Hosea · chapter 8 of 14
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Hosea 8 begins with a trumpet of alarm: an enemy comes like an eagle over the house of the Lord because Israel has broken the covenant. The people claim to know God, but they have set up kings without his consent and made idols like the calf of Samaria. They sow the wind and will reap the whirlwind, and will return to Egypt.
Hosea 8 is a message of alarm directed at a kingdom that trusted in its kings, its idols and its fortresses. It sums up why judgment comes: a people outwardly religious who have broken the covenant, ignored the law and trusted in alliances with Assyria. The text uses agricultural and military images that show the cause and effect of disobedience.
The Lord commands Hosea to put the trumpet to his lips: like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, because they have broken his covenant and rebelled against his law. Israel cries out: My God, we know you. But Israel has spurned the good, and the enemy will pursue him.
They have set up kings, but not from God; they have set up princes without his knowledge. With their silver and gold they have made idols for their own destruction. God rejects the calf of Samaria: his anger burns against them. The calf was made by a craftsman and is not God, and it will be broken to pieces. They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind; the standing grain has no heads, and if it had, strangers would eat it. Israel is swallowed up, now he is among the nations as a vessel no one cares for.
They went up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone; Ephraim has hired lovers. Though they hire allies among the nations, God will gather them and they will begin to diminish under the burden of the king and princes. Ephraim multiplied altars for sinning, and they became altars for sinning. Though God wrote for him ten thousand things of his law, they were regarded as a strange thing. As for the sacrifices, the Lord does not accept them: he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt. Israel forgot his Maker and built palaces, and Judah multiplied fortified cities; but God will send fire on their cities, and it shall consume their strongholds.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The enemy comes like an eagle over the house of the Lord because they have broken the covenant and rebelled against the law. The cause of the judgment is not Assyria's strength but the breaking of the commitment to God.
They set up kings, but not from the Lord, and with their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. A nation that acts without consulting God fabricates the instruments of its own ruin.
They sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. The proverb says an empty action produces disproportionate consequences: they sowed nothing and will harvest a storm.
Israel forgot his Maker and built palaces, and Judah multiplied fortified cities. Confidence in buildings and defenses takes the place of confidence in the one who made them.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: To an eagle over the house of the Lord. — Hosea 8:1
Answer: Because they have broken the Lord's covenant and rebelled against his law. — Hosea 8:1
Answer: That they set them up themselves, not from the Lord, and without his knowledge. — Hosea 8:4
Answer: God rejects it, because a craftsman made it and it is not God, and it will be broken to pieces. — Hosea 8:5-6
Answer: They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. — Hosea 8:7
Answer: His Maker, and he built palaces. — Hosea 8:14
Hosea 8 calls us to review whom we consult when deciding. Israel chose kings and alliances without consulting God and then wanted to say it knew him. In a class or small group you can talk about recent decisions, at work, in the family or in the church, in which we prayed at the end and not at the beginning.
It also warns about religion that multiplies altars and stops obeying. God gave many precepts of his law, and they were treated as a strange thing. The response is not fear but humility: asking God to teach us to live by his Word. And remembering that our buildings and securities do not replace the one who made us.
Hosea 8 makes clear that judgment comes as a harvest of what was sown. In Hosea 9 the prophet will say there will be no feast or wine for Israel, that it will be carried into exile, and he will show how God, who found it like grapes in the wilderness, has turned against it because of its idolatry.
It was an image of a calf used in the worship of the northern kingdom, like those Jeroboam I set up at Bethel and Dan. Many Israelites saw it as a symbol of the Lord, but Hosea treats it as an idol made by human hands, which has no power and will be destroyed.
It is an image of returning to slavery, as if the exodus were undone. Hosea also uses the idea of Assyria as the place of exile, and both names express that the people will lose the freedom God gave them.
After the death of Jeroboam II, kings followed one another who reached the throne by coups, not by God's direction. Hosea denounces that the people decided their government without seeking the Lord.