Retelling the Story, Giving the Reason (Hosea 13)
This section in Hosea’s last oracle begins and ends with the language of “guilt” (Hosea 13:1, 16). This functions like an inclusio or two bookends that characterize the content. Israel is guilty because they worshipped Baal and because Samaria rebelled against God.
Hosea brings this message home by retelling the story of Ephraim’s demise. They repeated the original sin of Israel at Mount Sinai by constructing a calf, an idolatrous image. They repeated Israel’s insolence in the wilderness as they forgot God. They clung to their own rulers and kings—who, in the end, were no help—instead of trusting in the reign of God. They flourished for a time by God’s grace, but ultimately an east wind from the wilderness overwhelmed them. The animal metaphors are about Assyria who comes from the east across the desert to devour the northern kingdom.
There is no hope in this chapter. Metaphors abound about the coming destruction and exile. Yahweh, who comes through Assyria, is like a predatory lion and leopard, like a mother bear angered by the loss of her cubs. Israel is like an unwise son who fails to flourish, even hiding in the womb rather than being birthed. Death is Israel’s future; no one can rescue them.
This end is described in horrifying terms. It uses the stock rhetoric of the Ancient Near East. There are reliefs from Assyria that picture the execution of pregnant women. One poem from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076), says: the king “slits the wombs of pregnant women, he blinds the infants; he cuts the throats of their strong ones.” Hosea’s final verdict on Israel describes this horror. Israel will experience the atrocities of ancient warfare.
However, this chapter is not Hosea’s final word, or God’s last message to Israel. Hosea 14 invites Israel to return and offers hope, if not for this generation to escape death and exile, certainly for the revival of Israel, even the resurrection of Israel, in the future.
The Reason for the Exile (Hosea 13:1-3)
There was a time when Ephraim was respected and prosperous. The clan was the largest and most prosperous of the tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. But they sinned, and they kept on sinning.
They reproduced the original sin of the children of Jacob. They made a calf “for themselves” or according to their desires and understanding. They made God in their own image, sacrificed to the idols, worshipped by kissing the images. They created idols of precious metals in violation of the first commandment of the Torah; they used their creative gifts as artisans to create something for themselves, something they could worship without covenantal obligation. Worshipping these idols, they pursued their greed and found their identity in their wealth and power.
“Therefore,” Hosea says, Ephraim will dissipate like a morning mist, or the dew on the morning ground. Like chaff on a threshing floor or smoke from a window, they will appear for a time but quickly disappear. Ephraim, the northern kingdom, will cease to exist.
Yahweh’s History with Israel (Hosea 13:4-13)
How can Ephraim disappear? Are they not the people of God? It is a long story, and Hosea recounts some of the history in Hosea 13:4-5, 10.
- Exodus – Yahweh brought them out of the land of Egypt
- Wilderness – Yahweh fed them and gave them drink in the wilderness
- Monarchy – Israel demanded a king, and Yahweh gave them one.
This echoes Hosea 11 which is the story of God’s tender care for Israel as a son from Egypt to the land of promise. Yahweh gave birth to Israel, nurtured him, and provided all his needs. Yet . . .
When Israel was satisfied and his needs were met, he “forgot” his God because his “heart was proud.” He exalted himself and became, in his prosperity, wise in his own eyes and gloried in his strength.
Consequently, Yahweh became like a lion, leopard, and bear—but mostly lion (mentioned twice). The lion was the primary symbol of Assyrian power. Yahweh is announcing the encroaching armies of Assyria. Yahweh moves to discipline the northern kingdom and its leaders. Assyria will devour Israel like a wild animal. Death lies in Israel’s future; the kingdom will cease to exist.
When Yahweh decides to “destroy” Israel, there is no one to help. There are no political alliances that will save them. No king will save them. Israel has trusted in their kings, and this goes back to 1 Samuel 8 when Israel said, “Give us a king.”
God gives, and God takes away. Security was never in the human king but in God’s steadfast love. When Israel turned to their king for security and pursued idols, God took away their king—first God took away Saul, and now God is taking away Ephraim’s kings who ruled from Samaria. What God gave in anger—it was not God’s design, God now takes away in wrath—in discipline.
This discipline is due to their sin. Israel is like a child who refuses to be born. He has so much potential—wisdom is available. Instead, the son foolishly refuses to poke his head out of the womb and pursue life with God. Israel becomes a stillborn child who refuses to live. This is a haunting image; it is a gut-wrenching loss for the parent, for Yahweh. It is death for the child. All that God invested in Israel, like a mother preparing for the birth of her child, is lost as the future is shut down and closed off. The northern kingdom does not have a future—only death.
The Reason for the Exile (Hosea 13:14-16)
Yahweh engages in some self-reflection in Hosea 13:14. What is God to do with Israel? Shall Yahweh deliver Israel from Sheol (the place of the dead) or redeem them from their exile? Death is the discipline God has ordained for Israel. [The NRSV understands the statements as rhetorical questions while the NIV understands them as declarative sentences. Both are possible. See below.]
One might hear an echo of God’s compassion in Hosea 11. But in this oracle God says, “compassion is hidden from my eyes.” In other words, Israel is going to die. God will not save him from this death; the exile is going to happen, and the nation will cease to exist.
This is a kind of hopelessness—there is no deliverance from death. Though Ephraim once flourished among the clans (his brothers, the literal translation of Hosea 13:15), an east wind in the form of the Assyrian empire will arise from the eastern desert and dry up the land. It will take every drop of Israel’s prosperity and consume it on its own desires.
This is due to Samaria’s guilt. Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom; she is synonymous with Ephraim (much like Washington is synonymous with the USA). Her guild is that “she rebelled against her God.” This was no mere weakness or slip but a rebellion. She committed the original sin of Jacob’s descendants—worshipping a calf either as an image of Baal or a forbidden image of Yahweh. Israel brought this on themselves through their idolatry.
This leads to a horrific end, and that end is described in the most gruesome and shocking terms. Our modern sensibilities rightly recoil from the image, but it is a stock piece of rhetoric in the Ancient Near East. The death of pregnant women and their unborn children is the epitome of destruction in ancient warfare. It is rhetoric for utter defeat, not necessarily annhilation. This violence was typical of conquering armies—even if not actually carried out in mass, it was the image that generated fear and obedience to the new rulers.
Israel’s end could not be conceived in any worse terms than the killing of pregnant women who carry the future of the nation in their wombs. This is not only an image of violence but of hopelessness.
Yet Yahweh, as we remember from Hosea 2-3 and Hosea 11, is not finished with Israel, and we will see this in the next chapter, Hosea 14.
Paul’s Use of Hosea 13:14: Implicit Hope for Israel in Hosea
Hosea 13:14 can be rendered as rhetorical question with an implied answer of “No” (“Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol” in the NRSV), or as a declarative sentence which functions as a promise (“I will ransom them from the power of the grave,” NIV). The language “compassion is hidden from my eyes,” if taken with the statements, seems to lend itself to the rhetorical understanding in the context Hosea speaks.
However, “compassion” (which only occurs in Hosea at Hosea 11:8) may serve a dual role here. On the one hand, it recalls God’s compassion which gives Israel hope. On the other hand, in this context God’s compassion will not hinder God from disciplining Israel. The nation will die. Yet God still has compassion, though hidden for a time. Hosea 14 will reveal Israel’s hope, just as the prophet proclaimed it in Hosea 2-3 and Hosea 11.
When Paul quotes Hosea in 1 Corinthians 15:55, he uses the rhetoric in the framework of hope. This is where Hosea ultimately lands. So, in the light of hope, the response to the rhetorical questions is “Yes” rather than “No.” For Hosea, it was “no” in that moment, but ultimately it is “yes.”
Paul read Hosea not in the light of Hosea’s contemporary circumstances which meant “no,” but in the light of Hosea’s hope for Israel (as per chapter 14) which comes to fruition in Jesus the Messiah. The resurrection of Jesus means, “Yes!” God will redeem Israel from death and release them from the power of the grave. Sheol will not have the final word. Jesus is the final word.
Thanks be to God!