Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Hosea

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, in our look at the word 'desert' through the Bible we have arrived at the Minor Prophets...which are called the 'Minor Prophets' not because they are not significant but because they are, by and large, very short.  We have  twelve books left in the Old Testament, and, as it happens, twelve verses/ passages that refer to 'desert'.  Not all the books have a desert reference, of course, and nearly half of them are in the book of Hosea...so that's where we will be today.

Hosea is an interesting story; his life is a prophetic illustration of God's relationship to his people.  If you've never read it, have a look through.  

But we're here to see what Hosea says about the desert, so...here are the five references, with immediate context as needed:

"Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.  Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.  Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst."  - Hos 2:2 - 3

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her; there I will give her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.  There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.  In that day," declares the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master'." - Hos. 2:14-16

"When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.  But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved."  - Hos. 9:10

"I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.  When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me." - Hos. 13:5 - 6

"I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his brothers.  An east wind from the LORD will come, blowing in the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up.  His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures.  The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God.  They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."   -- Hos. 13:14b-16

It is worth noting that, according to Mr. Scofield's notes included in my NIV study Bible, Hosea prophesied during the years leading up to and following the Assyrian defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel (referred to as Samaria).  

 Israel, of course, is allegorically 'your mother'; this is both a reference to God's dealings with Israel and Hosea's dealings with his adulterous wife, Gomer.  We see the whole of the relationship...from marriage to adultery to separation and unfaithfulness to redemption and restoration in the first four chapters. God's dealings with Israel, however, were to play out over centuries...

So,  with that  in mind, the desert verses have a bit of context.  If Israel didn't repent, God would strip her of all he had provided, leaving her with nothing; dry, parched.  But with nothing, he could take her to the desert...where their relationship was originally forged...and remind her of who she was and where she came from and restore the relationship.

And we tell the story again, with a different allegory.  Israel was full of potential; but they deserted God to serve idols and their potential failed.  Satisfied and complacent, they forgot what God did for them, because they did not perceive their need for him.  So, God would dry up their crops and their sustenance, then allow savage conquerors to overtake them (all detailed in Deuteronomy as the results of forgetting God and their covenant with him).

I really would have preferred not to quote that whole passage at the end, but I felt like the whole judgment needed to be included.  It is horrific; the slaughter of babies and mamas is not only horrible because of the innocent suffering but also because...that was the next generation of the nation.  It was a common, deliberate action of invading armies, to cut off the hope and the future of the people they defeated. All God did was remove his protection of the people; the power-hungry Assyrians did the rest.  God wasn't declaring what he would do in verse 16...he was just describing what would happen when the invaders, whom he was no longer preventing, attacked.

When I was in the middle of working on this post, our internet went down; it was a temp problem with the modem and is now corrected, but it took a while to run it down so I've had a rather interrupted thought process. One phrase has been kind of echoing in my spirit through all of it..."The people...must bear their guilt, because they rebelled against their God."  God is ever willing to forgive, but people in rebellion against him are not in a position to be forgiven. Repentance is the key to forgiveness, and repentance means changing.  People in rebellion will bear their guilt right into the consequences.