Hosea 6-10: What can I do with you, Ephraim?

Hosea the Prophet, as imagined by John Singer Sargent.

As noted last time, the Book of Hosea (which is, apparently, the first of the twelve books of "Minor Prophets") fits comfortably into what we've seen so far of the prophetic literature of the Bible, which is to say it is largely a series of complaints by God about the faithlessness of the Israelites and predictions of the punishments that will therefore be their lot. There is not much in the way of story here, so instead of giving a narrative summary I’ll just pick out some of the details this time around.

Chapter 6: There are several gentle bits in this short chapter that I find very compelling. For starters, Verses 1-3.

Come, let us return to the LORD.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
Let us acknowledge the LORD;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.

Then there’s Verse 4, which is a tender lament for the wayward love of the Israelites:

What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like the morning mist,
like the early dew that disappears.

And there is Verse 6, which presents the face of God that many people, I think, look for in scripture.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

But people who like Verses 4 and 6 might be troubled by the temperament of the verse that comes in-between:

Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets,
I killed you with the words of my mouth—
my judgments flashed like lightning among you.

Chapter 7: And yet it is the violent and vindictive temperament, in Hosea as in the earlier prophets, that is foremost:

Woe to them,
because they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
because they have rebelled against me!
I long to redeem them
but they speak lies about me. (13)

Chapter 8: This chapter has a metaphor that seems very familiar, although I don’t know whether it is used elsewhere in the Bible as well:

They sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind. (7)

It sounds pretty cool, but I realized I wasn’t sure what it meant. I guess the idea is that the Israelites “sow the wind,” which is to say, plant their fields with nothing, by not adhering to the laws of God. They “reap the whirlwind,” which is to say come into a great deal of trouble, through God’s resultant wrath.

Chapter 9:

Even if they rear children,
I will bereave them of every one.
Woe to them
when I turn away from them!
I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre,
planted in a pleasant place.
But Ephraim will bring out
their children to the slayer. (12-13)

Who is this "Ephraim"? The name is used throughout Hosea, and it clearly refers to the Israelites. I don’t remember seeing this usage before, so I looked it up. Seems that Ephraim, the original Ephraim, was one of the sons of Joseph, the patriarch of Technicolor Dreamcoat fame. In some places, says Wiki, the Bible talks about the Tribe of Joseph, and in other places it’s broken down into the Tribe of Ephraim and the Tribe of another son of Joseph, Manasseh. The homelands for these groups was in the northern kingdom, which is to say Israel (as opposed to Judah). So Hosea is more or less using “Ephraim” to mean “the people of Israel.” Mind you, he occasionally throws in an aside to the effect of “You too, Judah!”

Chapter 10:

When I please, I will punish them;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bonds for their double sin.
Ephraim is a trained heifer
that loves to thresh;
so I will put a yoke
on her fair neck.
I will drive Ephraim,
Judah must plow,
and Jacob must break up the ground. (10-11)

It’s interesting that to punish the Israelites for straying away from orthodox worship of the God of Abraham, the God of Abraham often punishes them through defeat by neighboring powers. It’s a good punishment, but you can see how the victorious neighbors might interpret it as a gift of triumph from their own gods. Or even, although this probably wouldn’t be their first thought, they could see it as a reward from the God of Abraham for not ever believing in him in the first place.

Elsewhere in the Old Testament, God has often expressed his desire that people will recognize his might by seeing his intervention in the affairs of his people. It is hard, however, to imagine an Assyrian sergeant saying something like “Geez, your God must be really angry at you guys, to let us beat you so badly!”  Wouldn't he be more likely to interpret events as showing the superiority of the Assyrian religious system, or even just the superiority of the Assyrian army?

Next Week: Wrapping Up Hosea.