An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 173: Dry and dusty, and Yahweh’s plans to conquer the world (Hosea 6-10)

Hosea 6-10
Dry and dusty, and Yahweh’s plans to conquer the world.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Hosea 6

“Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.”

There’s an interesting point in verse two –“After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up”; remind me again, how long was Jesus supposed to be in the tomb? Another one of those sneaky correspondences between NT and OT prophets that either, depending on your point of view, proves that Jesus was the Messiah and culmination of prophecy, or that the NT writers stuck in a few references to support their claims.

There’s a mix of God’s mercy after punishment, and punishment itself in this short chapter, and once again the tribe of Ephraim come in for special approbation; my guess that this is something personal by Hosea is supported by the phrase “there have they dealt treacherously against me”.

I was a bit disingenuous to Hosea before, suggesting a lack of originality with all the prophecies of doom. Because chronologically he’s way before Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And furthermore, those three lived in a time when the threat of the Babylonian Empire was a clear and present danger, so suggesting that it might roll over Israel and Judah was perhaps not hard to predict. Here, though, although he lives in troubled times of civil strife between Israel and Judah, in Hosea’s time it’s still the old neighbours of the Philistines, Ammonites etc. who are causing trouble.

Hosea 7

“They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.”

This chapter is from the point of view of God, and is more attacks on the tribe of Ephraim, who are likened variously to bakers that have made their ovens hot (too hot? It’s not clear), or to a cake that hasn’t been turned (plenty of baking similes in this chapter) or a “silly dove without heart”. The hot oven metaphor represents something consuming princes and kings, the apostacy of the Ephraimites (presumably Baal) religion, it would seem, or even irreligious behaviour given the references to drinking and drunkenness in this chapter as well.

Hosea 8

“Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.”

More complaints against the Ephraimites, who have “sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind”, in case you were wondering where that saying came from. There are also, however, complaints against the Samaritans, who worship a calf (of gold, we assume). God is angry because it was made in Israel, presumably by people who should know better. Which brings me nicely to a point I’ve been pondering throughout these prophets. God, Yahweh, is obviously angry with the Israelites because it with them that He has a covenant, so that when they go off worshipping Baal and other gods, they’re breaking their side of the covenant and risking God’s anger.

However, the gentile nations have no such covenant – in theory that can worship whoever they like and it doesn’t matter either way to God, He’s not that interested in them anyway. There are signs, however, particularly post-exile, that Yahweh is interested in being worshipped worldwide, and not just by the Israelites. There’s no specific attempts to spread His worship to the gentiles by preachers and the like – that idea as far as I know won’t come into practice until the time of Paul – but people like Cyrus of Assyria do end up appreciating the power of the God of the Israelites. It’ll be an interesting process to watch out for, I think.

Hosea 9

“Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.”

And more anger at the Ephraimites. There is a suggestion here again of child sacrifice – “Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer”, and as punishment the Ephraimites will be made barren – “what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts”. I suppose that’s one way of dealing with the problem, remove the source of sacrifice. Although the subject matter is getting a bit tiresome, the imagery in this chapter is wonderfully bleak, invoking dusty, dry desert and a barren land for a barren people. You can almost feel the hot desert air.

Hosea 10

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

Hosea actually throws in an exhortation to repent here, amongst the usual dire warnings of dust and gloom and thorns. There are a lot of farming metaphors here, all based around what you sow, so shall you reap. The Israelites (Ephraim in particular, again) are sowing wickedness, and thus they “have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies”, whereas Hosea wants them to sow righteousness and reap mercy.

That’s really about it, although there is mention that the calf of Samaria will be carried off as plunder by the Assyrians, so I guess they were dangerous at this time after all.