Reflections on Hosea 7

 Hosea 07 (Contemporary English Version)

1. and to heal its wounds. But then I see the crimes in Israel and Samaria. Everyone is deceitful; robbers roam the streets.
   
2. No one realizes that I have seen their sins surround them like a flood.
   
3. The king and his officials take great pleasure in their sin and deceit.
   
4. Everyone burns with desire-- they are like coals in an oven, ready to burst into flames.
   
5. On the day their king was crowned, his officials got him drunk, and he joined in their foolishness.
   
6. Their anger is a fire that smolders all night, then flares up at dawn.
   
7. They are flames destroying their leaders. And their kings are powerless; none of them trust me.
   
8. The people of Israel have mixed with foreigners; they are a thin piece of bread scorched on one side.
   
9. They don't seem to realize how weak and feeble they are; their hair has turned gray, while foreigners rule.
   
10. I am the LORD, their God, but in all of their troubles their pride keeps them from returning to me.
    
11. Israel is a senseless bird, fluttering back and forth between Egypt and Assyria.
    
12. But I will catch them in a net as hunters trap birds; I threatened to punish them, and indeed I will.
    
13. Trouble and destruction will be their reward for rejecting me. I would have rescued them, but they told me lies.
    
14. They don't really pray to me; they just howl in their beds. They have rejected me for Baal and slashed themselves, in the hope that Baal will bless their crops.
    
15. I taught them what they know, and I made them strong. Now they plot against me
    
16. and refuse to obey. They are more useless than a crooked arrow. Their leaders will die in war for saying foolish things. Egyptians will laugh at them.

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Chapter 7 begins with a reference to God's healing of Israel. This was to follow a period of exile from their homeland and abandonment by God. Following a period of exile, there would be a time of healing and restoration. When it came, the sins of the nation would be exposed. The people had carried on their sinful activities robbing and pillaging, oblivious that God knew what they were doing and remembered.

It wasn't just the people involved in this sin, but the king and his princes as well. Verse 3 gives the impression that the king may even have encouraged these activities. Their sins were persistent. Even when the evil subsided, it smoldered as a baker's oven smolders while he kneads the dough, and, like the oven, the evil would eventually be stirred back into a flaming fire once again.

The king's sin of encouraging the sinful behavior of the people came back to bite him. The time came when amidst festivities for the king, the king caroused with his princes as they plotted his overthrow. The behavior he encouraged turned on him.
In all her debauchery, wisdom escaped Israel. She went around foolishly getting mixed up with other nations who in turn consumed her strength. But Israel was clueless to what was happening. In her arrogance, Israel never turned to the Lord in all this.

Eventually, Israel became a "senseless bird, fluttering back and forth between Egypt and Assyria." First she submitted herself to suzerainty, or a vassal nation to Assyria. But when this became too oppressive she turned to Egypt, seeking an alliance to help break away from Assyria. Little by little Israel was giving away everything to these nations but she did not turn to the Lord. The Lord had made Israel a strong nation and yet she had plotted evil against Him. Now Israel would be "ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt." Back to the land from which God had freed her to give her a land of her own and make of her a great nation.