HOMILETICS
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 1:2. By] Lit. in Hosea, the preposition expresses close relationship with another; cf. Numbers 12:6; Numbers 12:8; Hebrews 2:1. First in us and then through us is the Divine order; personal enlightenment and then public service. Wife of whore.] A vision, some; externally acted, others; taken in a real sense by most interpreters. The plural indicates not merely incidental, but continual and manifold acts [Pusey]. Take] i.e. marry one whose livelihood is gained by prostitution, and whose whole element is whoredom. Cf. men of blood, Psalms 5:7; man of sorrows, Isaiah 53:3. This is a symbol of Israel in its state of idolatry. Land] Israel, indirectly Judah, wife and children, equally grieved the husband and father, Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:15. Committed] is whoring, whoring away, from Jehovah, lit. from after Jehovah; the composite preposition denoting more than absence from God, signifies opposed to walking with him; the breaking of the marriage vow, cut off from loving relationship (Psalms 73:27).
THE SYMBOLIC MARRIAGE.—Hosea 1:2
Whether this be regarded as a real and external transaction, or a spiritual scenery, or allegorical description, all agree in taking it as a type of God’s dealings with unfaithful Israel. Divine truth was to be acted, embodied in sensible signs and prophetic life. Hosea commanded to marry a prostitute and beget children, whose names, called by God himself, were to set forth the evils of departure from him.
I. A type of Israel’s fallen condition. It was the chosen people, specially created and brought into covenant relation to God. This relation, often represented under the figure of marriage, they vowed to keep. But the contract was broken, they had fallen away from God, and gone a whoring after other gods. Idolatry was not accidental, but prevalent; the whole land was polluted, and the sin national. The idolatry of foreign nations was regarded as an abomination, but the sin of Israel a more glaring enormity and greater moral guilt. Three things are condemned in Scripture as idolatry.
1. The worshipping of a false god;
2. the worshipping of the true God through an image;
3. the indulgence of those passions which draw the soul from God. Israel were guilty of the first in bowing the knee to Baal, and of the second in setting up the golden calves. Men now often guilty of the third. Lust, covetousness, and pleasure allure their hearts, and they set up gold, honour, popular applause, and worldly distinction, and cry, “These be thy gods.”
II. A type o God’s love to sinners.
1. Love to the unfaithful. Israel had fallen, but God loved her with a tender love, and sought to restore her to himself. Many have made a profession, Christians have left their first love, broken their engagement with God, and fallen into disgrace. Love is wounded, and deeply wounded, at such treatment, but it remains love, cannot suffer apostasy from him, and seeks to restore and save. “Thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works.”
2. Love to the unworthy. We shrink from the unchaste and condemn the outcast, but they are not beyond hope. The drunkard, the thief, and the idolater are renewed and restored to God, formed into a church, and sanctified for his service. “Love,” it has been said, “descends more abundantly than it ascends. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved God with a thousandth part of the love which God has manifested to us?”
III. A type of moral life unstained by surrounding evils. The prophet was holy, separated from sinners, and dared not associate with adulterers.
1. In the family was a “wife of whoredoms” and “children of whoredoms.”
2. In the land corruption and abominations were prevalent. What a trial of patience! What a test of character this would be! Christians are often so placed, but must be “the salt of the earth,” preserve from corruption, and incite men to live godly in dangers by which they are surrounded. Even in Sardis were a few who had not defiled their garments. “To keep himself unspotted from the world.”
IV. A type of parental sin portrayed in children’s character. Parents leave behind them legacies of guilt and shame; contaminate their offspring by their influence and example. Children inherit the lands and the lusts of their ancestors, and are often cursed with the consequences of parental folly. Drunkenness, debauchery, and adultery entail on human life their ruinous and loathsome effects. Men transmit to remote posterity guilt and misery, and God visits “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” This should excite pity for children and caution in parents for their solemn charge and responsibility.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Go, take, Hosea 1:3.—
1. A people sunk into sin and idolatry need desperate and extraordinary efforts to save them.
2. Men employed in saving them must deny themselves, and adopt the means God directs. Hosea takes a strange wife. Ezekiel loses his own, Ezekiel 24:16-17. Our will must be merged into God’s. “This figure was proposed to the people that they might perceive in the looking-glass of this allegory, first, their duty towards God; second, their disloyalty; thirdly, their penalty for the same” [Trapp].
Idolatry is spiritual whoredom. It defiles the soul, God’s bridal-bed. It breaks the marriage-knot, and discovenants. It enrageth God, who in this case will take no ransom. It subjecteth men to the deepest displeasure of God, it besots them and unmans them [Trapp].
Children of whoredom. The sins of parents also descend in a mysterious way on their children. Sin is contagious, and unless the entail is cut off by grace, hereditary [Pusey].
Depart from God.—I. God is the great end of life. Man restless and insufficient without God. Natural bodies seek a natural resting-place; sensitive creatures seek good adapted to their rank and being: so the soul longs for God. Echoes of God resound through its depths, and it is made to turn instinctively towards Himself. Some have found and walk with God, like Enoch; some walk near to him and others are far from him. “Without God in the world.” God should be the supreme object of life and affection. This pursuit should be earnest and continued. “My soul followeth hard after (is glued) to thee.” The renewed soul is acquainted with God, and follows him with intensity of feeling and desire. When the Christian has lost God, he never rests satisfied until he has found him again. When he has found and enjoys him he longs to enjoy him more. And though he can never attain to God in perfection, yet he follows on, first, as a necessary discipline, and then as a necessary preparation for the future. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
II. Departure from God is idolatry. Sin hinders and indisposes in the pursuit after God. It is a violation of his law and rejection of his love and authority. It renounces all subjection to him, and casts him off entirely. This is, to prefer the creature to the Creator, in whom all joys and blessings consist. If we seek anything out of God, we turn from following him, and take something else to be our god. This is to make an idol, and prefer emptiness and vanity. An idol is nothing. Men have many idols. When they do not worship God, they worship themselves, their fellow-creatures, their works, and their substance. It is not necessary that each one should sing a psalm and offer a prayer to deify self. The outward life is a psalm, and the inward life a prayer. Man cannot dethrone God in heart and life without putting an idol in his place. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
III. This departure involves others in its consequences. Every individual is a centre of moral influence. Every word and deed sends forth more than electric fluid. He may choose what he will do, but having done, he cannot stay the consequences of the act. Kings and priests, ministers and parents, influence others for good or evil, produce effects which do not terminate on themselves, but extend to society, and are transmitted to posterity as mighty, indestructible forces of existence. “When one member suffers, all suffer with it.” By neglect of duty, wrong example, and leading others into sin we injure our fellow-creatures, and leave an active influence, which does not cease when we repent or die. Wealth, language, and customs influence the health and morals of society. And as the seed sown will produce the harvest, so licentiousness and idolatry sow their fruits in families, churches, nations, and fill “the earth with violence.” “The land hath committed great whoredom.”