Hosea 3:1 - Meaning and Application

Some think this chapter speaks of Judah, the two tribes, and that the adulteress the prophet married (Hosea 1:3) stands for them. Since Judah was not cast off at once like the ten tribes, but left desolate for a long time and then brought back, that reading seems possible. Still, these people are called the children of Israel, which usually means the ten tribes, so it is more likely that this parable, like the earlier one, is about them.

God says to the prophet, Go, and do it again. Go yet again. For sinners to be brought to conviction and repentance, instruction must come over and over, line by line. If one sign does not persuade them, another must be tried, as in Exodus 4:8-9.

In this parable, we see God’s goodness and Israel’s sin set against each other in a striking way (Hosea 3:1). Israel is like a woman loved by her husband or by the man who is courting her, and yet she is an adulteress. That is what the relationship between God and Israel had become. We sometimes say of two people who love each other that there is no love lost between them, but here much of God’s love is wasted on an ungrateful people.

The God of Israel still has great love for the children of Israel, yet they are an evil and adulterous generation. It is a shocking thing, worthy of heaven and earth to marvel at. First, God’s goodness has not put an end to their evil. The Lord loves them, keeps showing them kindness, and they know it. They must admit that he has been like a friend and father to them, and yet they turn to other gods.

These gods are visible, and they draw people because the eye sees them. Israel looks to them with worship, giving them service, and with trust, expecting comfort from them. Even if they were kept from bowing fully to idols, they still cast lustful looks their way, showing the heart of spiritual adultery. They also loved flagons of wine. They joined idolaters because those people lived merrily and drank heavily. They had a liking for other gods because they were connected with plenty of wine in the temples.

Idolatry and sensual pleasure usually go together. Those who make an idol of food and drink, as drunkards do, are easily led to worship anything else. God’s priests were not to drink wine when they entered to minister, and the Nazarites were to drink none at all. But the worshipers of false gods drank wine in bowls, and only large flagons would satisfy them.

Second, their wickedness did not stop God’s kindness from reaching them. This is a true wonder of mercy, that she is still loved by her friend, even though she is an adulteress. That is how the Lord loves the children of Israel. God says, in effect, Go and love such a woman, and see if you can bring yourself to do it. No man’s heart would naturally agree to such love. Yet that is how I love the children of Israel, with love for the loveless and the unlovely, for those who have broken faith a thousand times.

In God’s goodness toward poor sinners, his thoughts and ways are far above ours. His love is more humble and more tender than ours could ever be. In this, more than in many other things, he shows that he is God and not man (Hosea 11:9).

We also see the way God brings together a God who is so good and a people who are so bad. That is the great aim here, and what God aims at, he will accomplish. To our surprise, a breach as wide as the sea is healed. As long as divine mercy continues, miracles do not stop.

God’s way of humbling them and making them know themselves is seen in Hosea 3:2. He says, I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley. That is, I won her back by appeal and kindness, calling her to be reconciled, to leave her sinful ways, and return to her first husband, as in Hosea 2:14. I drew her and spoke kindly to her, much as the Levite did when he went after his concubine, who had left him and run away with another man, and spoke gently to her (Judges 19:3).

Here the gift the prophet brought is described as very small. It was all meant for her support, but it also put her on a short allowance and brought her down to low living, as punishment for her pride. When Samson went to be reconciled to his wife who had offended him, he brought a kid, which was a fair gift (Judges 15:1). Here, by contrast, the prophet brought fifteen pieces of silver, a small sum, though she had to live on it for a long time until her husband was pleased to restore her fully.

She also receives a homer and a half of barley for bread. That is all she must expect until she is properly humbled, and until enough time has passed to show she has truly changed. Let her see that her husband is not honoring her because she deserves it. He values her at a very low price. A servant’s price was thirty shekels (Exodus 21:32), and this was only half that much. Yet even that shows she is worth no more than this. God once gave Egypt for Israel’s ransom, so precious and honored were they in his sight (Isaiah 43:3-4). But now, since they have gone after false gods, he gives only fifteen pieces of silver for them. Their sin has greatly lowered their value.

Those whom God plans to honor and comfort, he first brings to see their own worthlessness. He makes them say, like the prodigal son, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. There was a time when Israel was fed with the finest wheat, but they became proud and loved flagons of wine. So, to humble and restore them, they must eat barley bread in the land of their captivity, and be thankful to get it. They must also eat it by weight and measure, when once they were never limited in such a way. Poverty and disgrace sometimes become the means by which great sinners are brought to true repentance.

Finally, we see the new terms on which God is willing to deal with them in Hosea 3:3. You must stay with me many days, and not belong to another, and I will also be yours. He could justly have given them a bill of divorce and ended all dealings with them. Instead, he is willing to show kindness and let the matter be settled. He does not deal with them by strict justice, according to the severity of the law, but according to the greatness of his mercy.

This also points to God’s gracious way of dealing with the fallen human race, which had gone after other gods. He did indeed buy them at an immeasurable price, not to honor them, but to honor his own justice. Now this is the offer he makes to them, the covenant of grace, a covenant of saving favor, he is willing to enter into with them. They must be his people, and he will be their God, which is the same promise made here to Israel.

They must also feel the shame of their turning away from God and accept the punishment for their sin. Hosea says, “You will stay for me many days in loneliness and silence,” like a widow left desolate and grieving. They must set aside their pride and wait patiently to see what God will do with them, just as Israel once did at Sinai when they humbled themselves and waited for God’s favor (Exodus 33:4-5).

Their Father and Husband, God, has shown them displeasure, as he said about Miriam, Moses’ sister, and so they must be ashamed and kept apart until their stubborn hearts are humbled (Numbers 12:14; Leviticus 26:41). They must sit alone and keep still, waiting for the Lord to save them, and bear the burden in the meantime (Lamentations 3:26-28). They are not to expect God to quickly return in mercy. They must wait many days, through all the days of their captivity, and count it a great mercy if he restores them at last. Those whom God intends to show mercy to, he first brings low, so they will value his kindness.

They must also never return to their old sin. That is the condition on which God will speak peace to his people and his saints, and there is no other (Psalm 85:8). “You shall not play the harlot,” that is, you shall not worship idols in the land of your captivity. It is not enough to be ashamed of past sin and agree that God was right to punish it. We must also resolve, by God’s grace, never to offend him again, never to turn away from him after the world and the flesh.

Praise God that the covenant does not mean we will never do anything wrong again. It does mean we must not return to our old course of sin. “You shall not play the harlot; you shall not be for another man.” In captivity they would be tempted to worship the gods of the land, and that would be a long test. But if they held their ground and stayed faithful, then they would be ready for God’s kindness to return. It is a sure sign that affliction is doing us good when God keeps us from giving in to temptation.

On these terms, their Maker will again be their Husband: “So will I also be for you.” This is the covenant between God and returning sinners. If they will be for him in service, he will be for them in salvation. Let them give up every rival to God’s rule in the heart, and belong to him alone, and he will be a God fully enough for them. If we stay faithful to God in duty and never leave him, he will stay faithful to us in mercy and never leave us.

In the last two verses, the picture is explained and applied to Israel. They must sit for a long time like a widow, stripped of joy and honor (Lamentations 4:1-2). They will live many days without a king and without a prince, and a nation in that state may truly be called a widow. They will lose the blessing of civil government, for they will be without their own king and prince. They had rulers before, but those rulers oppressed them instead of protecting them. Now they would have no one to defend them, lead them in battle, judge their cases, or guard their public good. Magistrates are a great blessing, and it is a severe judgment to be without them.

They will also lose the blessing of public worship. They shall be without sacrifice, without image, and without ephod and teraphim. The ephod was part of the high priest’s sacred clothing, and the teraphim were household gods or, as some think here, connected with the priestly means of seeking God’s guidance. The point is that in captivity they would have neither the outward marks of a nation nor the outward marks of a church. They would not have freedom for public religion, true or false, as they pleased. They would have no sacrifice or altar, and therefore no sacrifice at all. They would have no priestly ministry, no clear way to know God’s mind, and no oracle to consult in hard questions. It is a sad condition when people are cut off from public worship of God.

That was the Jews’ condition in captivity, and in a limited sense it remains true of scattered Jews today, since they have synagogues but no temple service. Their state is truly desolate when they are shut out from fellowship with God and have no way to bring their prayers before him by sacrifice and altar, or to receive instruction from him by ephod and teraphim.

At last, they will be received again as a wife (Hosea 3:5). After some time, when this discipline has done its work, they will return. That is, they will repent of their idols and leave them, turn back to God, cling to him, and be accepted by him. Two things mark this return and show their way back into his favor. First, they will seek God. “They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king.” Those who want to find God and his favor must seek him, ask after him, and desire to know him and be reconciled to him. Seeking him means they know they have lost him and are grieved over it.

They will seek him as their God, because a people should surely seek their own God. They will also seek David their king, who can be none other than the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son and descendant of David, whom David himself called Lord (Psalm 110:1), and to whom God gave David’s throne (Luke 1:32). The Chaldee reads this as seeking the service of the Lord their God and obeying the Messiah, the Son of David their king. Compare this with Jeremiah 30:9, Ezekiel 34:23, and Ezekiel 37:25. Those who want to seek the Lord truly must come to Jesus Christ and receive him as their King, becoming willing subjects and loyal to him.

Second, they will show reverence for God: “They shall fear the Lord and his goodness.”

Some understand “his goodness” here to mean the temple, the place where they would turn to worship God. The Jewish writers say that in Rehoboam’s day Israel cast off three things: the kingdom of heaven, the house of David, and the house of the sanctuary. They say things will never be right for them until they return and seek all three, and this promise points to that hope. In that view, they seek God’s kingdom in the Lord their God, the royal line in David their King, and the temple in the Lord’s goodness.

Others take “his goodness” to mean Christ, who is the same as David their King. But it is probably better to understand it as one of God’s own qualities, the goodness by which he showed his glory and made his name known. We should not fear only the Lord’s greatness, but also his goodness. We are to honor both his majesty and his mercy.

Some take the words to mean that they will flee to the Lord and his goodness for safety, as a person flees to a city of refuge. We should fear God’s goodness in the sense of being moved by it, amazed at it, and worshiping because of it, just as Moses did when God proclaimed his name (Exodus 34:6). We should also be careful not to offend such goodness by giving ungrateful answers to it and so losing it. “There is forgiveness with you, so that you may be feared” (Psalm 130:4). We should rejoice in God’s goodness with reverence, not become proud.

This promise was partly fulfilled when the gospel of Christ brought many Jews and Gentiles back to God and joined them to the New Testament church. They served God in Christ with a childlike fear of divine grace, and God accepted them as his Israel. Some think it will be fulfilled even more when the Jews who still do not believe are converted to the faith of Christ. Then they will seek their Messiah as David their King, and through him all Israel will be saved when the full number of the Gentiles has come in.

There was a time when they sought him to put him to death and said, “We have no king but Caesar.” But a day is coming when they will seek him to make him their head and to submit to his rule. He who has promised that this will happen will also give them the strength to do it and will bring it about in his own way and time, in the last days, in the time of the Messiah. Yet who can say who will live to see God do this? I do not know how far we should expect a full conversion of that nation, but I am sure we ought to pray that the Jews may be converted.