Hosea 9

More “sermons,” condemnation of Israel. She has nothing to rejoice over; harlotry against God will lead to poverty and punishment (vs. 1-2). “They shall not dwell in the LORD'S land” (v. 3).

I want to take a moment here to discuss Hebrew poetry. Unlike modern poetry, much of which is designed to rhyme, ancient poetry (and not just Hebrew) followed a form called “parallelism.” A thought would be stated, and then repeated in different words, or perhaps the opposite. For example, verse 3:

“But Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
And shall eat unclean things in Assyria.”

As I’ve noted in earlier chapters, the allusions to “Egypt” are referring to the upcoming captivity in Assyria. And so, you can see the “parallel” thoughts here. Verse 5: 

"What will you do in the appointed day,
and in the day of the feast of the Lord?"

In the Hebrew, there would be “meter,” but no rhyme. Let me give you an example of “opposite parallelism.” Proverbs 1:7 is a classic example:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

A thought stated, then the opposite. It can get more complicated than that, but this is the simple form is used in most of the poetical literature (Proverbs is full of it, of course). Much of the Old Testament is written in poetic form, because most of the people were illiterate and certainly didn’t have copies of the book itself. So poetry was used for ease of memorization. Poetry is much simpler to remember than prose. But a key point here. Since poetry is used, the figurative nature of it must be kept in mind. The principle is literally true, but very often, different forms of speech—figures, metaphors, symbols, allegories, etc.—are used. Again, look at verse 3. Part of that was literally true: “they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.” But the returning to Egypt obviously is intended symbolically. One of the huge mistakes made by many people is to interpret Old Testament poetry literally. Be on guard against that. Theirs is no more literal than much of Western poetry.

Back to the text. We’ve seen much of this before, so I will just hit the high points. In verse 6, Egypt is used symbolically again. I like part of verse 7: “the spiritual man is insane because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity.” This is probably the false teacher (he also says “the prophet is a fool”), one who is pretending Divine inspiration, but Israel was probably driving God’s true prophets nuts, too. Verse 9 starts out “They are deeply corrupted as in the days of Gibeah.” This is a reference to the horrible events of Judges 19-21, which almost caused the total obliteration of the tribe of Benjamin. It’s a long and sordid tale which I won’t take space here to recount, and I encourage the reader to go over and read it, but the gist of it was homosexual activity, and there is little doubt that such is what Hosea is condemning in verse 9.

Israel was lovely when God found her (v. 10), but quickly corrupted her ways with Baal worship. So “their glory shall fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!” (v. 11). The blessings of the family would be ended as well. They will have children, but those children will be a bereavement to them because “Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer” (v. 13), not literally, but because of the Assyrian captivity. These ancient pagan kingdoms were given to pillage, plunder, murder, and rape; Assyria wasn’t trying to convert others to righteousness, and pardon my facetiousness. It’s a sad ending. As we saw in chapter one, God said that He would have no more mercy on Israel, they would no longer be His people. Now in 9:15, His words are “I will love them no more,” and again we must understand the poetic nature of this. God loves everyone, even in rebellion, but He will now withhold His blessings from Israel, as if he “hated them” (v. 15). And the chapter ends with a plain statement: “My God will cast them away because they did not obey Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations” (v. 17). That last sentence certainly describes the Jewish people down through the centuries.