Hosea Chapter 4 – The Spirit of Judgement

I continue the bible study series “A Journey Through the Minor Prophets” by teaching on Hosea chapter four. God’s people have rejected his word and his patience has run out. Some people even call Hosea “The Prophet of Doom” because of God’s sharp proclamations of destruction.

Hosea 4

Verse 1

• Controversy – translated from the hebrew “rib” (reeb) meaning lawsuit or complaint.

• The land the prophet refers to is once again the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes.

Verse 2

• The people “break out” of every restraint like unruly animals.

• Blood toucheth blood – sin after sin after sin.

  • It is much like how the Apostle Paul reminds the church in Roman that they gave themselves as “servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity” (Romans 6:19) in their times past. God desires for his people to be “servants to righteousness unto holiness” (ibid).

Verse 3

• The land is going be in desolation.

• God uses the land to bring forth food for humans and animals, because of the destruction that God is going to bring on the land, even thee cattle and birds will be without food.

• Sin does not only bring the committer in danger of judgment, but those who may be innocently related to the perpetrator. Especially when leaders sin against God.

  • David’s disobedience brought judgment on the whole land of Israel

  • So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.  When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family” (2 Samuel 24:15-17). The wickedness of one leader brought God’s judgment on an entire nation.

Verse 4

• strive – Once again the LORD uses the same hebrew word, rib (reeb).

  • God wants to handle his own case

• The people are extremely rebellious and disobedient.

  • They do not even listen to the judgments of the priest of God.

    • “And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:12). The children of Israel walk pridefully and reject the judgments of God that come from his true priests.

    • God does not want the Israelites to waste their breath trying to correct each other. As our Lord said “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6). The nation’s disobedience is so great that God has labeled them as ruthless animals.

Verse 5

• Destruction and exposure will happen in the day light. Being able to clearly see calamity coming, they shall not be able to halt God’s judgment.

• The false prophet will be entangled in his own darkness. The visions of the night through star worship and divination will cause the prophets to perish in their own evil ways.

Verse 6

• The knowledge the children of Israel lack is the knowledge of their God.

• By rejecting God’s word, they have forgotten the precepts by which he protected them.

• The priests cannot even truly serve because the “priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 2:7).

Verse 7

• Archeological evidence suggests that Israel experienced favorable climatic advantages during this period in history.

  • Causing increases in of agriculture, population, and increase in trade.

• God brought his people the increase and yet they rejected him.

• And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. (Romans 1:23)

• They turned his glory into shame by worshipping idols and pagan gods of fertility for their advances in agriculture.

• God humble his people turning the very things they boast in, into desolation.

Verse 8

• Eat up the sin – More specifically eat the sin offering

  • sin in hebrew is chatta’ah

    • can also be translated sin offering

• Set heart after iniquity

  • O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah (Psalm 4:2)

Verse 9

• God will bring judgement both to the leaders and the general population

• The failure of leaders is not an excuse to sin

Verse 10

• The pleasures of sin will end in the agony of death

• Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; (Hebrews 11:25)

Verse 11

• Perversion and drunkenness distract the people from righteous character

Verse 12

• Stocks – wood

• The people ask their idols of wood for help as if such inanimate objects could bring deliverance

Verse 13

• A part of God’s judgment is that believing sin is acceptable.

  • 28 And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome, 29 Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping andcovetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers, 30 Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents. 31 [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless. 32 Though they are fully aware of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)

Verse 14

• God’s judges sin even when people have been given over to a reprobate mind (to do those things not proper or decent)

• For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes (Hebrews 12:6)

Verse 15

• Let not Judah offend – God is warning Judah not to follow in the idolatrous ways of Israel

• Gilgal had much history:

  • Joshua circumcised the Israelites here (see Joshua 5:2-9).

  • First passover celebrated at Gilgal  (see Joshua 5:10).

• Bethaven –

  • And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: 27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. 28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan (1 Kings 25:26-30).

  • The Prophet calls the city Bethaven (meaning house of vanity) instead of Bethel (house of God) because the city was full of idolatry.

Verse 16

• The children of Israel became stubborn just like the calves they worshipped.

• You will become like what you worship.

Verse 17

• Israel is attached to an associated with idols and God is going to allow them to suffer the consequences of their wickedness.

Verse 18

• When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring; their rulers dearly love shame. ESV

• The Northern Kingdom is to the point at which they love their shameful and disgusting sin.

Verse 19

• The wind of the God’s anger has captured the Israel

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A Journey Through the Minor Prophets: Hosea 3 – Abiding Many Days

Hosea 3:1
Flagons of wines – probably cakes of grapes used to worship pagan gods.
See Jeremiah 7:18
Israel’s worship of other gods makes the nation as a land of adultery in the eyes of God.

Hosea 3:2
Sin brings us to a state of worthlessness
See Exodus 21:32

Hosea 3:3
Abide – sit and wait
See Deuteronomy 21:13

Hosea 3:4
Israel will be without their normal political and religious authorities for a time.

Hosea 3:5
God will redeem Israel and save his people.
See Romans 11: 25-32

A Journey Through the Minor Prophets: Hosea Chapter 2 – Spiritual Adultery and God’s Grace

A verse by verse study of Hosea Chapter 2. Major themes in this chapter include spiritual adultery and the restoration that comes by God’s grace.

A Journey Through the Minor Prophets: Hosea Chapter 1 – Spiritual Adultery and

A Journey Through the Minor Prophets: An Overview of Hosea

A brief introduction to the minor prophets and an overview of Hosea

Notes:

What is a Prophet? God’s mouth piece

Who are the Minor Prophets?
Why minor?
Term coined by St. Augustine in his work “ The City of God and Christian Writing” (Expositor V5, Nicoll, 81)

The works of the twelve minor prophets called “The Twelve” could fit on one scroll.

Hosea is an anthology so there is not necessary a literary qstructure outside of the first three chapters. (Craige, The Twelve)

Hosea means salvation (Smith’s Bible Dictionary)

Hosea was an 8th Century Prophet of and to the Northern Kingdom of Israel

But as to his background, his upbringing , and circumstances we can only speculate (Craige, The Twelve Prophets, 5)

Ministry probably between 750-722 B.C (Craigie, The Twelve Prophets)

Called by many the Prophet of Doom yet has a clear proclamation of both God’s love and judgment

God speaks through Hosea’s life

Married a whore who cheats on him

And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take to you a wife of prostitutions and children of prostitutes: for the land has committed great prostitution, departing from the LORD. (Hosea 1:2)

Why did God compare Israel to a whore?

My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God. 13 They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery. (Hosea 4:12-13)

What errors have they committed as cited in 4:12?

Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. (Hosea 4:1-2)

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6)

God’s desired behavior for the Northern Kingdom

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

God’s judgment on the Northern Kingdom

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. 6 It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. (Hosea 10:5)

Restoration

Mine heart is turned within Me; My compassions are kindled together. 9I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the city. (Hosea 11:8-9)