Chapter 12
vs 2 uses the word "indictment" against Judah and Jacob.
2024 - So...we have turned from looking at Ephraim, as representative of the northern 10 tribes, of Samaria, of worshiping golden calves and condemned for a current outpouring of God's wrath, over to what is going on in Judah. Remember that in 11:12b, God had just pronounced Judah as still faithful.
Not really sure about this chapter...what exactly it is trying to say. He talks about Jacob wrestling with the angel, and about God speaking to him at Bethel.
vs. 14 may be the key...but I don't really understand it either. Maybe this is how God thinks about things, and so impossible for me to unravel:
14 Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds. [Hos 12:14 ESV]
The guilt seems all-encompassing, all the way back to wrestling with the angel. This is what gives me problems. I can't "see" all that as one thing.
In 2020 I believe the preceding two sentences are on the right track. God's current anger against Israel is not a sudden, one time, rash thing. God does not knee jerk. God looks at Israel and at Israel's behavior, going all the way back to the womb when Jacob grabbed Esau's foot presumptuously. Jacob reached for what was not his. Jacob did not wait for God's direction. Jacob had many, many faults before he finally humbled himself before God. But his original problems have been passed to the nation that bears his name. Their sins have multiplied and stacked and heaped up on the sins of Jacob himself, that started in the womb. God's final pronouncement - the justice that will be delayed no longer - is because of the accumulated sin of the nation, and not because of just one current thing. As in the US, the blood of the innocent continues to accumulate since RvW, and we STILL don't over throw it. Many rabidly defend murdering children. Do we truly believe God will overlook this? He never has before!
2024 - The paragraph above is on the right track I think, but not quite precise enough. We need to remember that Jacob was father of all 12 tribes. The things recalled about his life in these verses are all about what happened while he was Jacob - not Israel. I think we need to look at the contents of 2-14 as widening the rebuke of Ephraim to all Israel, all Judah, all descendants of Jacob.
2022 - This verse:
"I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast." [Hos 12:9 ESV]
Compare with this verse in Revelation:
"But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time." [Rev 12:14 ESV]
What kind of a place do you live in when you are in the desert in survival mode? Maybe this is a prophecy going beyond Assyria and Babylon, all the way out to the end.
The first five verses are clearly a recounting of historical events. Vs 6 seems to be the "sermon", that Jacob needs to once again meet God, and perhaps wrestle with him again. But in 7,8, Ephraim is so good at cheating that he believes himself invincible - or above the law might be a better way to put it. He has perfected dishonesty and now relies on it, and on worldly goods. And perhaps that is the story of Israel down to the present day...until t/gt, when we get vs 9.
2024 - I still read this as looking far into the future for all of Jacob's descendants. I think this is about tgt. But it does appear to have switched back to Ephraim in vs 10. Prophets were sent to the north. Gilead and Gilgal are mentioned. Gilgal was Joshua's base of operations in the conquest of Canaan. In Hosea's day, it is also where one of the two golden calves is worshiped. Gilead is where Laban caught up with Jacob as he fled with Rachel and Leah. In Num 32, Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh want the land on the east side of the Jordan - that land was called Gilead. That's all I'm finding about it. Gilead and Jabesh-Gilead appear to be the same place...or Gilead is the "state" and J-G is a city within it. Jephthah was fro Gilead.
Still don't understand what 10-14 are about.
2024 - Nope. Still not really following.