAISING GOD for the CHANCE to suffer with Jesus. How much sweeter the reward of heaven becomes.
And thirdly, it again goes back to Hosea and God's particular relationship. He's a prophet. we are not. He can hear God's voice like we can hear each other on our cell phone. Except we can't do that with God. Hosea was "extra special." ;)
But anyway... Hosea's relatinoship with a prostitute is just a "magnified" and a "always in the super hard times" relationship... I would probably go nuts if I did that without the degree of relationship Hosea had with God. But in any case, I think all of our relationships are to varying degrees and intensities like what hosea and the prostitute had (relating to expectations, spoken or otherwise, etc.)
What piece of His character is missing?
I would say, His Goodness, and about how all of this is about the second coming (for Hosea, the first coming?), and ultimately, the Goodness of Heaven. How Good God is going to make heaven.
Comment posted by William Hung at February 21, 2004 09:03 PM
I think William said it very well in a couple of places, but especially here:
"I think all of our relationships are to varying degrees and intensities like what Hosea and the prostitute had (relating to expectations, spoken or otherwise, etc.)"
And
"God wanted someone who UNDERSTOOD His heart and His pain, and in doing so, will be able to deliver a more "lovingly stern" and "sincerely urgent" message to the people that God loves..."
And
"it again goes back to Hosea and God's particular relationship. He's a prophet. we are not. He can hear God's voice like we can hear each other on our cell phone. Except we can't do that with God. Hosea was "extra special." ;)"
I get the feeling that on some level Hosea knew what God was up to and knew what it meant. He had an intense love for God and an intense love for Israel. Someone had to do it. How many of Abraham's seed have learned an invaluable lesson from Hosea's situation/prophecy?
Praise God for his 1)creativity (in bringing us this message this way) and 2)Hosea (and his sacrificial love for God/us
Comment posted by Thrash at February 22, 2004 10:24 PM
perhaps it's not always about our happiness.. but rather God wanting our faithfulness to Him and His plans and also wants to form our character and person? but in some way, God seems to be punishing Hosea or something. on the other hand, God also seems to be teaching Hosea something about the infinite patience and grace He has for Israel.
all in all though, that's a *rough* way to go through a marriage. :( is it me or do verses 4-5 about Israel going back to God make it sound like maybe Gomer gets a clue and becomes a faithful wife? i'm not sure.. perhaps i should read the book for myself. :P
btw, hi dave. it's been a while.. i hope things are going well. :) are you taking classes now? (perhaps i should read more of the blog to find out. :P)
Comment posted by sly at February 23, 2004 12:27 PM
Going out on a limb. I just read the entire book of Hosea and was thinking about it. Considering how long ago this blog was, can't expect you to even hear me. But anyway...
I don't think God 'commanded' Hosea to go out and marry a prostitute. I think he allowed it. Hosea fell in love with the woman. God knew, of course, and said, "Okay, but let me tell you what she's going to do to you."
I've been wondering why our own society is so off kilter when so many people are talking about God. How can there be so many churches and preachers and people claiming to be christians and yet the majority of the world seems to be asleep as far as sin? I can't help but think...what is God doing?
Comment posted by Larissa at October 2, 2006 01:06 PM
