Hosea 9:1-9
1 Do not rejoice, Israel, with jubilation like the nations!
For you have been unfaithful, abandoning your God.
You have loved the earnings of unfaithfulness on every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,
And the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land,
But Ephraim will return to Egypt,
And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
Nor will their sacrifices please Him.
Their bread will be to them like mourners’ bread;
All who eat it will be defiled,
Because their bread will be for themselves alone;
It will not enter the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival
And on the day of the feast of the Lord?
6 For behold, they will be gone because of destruction;
Egypt will gather them together, Memphis will bury them.
Weeds will take possession of their treasures of silver;
Thorns will be in their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come,
The days of retribution have come;
Let Israel know this!
The prophet is a fool,
The inspired person is insane,
Because of the grossness of your wrongdoing,
And because your hostility is so great.
8 Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;
Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,
And there is only hostility in the house of his God.
9 They are deeply depraved
As in the days of Gibeah;
He will remember their guilt,
He will punish their sins.
Imminent Exile
Joy will be taken away (v 1-2)
All joy will be taken away from the people of Israel. The reason is that they committed spiritual adultery. It is exactly the same as when Hosea’s wife Gomer committed adultery. Because Israel, the wife of Yahweh, committed spiritual adultery, she will be stripped naked, just as the adulterous wife Gomer was stripped naked (ref. 2:3). That is, the land will no longer produce its yield.
They will be taken captive (v 3-9)
(1) The people of Israel will be driven out of “the Lord’s land.” “The Lord’s land” is the home that the husband (Yahweh) prepared for his wife (the people of Israel). The adulterous wife will be expelled from that home and taken captive to a foreign land. (2) There are two destinations to which they will be led into captivity: Assyria and Egypt. In those lands, the people of Israel will come to eat unclean food. (3) In that land, the joyful appointed festivals will cease. The appointed festivals are joyful feasts given to the people of Israel so that they might remember the grace of the Lord. However, in Assyria and Egypt, it will be impossible to observe the LORD’s appointed festivals that are kept in the promised land. (4) The bread in the land of captivity will be regarded as “bread of mourning” (ref. Num. 19:14-22). With it, they cannot worship God. (5) Israel’s treasures such as “silver” and “tents” will also be covered with “weeds” and “thorns,” and will fall into desolation. Verse 7 says, “The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution have come.” This is in the perfect tense. That is, it indicates that the day will certainly come in the future. The reason punishment is brought upon them is that Israel lacked spiritual discernment. (1) On that day, the people of Israel will come to know that the prophets who had spoken good prophecies were false prophets and foolish men. (2) Furthermore, they will come to know how serious their own unrighteousness is. (3) They set traps for the Lord’s prophets and obstructed their work. Their depravity is compared to the shameful acts of rape and murder at Gibeah (ref. Judges 19-21). In other words, they were corrupted beyond all hope. The people of Israel crossed the point of no return. As a result, they came to experience the tragedy of exile. Do not take God’s patience lightly. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Let us meditate on the meaning of this Scripture.
Today's prayer
Heavenly Father, You are a patient God. May many people be able to make good decisions in the given present time. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.