November 18, 2019: Day 65 – Hosea 10

Hosea begins by thinking back on glory days.  Speaking of…

The author speaks about the way in which Israel had grown, like a “luxuriant vine.”  But this reminiscing comes to a quick conclusion, actually it is only one verse, and then he begins to lay into Israel in vs.2 like he had before.  There is a mourning because they had lost their king because they did not fear the Lord. 

He portrays the mourning and the trembling of the inhabitants because the glory of Israel had departed.  It had departed because people were offering up sacrifices to false idols and priests had aligned themselves with false gods and idols.   The places will be abandoned and the people will no longer know their God and their God will be ashamed of them.  It sounds a lot like Genesis 6:6 where we read “and the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”  Now that is pretty serious.

But there is still a way forward and you see that in vs.12 where we read: “sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come rain righteousness upon you.”  It sounds a  lot like: “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  I know that the phrase the Lord helps those who help themselves is not in the Bible, but there is a bit of a tendency in these verses to point us in that direction.  It is completely contrary to our theological Protestant stance, but there has to be some motivation on the part of people in order to reap, as this chapter states, the full benefits of the Lord.