Hosea · chapter 9 of 14
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Hosea 9 announces that Israel cannot rejoice at its feasts because it has been unfaithful to God: its harvests will fail, and it will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria. It recalls how God found Israel like grapes in the wilderness and how it became corrupt at Baal-peor. The chapter ends with judgment on Ephraim and the declaration that it will be a wanderer among the nations.
Hosea 9 is a message probably given at a harvest festival, when the people expected to celebrate the blessings they attributed to Baal. The prophet tells them the feast will end in mourning. The chapter is one of the harshest in the book, speaking of the loss of the fruit of the land and of the family, but in the middle of the judgment it recalls the tenderness with which God began his relationship with Israel.
The prophet tells Israel not to rejoice or exult like the peoples, for it has played the whore, forsaking its God, and has loved a prostitute's wages on every threshing floor. The threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail them. They will not remain in the land of the Lord: Ephraim will return to Egypt and in Assyria will eat unclean food. They will not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord, and their sacrifices will be like the bread of mourners. What will they do on the day of the appointed festival and the feast of the Lord? Even if they escape destruction, Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them.
The days of punishment have come; Israel will know it. The prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad, because of the abundance of their iniquity and great hatred. The watchman of Ephraim is with his God, yet a fowler's snare is in all his ways, and there is hatred even in the house of his God. They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah.
God remembers: like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel, like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers. But they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to that shameful thing, and became detestable like the thing they loved. Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird: no birth, no pregnancy, no conception. Even if they bring up children, God will bereave them. Hosea prays: give them, O Lord, what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. All their evil is in Gilgal; there God began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds he will drive them out of his house and love them no more. Ephraim is stricken, their root dried up, and they will bear no fruit. My God will reject them because they have not listened to him, and they will be wanderers among the nations.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The prophet warns Israel not to rejoice like other peoples, because it has played the whore, forsaking its God, and loved the wages on every threshing floor. They believed the harvest came from Baal, but it was God who gave it.
The days of punishment have come, and the prophet is treated as a fool because of the abundance of their iniquity and hatred. Whoever tells the truth in a corrupt society is usually considered mad.
God recalls that he found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, with the joy of one who discovers unexpected fruit, but that they went to Baal-peor and became detestable like the thing they loved. His judgment springs from the memory of a love that began with delight.
My God will reject them because they have not listened to him, and they will be wanderers among the nations. Exile is the consequence of not listening to God; Hosea calls him my God, and pronounces the judgment with grief.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: That it should not rejoice like other peoples, because it has played the whore, forsaking its God. — Hosea 9:1
Answer: To Egypt, and will eat unclean food in Assyria. — Hosea 9:3
Answer: They consider him a fool and the man of the spirit mad, because of the abundance of their iniquity and great hatred. — Hosea 9:7
Answer: To grapes in the wilderness and the first fruit on a fig tree. — Hosea 9:10
Answer: The fathers of Israel consecrated themselves to that shameful thing and became detestable like the thing they loved. — Hosea 9:10
Answer: God will reject him because he did not listen, and he will wander among the nations. — Hosea 9:17
Hosea 9 calls us to review whom we credit for what we receive. Israel celebrated its harvests without acknowledging the Lord, and the result was an empty feast. In a small group you can ask how to live gratitude in a way that is for God and not for our securities.
The chapter also acknowledges the pain of the one who tells the truth and is rejected. And above all it shows a God who remembers with affection the beginnings of his relationship with the people. That memory is a counterweight to the judgment: God does not judge coldly, but like one who mourns what was lost. For anyone reading with pain, it helps to remember that in the book the last word is not judgment but love.
Hosea 9 is one of the darkest chapters of the book, but it lets us see God's affection for Israel. In Hosea 10 the prophet will use the image of a luxuriant vine that bears fruit for itself, and of multiplied altars that will be destroyed.
It was an episode during Israel's journey through the wilderness in which many Israelites joined in the worship of the Baal of Peor, connected with fertility rites, and God sent a plague. It is told in Numbers 25. Hosea cites it as an example of how Israel became corrupt from its origins.
In the covenant, children and fertility were a sign of blessing, and their loss was part of the consequences of breaking the covenant. Hosea describes harshly what judgment would mean, and his startling prayer expresses his grief as a prophet more than a wish for revenge.
In the ancient world, the bread of a house of mourning made unclean whoever ate it. Hosea says the people's offerings in exile will be unacceptable to God and that there will be no place to hold worship in God's land.