Chapter 13
"Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves". This was being said of Israel. They were doing some horrible things up there. This is another item for which God will destroy them.
Israel has forgotten God, they do not consider him a threat. He is an unseen threat. A great danger that they don't worry about any more. The language used in Hosea is interesting:
7 So I am to them like a lion; like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. [Hos 13:7 ESV]
Though He has been there all along, though He has repeatedly warned and pleaded and chastised and punished, when He acts - when He does what He has been telling them He was going to do - they will be as shocked as if a lion jumped on them from hiding, that they never "knew" was there. What an awesome way to put it. This ought to go on FB too!
13 The pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son, for at the right time he does not present himself at the opening of the womb. [Hos 13:13 ESV]
I don't understand this. I looked at other translations. Still don't understand this verse. MSB says that the picture is of a child about to be born, but who refuses to come down the birth canal and be born, risking death by his delay. The analogy is to Israel delaying repentance, to the point of risking God's judgement, and the death of that nation. Wow. These last two images - the lion/leopard by the road, and now the child in the canal, are just...
How did this not get their attention??? FB.
This verse, often partially quoted and wrongly at that:
14 I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes. [Hos 13:14 ESV]
MSB says this is also quoted in the NT, so maybe the way you usually here it is from there. But here is the original. God is saying that despite all that is about to come upon Israel, He will ultimately gather them back, ultimately bring them to honor and glory. Not because of their doing, but to honor Himself by keeping His promises.
Ends with just how horrible their immediate future will be. This last verse of 13:
16 Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. [Hos 13:16 ESV] Being held guilty in the present, as horrible as these images are, is still nothing at all when compared to eternity in hell. Even so, it is far better to avoid present guilt, and to serve the Lord!
2026 - I don't think we give Ephraim the place that it seems to have occupied in the Old Testament. We don't have any stories about how Joseph's son Ephraim did this, or led that, or was widely known. We know t hat Jacob crossed his hands and blessed Ephraim instead of the oldest, Manasseh, but we don't know anything about Manasseh either.
2026 - Reading through this chapter of Hosea seems to imply that Ephraim was the "leading state" in the Northern Kingdom, in Samaria...though that city is not in Ephraim. I am convince that there is more there than we modern Americans recognize.