Hosea 3

In this short passage, God tells Hosea to go and buy Gomer back. She will stay with him from now on, and “you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man--so, too, will I be toward you,” (v. 3). The point is, there will be no more idolatry in Israel—and there wasn’t following the return from Babylonian captivity. But “the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim,” (v. 4). They would not have a king any more (which Israel has never had since the captivity) and the sacrificial system, while still in tact till 70 A.D., was certainly not as glorious as it was in the days of Solomon’s temple. Verse 5 tells us when things will change again: “Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.” When you see “David” mentioned in the Old Testament after his death, then it is a reference to Christ (cf. Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 37:25). So basically this chapter is a prediction of Israel’s future. God will bring Israel back, pictured by Hosea accepting Gomer back. She would stay with him, but never have another lover—Israel will never “play the harlot” with foreign powers again. Things will not be the same in Israel—no king, no glory—until “the latter days,” the Christian age, when Christ shall rule over spiritual Israel. That we are in the “latter days” now is proven by Acts 2:17, I John 2:18, and similar New Testament thoughts. The “last days” are the Christian dispensation. The Patriarchal age was first, from Adam to Moses. Then came the Jewish dispensation, from Moses to Christ. And then the last days are the Christian age—from Christ till the end of time. Be careful when you see the term “last days,” or something similar. It does not necessarily mean we are within a few years of Jesus’ return. We may be; no one knows except the Father (Matthew 24:36). But the Lord might not return for another 10,000 years. And the world would still be in the “last days” because that term refers to a dispensation (Christian) not a period immediately before the Second Coming.