Faithful God (Part Sixteen): The Kiss of Death

Transcript

JROT 16
05/07/2023
Faithful God (Part Sixteen): The Kiss of Death
Hosea 13:1-16
Jesse Randolph

Well, I feel bad. I feel bad because it seems as though every time I step up here on a Sunday evening, we crack open the book of Hosea, I say something to the effect of “this is the bleakest and darkest and gloomiest chapter in this prophecy,” and, “you thought chapter 2 was bad, wait until you get into chapter 5,” and “you thought chapter 7 was bad, now we’re doing chapter 10.” And I can assure you that every time I’ve said that when I’ve come up here, it has always been well-intentioned. It has always been sincere. And I can also assure you that I have and I did, read ahead many times in Hosea as I prepared to preach this text over the past many months. So, its not as though I’ve been surprised about the downward spiral that we continue to see in Israel as we work more deeply and deeply into this book. But inevitably, it does seem that week over week, as I go deeper in the studies of this book, and as I prepare to deliver the messages I proclaim to you on Sunday evenings, we somehow reach a new low each and every week as Israel, the Israel of Hosea’s day, somehow finds itself swirling further and further down the drain. Morally. Ethically. Spiritually. As the people prepare to meet their fate: conquer and destruction at the hand of the invading Assyrian nation. And as they await this period of exile, brought about by the hand of God as a punishment for their wicked and spiritually adulterous ways. Well, I’m nothing if I’m not consistent. Or, perhaps, hard-headed. So I’m going to go ahead and say it again. This section of Hosea that we’re going to be in here this evening is definitely the lowest point of this entire book, the lowest point.

Turn with me in your bibles, please, to Hosea 13. We’re going to do our very best to make it through all 16 verses of this very sad and dark chapter this evening. It’s a chapter that chronicles a people totally given over to their sin. And it’s a chapter that portrays this people on the precipice of their lives, being completely turned upside down as the sword of the Lord hangs over their head. We’re going to read the text in full, as we always do, and then we’ll work through it, verse by verse.

Hosea 13:1, God’s word reads: “When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, but through Baal he did wrong and died. And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves molten images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, ‘Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!’ Therefore they will be like the morning cloud and like dew which soon disappears, like chaff which is blown away form the threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.

“Yet I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me. So I will be like a lion to them; like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside. I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will also devour them like a lioness, as a wild beast would tear them.

“It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are against Me, against your help. Where now is your king that he may save you in all your cities, and your judges of whom you requested, ‘Give me a king and princes’? I gave you a king in My anger and took him away in My wrath.

“The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up. The pains of childbirth come upon him; he is not a wise son, for it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb. Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.

“Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness; and his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious article. Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

There is so much happening in this text and much of it we’ve covered already in a previous passage of Hosea. So, Lord willing, we’re going to move through this text today at a somewhat rapid pace. And to help us along the way, and to give us something to grab onto, as we try to track with Hosea’s non-linear way of thinking. I’ve grouped these verses in chapter 13, according to four headings, or four points for tonight. In verses 1-3, we’re going to see conceit. In verses 4-8, we’re going to see consumption. In verses 9-11, we’re going to see contempt. And verses 12-16, we’ll see carnage.

And on that sunny note let’s get right into it. Starting in verses 1-3, where we see conceit, verses 1-3, namely, Israel’s conceit. He says, “When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, but through Baal he did wrong and died. And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves molten images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, ‘Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!’ Therefore they will be like the morning cloud and like dew which soon disappears, like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.”

Now, those first few words there in verse 1, when it says, “When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling,” those represent a flashback. Hosea’s taking us back in time. Unlike previous times, by the way, where he’s mentioned Ephraim where he’s referred to Ephraim as sort of a synonym for Israel. Here he’s actually referring to the tribe of Ephraim, which along with Manasseh, descended from the household of Joseph, the son of Jacob. And there was, in fact, a time in which Ephraim was regarded as one of the most powerful tribes of Israel. This goes all the way back to Genesis 48 where Joseph takes his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh before his father, Jacob (or Israel) so that the boys, in that instance, could receive a blessing from their grandfather.

That whole scene is recorded in Genesis 48:13-20. You’re welcome to turn there with me. I’m going to read that section for you where we see how Ephraim came to this place of prominence. Genesis 48:13-20, there it says, “Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right, and brought them close to him. But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. He blessed Joseph, and said, ‘The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and may my name live on in them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.’

“When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him; and he grasped his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. Joseph said to his father, ‘Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ‘I know, my son; he also will become a people and he also will be great. However, his younger brother,” which would be Ephraim, “shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.’ He blessed them that day, saying, ‘By you Israel will pronounce blessing, saying, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh!” ‘ Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.”

So, from that day forward, Ephraim was considered one of the most prominent and exalted tribes in all of Israel. And that matches the meaning of the name “Ephraim”, it means “doubly fruitful.” And when members of this tribe spoke from this point forward, they spoke with authority, with power, with rank. Which is why it says here in Hosea 13:1, “When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.”

Well, fast forward now to the days of Hosea in the mid 700’s B.C. and things had drastically changed. Look at the next part of verse 1, it says “He,” this is Ephraim now, “exalted himself in Israel.”
Following in the footsteps of the god of this world (Satan) Ephraim had become proud. And as a tribe, this people, they were showcasing their pride through their worship of the false gods of the land -- it says here in verse 1, “But through Baal he did wrong” -- as is true of any idolatry both in ancient times and today. For Ephraim there was this inextricable link between their love for themselves, their self-exalted pride, and their worship of false gods, in their case, Baal. And this has been a plague on mankind now, for multiple millennia, because man is so in love with himself. Unless the Spirit of God does a work and grabs a hold of him, he will, man will, naturally default to worshiping a god who affirms him and coddles him and thinks that he’s just so cute and special and great.

Rather than worshiping the true God of the universe and submitting to that God and following the divine playbook that’s been written by that God. And now living for that God. I love how one commentator puts it. He says, “Behind the thin veneer of gold or silver which covers the face of an idol is the image of the worshiper himself.” That’s what was happening in Ephraim. They had exalted themselves. And ultimately they were worshiping themselves through the worship of the false gods of the land, the Baals.

And so sick were they with sin, by the way, that they are already described here at the end of verse 1 as already being six feet under. Look at what it says. “But through Baal he did wrong and died.” In God’s book they were already as good as dead. This spiritual death had already taken place but now all that was needed now was a proper burial as they were sent off to Assyria. Their fate was sealed. And that fate by the way was predicted all the way back in Deuteronomy 30:17-18.
Deuteronomy 30:17-18 says “But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.” Well, the death they had died didn’t stop this people here from drinking even more of the poison that had already killed them. Look at verse 2. It says, “now they sin more and more.” So they continued to sin. “They sin more and more.”

The pattern for any follower of Yahweh, whether it was in the Old Testament or its now in the New, is to grow in godliness and holiness and obedience. Leviticus 11:45 says, “For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.” And now in the New Testament we have 1 Peter 1:15 in which says, “but like the Holy One who called you, be yourselves holy in all your behavior.” But here, Israel in Hosea’s day, for them the exact opposite was happening, they were sinning “more and more” it says. They were in a cycle of sin. They were in a tailspin of sin. Once they were drawn in by its power, sin’s power, they had this bottomless appetite for it.

And we see in the rest of verse 2 what their sin looked like. It says they “make for themselves molten images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen.” See, they weren’t content to borrow idols from the surrounding tribes in the land. They weren’t content to even purchase idols at the local pagan bazaar. No. The people of Israel here had added to the affront to God to making idols of their own. It says right there, plain as day on the page, “for themselves molten images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen.” The language that Hosea uses here when he says, “idols skillfully made” and when he refers to “the work of craftsmen,” it suggests that visually these idols were actually very appealing to the eye, they were visually stimulating, they were noticeably artistic, pleasant to look at.

Well, as visually appealing as these idols may have been on the outside, what truly mattered was what they represented. And what they represented was Israel’s open and flagrant disregard for God and His commands. These idols were a visual representation of Israel’s rejection of God’s words of warning all throughout earlier pages of the Old Testament. Like Exodus 34:17 where it says, “You shall make for yourself no molten gods.” Or Leviticus 19:4 says, “Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God.” Or Deuteronomy 27:15 says, “Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.” All those quotes I just gave you were from several hundreds of years before Hosea wrote these words. And they were written at that time, back in those days, because Yahweh knew that His people as they entered this land were entering a land where worship of idols and images was prevalent among the Canaanites of the land. And the Lord warned them, over and over, not to be like the Canaanites but instead to be different, to be holy as He is holy. But the people ignored Him.

And not only that, what these idols did internally, in the hearts of the Israelites of this time, was horrifying. Look at the end of verse 2. Look at the reaction these idols provoked. It says, “They say of them,” meaning the Israelites said of their idols, “‘Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!’” And that’s, that looks just as it sounds. The people were not only bowing down to their idols, they were kissing their idols. And kissing there describes this posture of submission. It was a profound picture of the extent of Israel’s apostasy by this time. Not only had they drifted into the worship of false gods and crafting their own idols as they did so, they are now kissing them.
Kissing these little metal, sometimes wooden, objects. Objects which could say nothing and do nothing. Objects which could not help them or rescue them or save them. The language here is highlighting the absurdity of the practice of grown men kissing these silver trinkets. Well, those kisses prove to be kisses of death because the language here is highlighting Yahweh’s disgust over the extent of His people’s rebellion against Him and the judgment He was about to bring upon them.

Which we see in verse 3. He says, “Therefore they will be like the morning cloud and like dew which soon disappears, like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.” Now each of those references there, the “morning cloud,” the “dew which soon disappears,” the “chaff which is blown away,” the “smoke from a chimney,” they each emphasize the transitory condition of this idolatrous people and how quickly Yahweh could and would snuff them out. The morning cloud and dew, those two references, they remind us of what Hosea mentioned back in Hosea 6:4, when He says to the people, “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early.” The reference to chaff here takes us back in our minds to Psalm 1:3-4 where of course we see the blessed man first there described as being “like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” But then in verse 4 it says, “the wicked are not so,” instead “they are like chaff which the wind drives away.” And then the smoke here referenced in verse 3 of Hosea 13 brings up reminisces of passages like Psalm 68:1-2. “Let God arise,” it says, “let His enemies be scattered, and let those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away.” See, the common denominator with these four pictures here given in verse 3 is transience. Morning clouds, dew, chaff, smoke, all those things are here today and gone tomorrow, here for a minute but then gone in a moment. And that is what Hosea here is saying about Israel, the Israel of his day. They were once strongly rooted and firmly planted but now they were about to be blown away. And there was nothing they could do about it. They were now helplessly facing their fate. What a sad and stark picture of those who start well in their faith but stumble, drift, and fall because of their failure to cleave to the Lord with a singular and devoted purpose of heart.

So we’ve seen Israel’s conceit. “He exalted himself,” it said. Next, in verses 4-8 we’re going to see its consumption. Israel’s consumption. By that I don’t mean tuberculosis. Rather I mean in these next few verses, Yahweh Himself is going to be described as consuming His people Israel through their coming destruction at the hand of the Assyrians.

Verse 4, we’ll read through verse 8 again. He says, “Yet I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me. So I will be like a lion to them; like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside. I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will also devour them like a lioness, as a wild beast would tear them.”

Note the contrast that is being drawn here. Israel is busying herself with crafting and kissing calves and all the while, says Yahweh, “I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt.” This is very familiar language. As he has at several points in this prophecy, Yahweh here is reminding His faithless people that He’s always been there. Going all the way back to the days of Egypt and going all the days back to the exodus. He’s mentioned that several times already in Hosea. Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Hosea 12:9, “But I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt.” Hosea 12:13, “But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel from Egypt,” he’s referring to Moses there. He was always there. He never left them or forsook them.
And as He led them and as He cared for them, He was clear with them about what He expected of them. Look at the end of verse 4, it says, “And you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me.” This, of course, is taking us all the way back to the very first of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:2-3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” And this is also bringing in the writings of some of the contemporary prophets of Hosea’s time. Like Isaiah, Isaiah 43:11 says, “I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me.” Or Isaiah 45:21-22 says, “there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” But somehow these statutes and somehow these prophetic warnings, by the time of Hosea’s day had been forgotten. Israel was so busy carving its idols and was so smitten with the false gods that it was kissing them, that it had somehow forgotten the first commandment.

Israel’s lack of care for God, it’s lack of care for His commands is set directly in contrast to what God says of them in verse 5. He says, “I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.” What the Lord is saying here is that He had been more than a rule-setter and more than a lawgiver to them. In addition to giving them His Law and in addition to giving them His Word, He actively cared for them, and tended to them, and provided for His people all throughout the days of their wilderness wanderings and it says, “in the land of drought” meaning the hot, dry, and arid land in which they were sojourning. See, God brought His people through, all the way. He gave them food to eat. He gave them water to drink. He put clothes on their backs. He had always given them light by which they could be led. He gave them all that they needed, all the time.

It reminds me of what Paul would later say in the context of the Christian church many centuries later, in 1 Timothy 6:8 when he says, “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” The Israelites had each of those things and then some, but they weren’t content. Look at verse 6, speaking of their lack of contentment it says, “As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me.” Now that phrase, “as they had their pasture,” is a phrase which pictures Israel here like sheep or cattle grazing peacefully. It calls to mind for us Psalm 100:3 which says, “We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” And in return for the blessings that Yahweh had bestowed upon them you would think that they would have been content and joyful and motivated to serve Him faithfully. But that’s not what we see. The text here says that they were “satisfied.” That really means in this context that their bellies were full. The way that we all feel satisfied after a nice hearty Thanksgiving dinner. But their satisfaction it says was short-lived. It says, “they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me.” Yahweh was their caring, tender shepherd. Israel He had allowed to fatten up in His pastures. But they were ungrateful for His provision. To them it was almost as though He wasn’t there. They ignored Him. They forgot Him. Which is exactly what it says at the end of verse 6, “Therefore they forgot Me.”

Earlier in the book, in Hosea 2:13 (which at this point I think we studied back in October or something like that) the Lord also issued this accusation against His people for forgetting Him. Hosea 2:13, He says, “I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn herself with earrings and jewelry, and follow her lovers, so that she forgot me.” And their forgetting their God was directly in violation of the many warnings Yahweh had given them against doing so back in the days of Moses. Deuteronomy 6:10 is one of those warnings, the warning against forgetting God. It says, “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” There’s a similar warning in Deuteronomy 8:2 where he says, “You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years.” You can also jot down Deuteronomy 8:7-20 (I won’t do the whole thing here) as another one of these crystal-clear, warning passages, warning against forgetting Yahweh when you enter into the Promised Land.

But these warnings He gave went unheeded. With full bellies and prideful hearts, the people of Israel forgot their God. They had become haughty, and insolent, and proud. Their spiritual forgetfulness had led them to sin and their spiritual amnesia led them to apostasy. In contrast to the Israel of Hosea’s day I want us to think about what the psalmist of Psalm 119 says when he speaks of his resolve and his determination to never forget God and to never forget His word. Psalm 119:16 “I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word.” Psalm 119:55 “O LORD, I will remember Your name in the night, and keep Your law.” Psalm 119:83 “Though I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget Your statutes.” Psalm 119:93 “I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have revived me.” Psalm 119:153 “Look upon my affliction and rescue me, for I do not forget Your law.” And then Psalm 119:176, the final verse, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.” That’s a good reminder for all of us, not only in Hosea’s day but in our current church age context, to remember the way we ensure we don’t forget God and drift from Him is to ensure we are always anchored to, and growing in, His Word. Reading His Word and studying His Word and meditating upon His Word and delighting in His Word so that we can faithfully, James 1 and James 2, do His Word.

Well, Israel wasn’t getting it. They were adrift. They were a lost cause. And the price they were about to pay was severe which we see laid out in verses 7 and 8. He says, “So I will be like a lion to them; like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside. I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will also devour them like a lioness, as a wild beast would tear them.” Now those words, he constructs the sentence this way, when he says something like, “I will be to them,” those words would have set off alarm bells in the readership here of Hosea. Because normally when God would say something like, “I will be to you in these days,” it meant some aspect of protecting His people or providing for His people. As we see in places like Jeremiah 24:7 where He says, “I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God.” Or Ezekiel 11:20 where He says, “they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” I will be to them their God.

But now here in Hosea’s context it’s completely flipped around and now what we’re seeing is Yahweh’s using this language to introduce His vow to destroy them. And He uses these four images of ferocious, deadly animals. First is the image of the lion. We’ve seen this imagery already back in Hosea 5:14 where He says “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear to pieces and go away.” God here is pictured as punishing Israel with the ferocity of a hungry lion. Then we see the leopard. We see Yahweh here pictured stealthily crouching in wait, ready to attack His prey, His own people, like a leopard. He says, I will lie in wait by the wayside.” Next, we see the image of the she-bear. He says, “I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear open their chests.” This is the picture of God here as the mama bear coming in His holy wrath to rip Israel to pieces, tearing open their chests. It’s a horrifying piece of imagery. And then last is the picture of the lioness who “as a wild beast would tear them.”

Now you’ve got to note the contrasts between these four images He gives us here and what Yahweh’s been portrayed as earlier -- as this tender Savior-Shepherd who would provide and protect and pasture His flock. Remember Hosea 11:4, a couple weeks ago, He says “I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, and I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws, and I bent down and fed them.” Now, He’s not feeding them. Now He’s eating them! He’s devouring them the way a wild animal would devour its helpless prey. The Helper of Israel was going to be the destroyer of Israel. And it’s not only in the ten tribes of the north that this was going to happen. But it was also going to happen in the tribes of the south because Jeremiah says something similar. Jeremiah 5:5-6 says “But they too, with one accord, have broken the yoke and burst the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest will slay them, a wolf of the deserts will destroy them, a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.” Well, Israel, and for that matter, Judah brought this on themselves. And the judgment described here it does sound harsh admittedly but the rebellion and the sin which brought that judgment was just that deep and just that deserving.

So we’ve seen conceit. We’ve seen consumption. Next, in verses 9-11 we’re going to see contempt, meaning in these verses we’re about to encounter contempt from Yahweh toward Israel. We’re actually going to see a little bit of divine mockery, some divine sarcasm leveled toward Israel. It all starts with verse 9, where Yahweh says to His people, “It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are against Me, against your help.” What the Lord here is saying is that Israel had become her own worst enemy. Through her rejection of Him, she was bringing calamity upon herself. And that word for “destruction,” by the way, when you see it here in verse 9, it comes from the same word that Moses would use back in Genesis 6:17 to describe the destructive nature of the worldwide flood, the global flood, of Noah’s day. Genesis 6:17 “Behold, I, even I” these are the words of God, “am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy,” same idea as we see here in Hosea 13:9, “to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life.” And the total destruction of the Flood brought upon the earth in Noah’s day is a helpful picture to think of the total destruction that Yahweh was soon to bring upon Israel.

And now, in verse 10, we get to contempt, we get to the mocking. He says, “Where now is your king that he may save you in all your cities, and your judges of whom you requested, ‘Give me a king and princes’?” See, the people are exposed and Yahweh here is taunting them. He’s reminding them of their past. He’s taking them back to the days of the judges, when they wanted and they demanded a human king. And they wanted and they demanded that human king because they wanted to be just like the others of the nations and just like the surrounding people groups. That’s in fact what they said in 1 Samuel 8:5, they said, “Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.” Having God Himself, Yahweh Himself, as their divine Ruler, as their divine King was not enough. Well, human king they wanted and human kings they got.

Here are the words of Yahweh to the prophet Samuel who was acting as sort of an intermediary between Israel and God as they made this request to God. This is from 1 Samuel 8:7-8, it says, “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day I brought them up from Egypt even to this day -- in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods -- so they are doing to you also’.” Well, fast forwarding now to Hosea’s day the kings and other rulers of Israel were altogether useless and altogether helpless in the face of the Assyrian invaders. And that’s what’s being picked up here in verse 10 where He says, “Where now is your king that he may save you in all your cities, and your judges of whom you requested, ‘Give me a king and princes’?” The calves they had been kissing couldn’t help them. Only the Lord could help them, but they had rejected Him. The language here of verse 10 has echoes of that similarly hopeless language of Hosea 10:3, where it was said, “Surely now they will say, ‘We have no king, for we do not revere the Lord. As for the king, what can he do for us?’” And even more poignantly, you’ll recall that the king of Israel was described back in Hosea 10:7 as “a stick on the surface of the water.” Which is such a powerful picture, powerful illustration of the helplessness of the Israelite king who himself was going to be taken off into exile and the hopelessness of a people who had foolishly put their trust in kings like that.

And then in verse 11, we see these words from Yahweh directly to the people. He says, “I gave you a king in My anger and took him away in My wrath.” “I gave you a king in my anger.” That’s the whole history here of the kingship over Israel had been a manifestation of God’s anger. That’s what’s being described here. Beginning with Saul, there had been twenty-three kings that had ruled over the north. And each of the twenty kings after Solomon was described as doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Israel’s kings had been chosen without God’s consent. That’s picked up in Hosea 8:4 where it says “They have set up kings, but not by Me.” The kings that came were almost universally wicked. So the people got what they wanted, as God gave them what they said they desired. And there are traces and shadows in that narrative of what Paul, many centuries later would say in Romans 1 about God giving sinful people over to their sinful longings and desires. Romans 1:24, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.” Romans 1:26, different context I understand, but listen to the give-them-over language, “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions.” Romans 1:28, “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

Going back to Hosea though. Now the kingship in the land was coming to an end. He says in verse 11, “I gave you a king in My anger and took Him away in My wrath,” which is, in fact, what happened, the line of kings came to an end. We see that in 2 Kings 17:6 which says “In the ninth year of Hoshea,” the final northern king, “the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria,” and all of that was in fulfillment, by the way, of the prophecy given all the way back in the prophecy given all the way back in Deuteronomy 28:36 which says, “The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods.”

Alright, in verses 1-3 we’ve seen conceit. In verses 4-8 we’ve seen consumption. Verses 9-11 we’ve seen contempt. Verses 12-16 now we’re going to see carnage, carnage. Verse 12 says, “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up. The pains of childbirth come upon him; he is not a wise son, for it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb. Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight. Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness; and his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious article. Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

God had not overlooked Israel’s guilt. In fact, we see the opposite in earlier passages here of Hosea’s prophecy. Hosea 10:2 says, “Their heart is faithless; now they must bear their guilt.” Hosea 12:14 says “Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him.” Rather, as we see here in verse 12, “the iniquity of Ephraim,” it says, “is bound up; his sin is stored up.” That is such an interesting description, and ultimately, it’s a really perverse picture that’s being painted here in verse 12. Because what’s being described here is Israel’s sinful deeds are being portrayed here as a document that’s being sealed and bound up. It’s almost like a piece of treasure that’s being wrapped up in a cloth or being put in a real special envelope. To put it in more modern terms, it’s almost like Israel here has bubble-wrapped its sin. Like it’s used those little Styrofoam, popcorn pieces, put them in the box with its sin so that its sin is bound up, it’s stored up, protected. It’s really a terrible picture, it's a really awful picture of the depths of depravity to which they had sunk. Not only were they immersed in their sin but they loved their sin and they treasured their sin and now they’re protecting their sin. From Yahweh’s perspective here, their sin is being “stored up.”

And now, as we’re about to see, a day of retribution and punishment was coming for that sin. So as much as they tried to coddle and bundle up and protect their sin, that sin would eventually be unwrapped and exposed by Yahweh as He brought His judgment down upon them and punished them and sent them into exile. Reminds me of Hosea 7:2 where it says, “And they do not consider in their hearts,” this is Yahweh speaking, “that I remember all their wickedness. Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face.” Or Deuteronomy 32:35, this is the Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” passage which says “Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, in due time their foot will slip; for their day of their calamity is near, and the impending things are hastening upon them.”

Well, we get another vivid picture in verse 13. It says, “The pains of childbirth come upon him; he is not a wise son, for it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.”
Here we get an obstetric image which is describing Israel both as an expectant mother and as the son to be born, the child to be born. And what appears to be in view here in verse 13 is a breech baby who’s not positioned headfirst getting ready for birth, but rather feet first, or potentially, bottom first. That’s a complicated situation even in our day with all of the medical advancements that we have seen. But in Hosea’s day before C-Sections were commonplace, this was a life-threatening predicament and likely deadly.

Well, applying this scene to Israel’s spiritual state, what Hosea appears to be driving at here is Israel’s stubborn and willful refusal to repent. He’s picturing the baby here, Israel, as being “unwise” for having put himself (it’s a baby boy) into this predicament. The people have turned themselves around is the main spiritual idea here, the way a breeched baby is turned in the wrong direction in the womb. And rather than turning or repenting toward God they are staying in that position, and sticking with the birthing terminology here, their delay in repenting is compared to “delay at the opening of the womb.” Now, again, in the case of an actual mother and an actual child in Hosea’s day this would eventually lead to the death of the mother and the child. But for Israel, spiritually speaking, this failure to repent, to turn around like a baby in the womb would result in their death as a people. That’s all wrapped in with what Hosea ways here about Israel not being “a wise son.”

They had been warned. They had been told over and over as we’ve seen over thirteen chapters now of this prophecy, to repent, to turn from their sin and to turn to God. But they refused. They chose to go their own way. And this is not the only time that the Israelites’ lack of wisdom is described in this prophecy. You’ll recall in many of the other passages, you see that same sort of terminology about Israel’s folly or lack of wisdom. Hosea 4:11 says, “Harlotry, wine and new wine take away their understanding.” Hosea 4:14 says, “So the people without understanding are ruined.” Or Hosea 7:11 says, “Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without sense.” They were unwise, they were unrepentant, and they now faced death.

Speaking of death, in verse 14 we see these words, he says, “Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?” (I realize I said, “Shaol” earlier, I’m not sure why I said it that way, I think we can say, “Sheol.”) “Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.” Now, when we see those words in verse 14 we may immediately be tempted to try to read those words with Christian goggles, with Christian lens, because they sound kind of familiar to us. And what we try to do potentially is read what Hosea said here through the lens of what Paul said some 800 years later in 1 Corinthians 15:53-54. What Paul said is “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and the mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?’ ” And we might be tempted to think, if we’re reading the scriptures that way, “Wow, this is another one of those promises of redemption in Hosea. This is another one of those instances where this little pop of light shines through against the otherwise dark canvas of Israel’s sinful legacy.” And, of course, when you read a lot of the commentaries, commentaries which read the scriptures as though Christianity and the Church are the point of all revelation in both the Old and New Testaments, and who believe that Jesus is on every page of the scriptures both in the Old and New Testaments, you’ll see a lot of reading of Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 15 back into what Hosea wrote 800 years prior. And there’ll be a lot of concluding and leaping to the conclusion that Hosea 13:14 must be an expression of hope because of what Paul wrote later, and not a description of death.

I don’t agree. While we have seen that Hosea’s prophecy in other places has been marked by certain abrupt changes in tone, so it wouldn’t be impossible for Hosea to inject a word of hope here in verse 14, I think it’s a bit premature to leap to that conclusion based on what’s happening here in verse 14. The first two questions here where He says “Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death?” -- the way they are phrased in the original Hebrew text, they compel a negative answer. The expected answer, in other words, which makes sense in light of the other 15 verses of this chapter is, “No! No, you shouldn’t ransom a people like this! No, you shouldn’t redeem a people like this! Have you read the previous thirteen verses about what these people is like? Of course, you shouldn’t ransom them or redeem them.” That then leads to the next two questions here in verse 14 of “O death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting?” And the natural reading of those two questions in light of the tone of the first two questions is not to take them as some sort of triumphant cry over death but rather an appeal for death to do its work. That is, for death to sink its thorns into the flesh of these rebellious people and for Sheol to bring its sting upon this unrepentant people. Now, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 (we know he would, I just read it), he would employ these striking words to highlight the power of God to overwhelm the power of death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming resurrection of our bodies as we put off the perishable and put on the imperishable. But in the original context here in Hosea’s time there was a totally different focus. And the focus was on this appeal for death to unleash its plagues and its destruction upon an unrepentant people.

Now, before we leave this verse, I want to highlight how Hosea is actually using some really interesting language in this verse. Language that ties the people of Hosea’s day all the way back to the people of the exodus, the exodus from Egypt. First, he uses these verbs “ransom” and “redeem” which we see here in verse 14. Both involve an aspect of purchasing freedom for a slave. And we see both verbs used in the book of Exodus as descriptions of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. For instance Exodus 6:6 says, “Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” Or Exodus 15:13 says, “In your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed.”
In other words, Israel was ransomed and redeemed when as a people they first came out of Egypt, but now Yahweh is saying He isn’t going to redeem them, He isn’t going to ransom them. They’ve run out of chances. They would not be spared “the power of Sheol,” Sheol being that figurative term related to the underworld of this time, a poetic personification of the grave. And they would not be spared natural death. They would not be redeemed from death as it says here in verse 14. It’s also worth noting that when Hosea does here say, “O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting?” -- those words even can be traced back to the exodus out of Egypt.

So just as the use of the verbs “ransomed” and “redeemed” point back to the exodus, the words “thorns” and “sting” do so as well. In fact, that word “thorns” can also fairly be translated “plagues” and the word “sting” there can also be translated “pestilence” so that you could fairly render this part of verse 14, that they were ransomed and redeemed when they first came out of Egypt but were no longer going to be ransomed and redeemed. And now He’s speaking of death and its plagues and Sheol and its pestilence coming upon the Israelites. This is all pointing backward to Exodus. This is sort of an anti-Exodus of sorts that was going to happen. They’re going on to a different exodus now to Assyria where they will face death and pestilence and the like.

Now, we know, since where we sit as a Christian church, we have read to the end of the story, not only in Hosea, but in the rest of the Bible. And we do know that restoration and salvation will one day come to Israel but that will be after history has run its course. And Israel at this point still needed to pay the price. And at this point in history, what Israel faced was judgment, and not only that, a lack of compassion from God. Look at the end of verse 14. He says, “Compassion will be hidden from My sight.” That word “compassion” stems from a Hebrew word for repentance, and we often see it used in the Old Testament to describe the Lord changing His mind, at least, as we can conceive of it from our finite, human vantage point. Well, God wasn’t going to change His mind here in Hosea’s time. There would be no repenting. That’s where we are in chapter 13. There would be no compassion. The people of Hosea’s day, as they prepared to be exiled, were as good as dead and buried. Hosea 9:6-7 says “For behold, they will go because of destruction; Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take over their treasures of silver; thorns will be in their tents. The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution have come; let Israel know this!”

And that now brings us to our final two verses for this evening, verses 15 and 16. With the Lord’s compassion now being hidden from His sight, the curtain was about to fall on Israel.
We pick it up in verse 15, he says, “Though he flourishes among the reeds.” The reeds there symbolize Egypt, so this is a reference to Israel’s unwise and desperate partnership with Egypt during this time. It says, “an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the
wilderness.” The east wind here is a reference to Assyria, that invading conqueror from the east which we’ve seen at several points in Hosea already. It was Yahweh though who was going to be the One who would topple Israel through Assyria to accomplish His purposes. Assyria was His appointed agent of destruction. So that’s why it’s called here not just this east wind but the “the wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness.” This verse, then as well as verse 16, really corresponds with verse 14 being about plagues and destruction and death. So this hot east wind is going to cause this destruction.

Look at the rest of verse 15. It says, “his fountain will become dry and his spring will be dried up; it will plunder his treasury of every precious article.” In other words, the destruction of Israel at the hand of the Assyrians would be comprehensive. Fountains are described elsewhere as being springs of life. Psalm 36:9 says, “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” Springs are similar. Isaiah 12:2-3 says “For the Lord God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. Therefore, you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.” But both sources of water and life, fountain and springs here, are described as being dried up as a result of the Assyrian invasion. And not only that, their treasury would be ravaged as well. It says, “It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.” The idea here is the destruction would be broad and comprehensive. It would be total and devastating. Reminds me of Hosea 7:13 which simply says “Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against Me!”

And then our final passage, final passage of the chapter, final passage for this evening, verse 16. He says, “Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.” As we’ve seen elsewhere in our study of Hosea, Samaria was the capital city of the northern kingdom. And the city is pictured as standing here, as representing, the nation as a whole. And as the seat of power for Israel, Samaria the capitol would pay a distinctively awful price for rebelling against her God. And the fate of Samaria is described as particularly difficult and brutal. We see the judgment on the city and on the nation falling in these three specific ways. “They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces” and “pregnant women” being “ripped open.” That first one is pretty straightforward. We see it mentioned all over the scriptures. People falling by the sword, dying by the sword, which we actually know did happen here in Samaria. 2 Kings 17:5 says, “Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years.”

Those latter two though, are shockingly brutal descriptions of the atrocities that would be committed against the Israelites at the hands of the Assyrians. Little ones being dashed in pieces, pregnant women being ripped open. But sadly those methods were not unheard of in these days. Amos 1:13 is a cross-reference for the ripping open of pregnant Israelite women by foreign invaders. Nahum 3:10 speaks of “small children,” in a similar invasion context, being “dashed to pieces.” The picture here is graphic. It is picturing the most violent and horrific overthrow imaginable where these violent and bloodthirsty Assyrian invaders would spare no lives, not even the youngest, most innocent lives as they sieged and pillaged the cities of Israel.

Well, as awful as what is being described here is, we cannot lose sight of the fact, having worked through this whole chapter this evening, all of what was happening to Israel at this time was ultimately brought about by its sin. Israel’s sin. Sin that was evil, sin that was wicked, and sin that was costly. But we also can’t lose sight of the fact that, thank the Lord, a sin-bearing Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, would one day come into the world, first for His own people, the people of Israel. But then on account of their rejection of Him, He now offers salvation from sin and the hope of eternal life to all who would repent and believe upon His name.

As I said at the beginning, we’ve with chapter 13 reached a new low in the history of Israel here but as sometimes the darkest hours precede the dawn, the darkest descriptions of sin and judgment here, death and destruction here, in chapter 13 come right before the hope-filled words of the final chapter of this book, Hosea 14, which we’ll get to next time.

Let’s pray. God thank You for Your word, thank You for its timelessness, thank You for its treasures. Thank You for Your goodness in providing it to us so that we can be nourished upon it, learn from it, and live in light of it. Thank You for this church. Thank you for their love for You, their love for truth, their love for the scriptures. And thank You for the privilege that we’ve had this day to learn from Your word in so many different settings. What a joy it is! Thank You God for the privilege that we have this week to go out as ambassadors for You, to share the gospel with those who are lost, to build up each other in the faith as we encourage and exhort one another in the faith. Thank You for the privilege that we have to be attached to a faithful, local church where we can deploy our gifts that You have given us and build up the body of believers here. We simply ask that in our lives this week that You would be greatly glorified and honored, that we would live faithfully for You, our ever-faithful God. We love You and thank You, in Jesus name. Amen.