Hosea · chapter 5 of 14
Updated on
Hosea 5 is a call to priests, people and royal house to hear God's judgment, because Israel and Ephraim have played the whore and cannot return to God. Judah stumbles with them and both seek help from Assyria, which cannot heal them. God compares himself to a moth and a lion, and withdraws to his place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek him.
Hosea 5 widens the charge of Hosea 4 to political and religious leaders and adds Judah as a guilty kingdom too. It is a message from the time when Israel sought alliances with Assyria and Egypt instead of turning to the Lord. The chapter shows the breaking of the relationship and also God's intention in withdrawing: that his people truly seek him.
The Lord calls the priests, the house of Israel and the house of the king to hear, because the judgment is for them. They have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread on Tabor, and a pit at Shittim. God knows them all: Ephraim has played the whore and Israel is defiled. Their deeds do not allow them to return to their God, for a spirit of whoredom is within them and they do not know the Lord.
The pride of Israel testifies against him, and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt, and Judah also stumbles with them. With their flocks and herds they will go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him, for he has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with him and borne children who are strangers. God orders the horn blown in Gibeah and the trumpet in Ramah, and the alarm sounded at Beth-aven, because the punishment is coming. Ephraim will become a desolation on the day of punishment, and God will pour out his wrath like water on the princes of Judah, who have acted like those who move boundary markers.
Ephraim is oppressed and crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after worthless things. God is like a moth to Ephraim and like rot to the house of Judah. When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king, but he cannot heal them or cure their wound. God will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to Judah: he will tear and go away, and no one will rescue them. He will return to his place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek his face; in their distress they will earnestly seek him.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Their deeds do not allow them to return to their God, because a spirit of whoredom is within them and they do not know the Lord. Idolatry is no longer just an act: it has become a habit that binds them.
They will go with flocks and herds to seek the Lord, but they will not find him, because he has withdrawn from them. Worship without a heart does not find God, however abundant it is.
Ephraim goes to Assyria and sends to the great king, but he cannot heal his wound. When we look for remedies in human power instead of in God, the solution does not come.
God will withdraw to his place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek his face, and in their distress they will earnestly seek him. God's withdrawal is not final abandonment: its goal is to lead the people to seek him.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: The priests, the house of Israel and the house of the king. — Hosea 5:1
Answer: Because a spirit of whoredom is within them and they do not know the Lord. — Hosea 5:4
Answer: They do not find him, because he has withdrawn from them. — Hosea 5:6
Answer: He went to Assyria and sent to the great king, but the king could not heal him. — Hosea 5:13
Answer: To a moth for Ephraim, and to a lion for Ephraim and for Judah. — Hosea 5:12-14
Answer: Until they acknowledge their guilt and seek his face. — Hosea 5:15
Hosea 5 challenges those who take refuge in human solutions when something breaks. Israel and Judah turned to Assyria, and the help did not heal. In a small group you can ask to whom or to what we turn first when there is a wound: savings, contacts, information, or prayer and the Word.
It also warns that worship without repentance does not find God. There is a time when he seems to hide, and it can be a way of calling us to truly seek him. For anyone suffering that silence, the chapter offers an implied promise: the one who seeks earnestly will find, and God himself desires that we do.
Hosea 5 ends with God withdrawing, waiting for his people to seek him. Hosea 6 begins with the words of a people who say they want to return to the Lord, although God questions how deep their repentance is.
A moth destroys little by little from within, without being noticed at first. The image suggests that God's judgment on Ephraim and Judah works as a slow decay of their strength and stability, before the more violent action of the lion.
Although Hosea speaks mostly to the northern kingdom, here he includes the southern kingdom, because it also stumbled. The text shows that Judah was not free from idolatry or from seeking security in alliances, and that God makes no exceptions.
The text speaks of the great king, and in Hosea's context it refers to the king of Assyria, the power to which Israel turned for help. The Hebrew name Jareb that sometimes appears is unclear, which is why many translations simply say great king.