Reflections on Hosea 6

Hosea 06 (Contemporary English Version)


1. Let's return to the LORD. He has torn us to shreds, but he will bandage our wounds and make us well.
   
2. In two or three days he will heal us and restore our strength that we may live with him.
   
3. Let's do our best to know the LORD. His coming is as certain as the morning sun; he will refresh us like rain renewing the earth in the springtime.
   
4. People of Israel and Judah, what can I do with you? Your love for me disappears more quickly than mist or dew at sunrise.
   
5. That's why I slaughtered you with the words of my prophets. That's why my judgments blazed like the dawning sun.
   
6. I'd rather for you to be faithful and to know me than to offer sacrifices.
   
7. At a place named Adam, you betrayed me by breaking our agreement.
   
8. Everyone in Gilead is evil; your hands are stained with the blood of victims.
   
9. You priests are like a gang of robbers in ambush. On the road to Shechem you murder and commit other horrible crimes.
   
10. I have seen a terrible thing in Israel-- you are unfaithful and unfit to worship me.
    
11. People of Judah, your time is coming too. I, the LORD, would like to make my nation prosper again
    

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The concluding verse of chapter 5 says, "I will depart and return to My place until they recognize their guilt and seek My face; they will search for Me in their distress." Chapter 6 opens with a continuation of that thought. The people are searching for God in their distress saying, "Come, let us return to the Lord . . . ." This is the answer to their dilemma. Previously Israel turned to the Assyrians for a fix to their problems, but Assyria was not able to fix them. Only God is able. Though Israel had lost its knowledge of God through generations of following after other gods, it seems here that some were beginning to remember or were reading the scriptures. They are pointing out their need to know the Lord, stating confidently that in doing so He will surely appear to them. This searching for God, however, is yet to come. This is a look into the future.

In verses 4-11 we are back to the present. God is speaking and He begins with a question of despair, "What am I going to do with you?" Israel's loyalty to God has been as constant as the morning mist that is gone soon after the sun rises. Verse 6 takes us back to our reflections in the previous chapter. In regard to the use of Hosea and Gomer's marriage relationship as a picture of God's relationship with His people, we said that "This picture of God's desired relationship with His people cannot be described as "religion," at least as it is typically viewed." Here, in verse 6, God is saying, "I desire loyalty and not sacrifice." It is the relationship with His people God is intent on and not the ritualistic practices of religion. Yet man is prone to default to religious ritual rather than the relationship. Why is this? Could it be because a relationship with God requires more involvement, more commitment than many are willing to give God? Instead, they can go to church, go through the prescribed rituals, and then return to what it is they would rather be doing, while feeling they are 'religious' or 'spiritual' and are giving God His due. But God is saying here, "I want the loyalty of your relationship with Me rather than sacrifice, and I want you to know Me rather than offer burnt offerings."

Instead of loyalty Israel has violated her covenant with God and has betrayed Him. She has murdered and robbed and committed atrocities. We are familiar with the saying, "you reap what you sow," and this is what God says to both Israel and Judah in verse 11. A harvest is appointed for them, He says. It is a harvest of what they have sowed.