Your Festivals are Rejected (Hosea 9:1-17)
The Feast of Tabernacles (Booths)—in Hebrew, Sukkoth—was one of great and festive celebrations of God’s grace. Israel lived in tents (booths) for seven days to reenact and remember God’s grace in the wilderness for forty years. They also celebrated the ingathering of grapes and olives as they planted grain in anticipation of the Spring harvest (Pentecost).
As Israel gathered to celebrate this festival, the prophet counsels them, “Do not rejoice!” Israel’s sacrifices will not be accepted because of their adulteries, their idolatries. Rather than festive celebration, it will be a time of mourning. Rather than deliverance, the prophet predicts destruction and exile.
No Joy at Your Feasts (Hosea 9:1-9)
Israel expects to celebrate an “appointed festival,” a “day of the festival of the Lord” (Hosea 9:5). This is probably the Feast of Tabernacles because of the allusions to Israel’s wilderness experience in Hosea 9.
The festival included feasting. It was celebrated with wine, grain, and animal sacrifices. But Israel had dedicated their threshing floor (for grain), their wine vats (for wine production) to idolatrous practices, and celebrated meals in honor of other gods. Israel has committed adultery; she is an unfaithful covenant partner.
Consequently, they will not remain in the land God gave them, but they will “return to Egypt” and “eat unclean food” in Assyria. The return to Egypt is probably symbolic, though some refugees fled to Egypt in the aftermath the fall of both Israel and Judah. It is symbolic of their origins: enslavement in Egypt. They will become landless once again and enslaved by another power. Assyria, however, is the primary topic. Many Israelites will be relocated to Assyria where they will eat unclean food, that is, Israel will not be able to practice Torah there.
In Assyria, Israel will not be able to come to the “house of the Lord.” Yet Israel will seek Yahweh. They will pour out their drink offerings to the Lord and offer their sacrifices. But God will not accept them; they are like “mourners’ bread” which indicates there is no joy in this festival. It is filled with grief rather than joy. Such sacrifices defile rather than liberate.
So, what will Israel do “on the day of the festival of the Lord”? It is canceled. It is not possible because destruction is coming. Assyria will overwhelm Israel, and some will escape, possibly, to Egypt and Memphis (often regarded as a burial region). Death awaits them even in Egypt.
The “days of punishment” and “recompense” has come, but Israel’s regards Hosea as a fool for predicting Israel’s end. [It is possible that Hosea is describing a false prophet in Hosea 9:7, but himself in Hosea 9:8.] They are hostile to God’s sentinel or watchman; people who look for impeding danger. They won’t listen but have already set themselves against God’s intent for Israel through their adulteries.
Israel is deeply corrupted as in the days of Gibeah. This refers to the events narrated in Judges 19-21. The horrendous sexual abuse and murder of a concubine led the narrator to comment: “such a thing has not occurred or been seen since the day that Israel came up from Egypt” (Judges 19:30). In other words, the state of Israel under their kings was equivalent to the corruption of Israel under the last judges when there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25).
Therefore, God will remember Israel’s sins and judge her accordingly.
Consequences of Israel’s False Worship (Hosea 9:10-17)
Yahweh also remembers the beginnings of Israel. Her story could have ended other than it has. Yahweh remembers the grace of Israel’s beginnings even as God remembers their sins.
At one point God found grapes in the wilderness and figs on a tree in its first season—both totally unexpected; indeed, practically impossible. God’s grace created grapes and figs in a wilderness where they do not grow; God created Israel out of grace rather than merit.
But in the wilderness, though showered with God’s grace, “they came to Baal-peor” and consecrated to evil through their idolatry. The name refers to the story narrated in Numbers 25:1-11 (alluded to in Deuteronomy 4:3-4). Israelite men “played the harlot” with Moabite women (same word as in Hosea 4:13; 5:3; 9:1). God responded to Israel’s sin then, and Yahweh does so in the time of Hosea.
“Ephraim’s glory” will fly away. The glory of Ephraim is the presence of Yahweh among them. When Yahweh leaves, Ephraim is endangered and open to conquest by Assyria.
In effect, this reverses Israel’s fertility. There is no future for Israel—there are no children in their future. This is not so much about actual births or specific children but a metaphor for the extinction of the nation as a political entity. In other words, the point is not infanticide but the loss of national identity with no hope of recovery as a nation on their own strength. They cannot populate the nation.
It is best to hear Hosea’s language in the context of political realities rather than the massacre of children. This is a common Ancient Near Eastern’s trope of destruction and loss, including the political extinction of a nation. God has rejected the nation, and therefore they have no future. The loss of children symbolizes that bleak future.
Israel’s future is not extinction as a people—they will wander among the nations. Consequently, this is not describing literal extinction and childlessness. Rather, it describes the loss of national or political status. The people are scattered among the nations but not extinguished.
Nevertheless, the loss of national identity is the consequence of Israel’s sin. Their behavior images Gibeah and Baal-peor rather than imaging Yahweh who graced them with existence. In the very wilderness where God found grapes and figs, Israel committed adultery with other gods. Therefore, for their adulteries, Israel’s feasts are not accepted and their future is bleak.