Faithful God (Part Thirteen): A Withered Vine

Transcript

JROT 13
03/26/2023
Faithful God (Part Thirteen): A Withered Vine
Hosea 10:1-15
Jesse Randolph

Okay, well, as we resume our study of the book of Hosea tonight, a word that has continued to come to my mind in studying the section of the book that we’ll be in and really reflecting on the book as a whole for these many months now is ‘failure.’ The Israel of Hosea’s day was a failure, a faithless failure. They had been given warning after warning about their sin and their apostasy. They had been given reminder after reminder about God’s simmering anger toward them. They had been given threat after threat about the impending conquer and exile that was coming their way by the hands of Assyria. But they had paid no mind to any of it. And this once thriving nation, this nation which had been set apart by God, this nation to which these great promises had and have been made by God, had since fallen flat on its face. It had failed and it was about to face something even more terrifying, which was the wrath of God, the wrath of God mediated by the swords and the weapons of the invading Assyrian armies.

This evening we’re going to be continuing on with our study of Hosea’s prophecy and we’re going to be in Hosea chapter 10. We have a lot to cover tonight so I’m just going to start right in by reading the text in full and then we’ll do what we did last week, and we’ll take it line-on-line, verse-upon-verse. So, Hosea 10. “Israel is a luxuriant vine; he produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, the more altars he made; the richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars. Their heart is faithless; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars.

“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?’ They speak mere words; with worthless oaths they make covenants; and judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn for it. And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it, over its glory, since it has departed from it. The thing itself will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jareb; Ephraim will be seized with shame and Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel. Samaria will be cut off with her king like a stick on the surface of the water. Also, the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed; thorn and thistle will grow on their altars; then they will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!’ And to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’ From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel; there they stand! Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah? When it is My desire, I will chastise them; and the peoples will be gathered against them when they are bound for their double guilt.

“Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, but I will come over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself. Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD until He comes to rain righteousness on you. You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors, therefore a tumult will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed. As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. Thus, it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.”

Guilt, faithless, worthless, poisonous, idolatrous, shame, iniquity, double guilt, wickedness. Injustice, lies, tumult, destruction. Not much to write home about, not much to be proud of. In fact, nothing to be proud of at all since it was actually Israel’s pride, her sense of self-sufficiency, her sense of self-willed independence from the Lord which had put her in the position she was now in, this position of faithless failure.

With that, we’ll just dive right into it, verse-by-verse starting in verse 1. “Israel is a luxuriant vine; he produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, the more altars he made; the richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars.” Last week, in Hosea 9:10, we saw Hosea use a different botanical metaphor to describe Israel. In chapter 9, verse 10 he said, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.” As we saw last week that was a reference to the early days when God had first set His love upon Israel. And here in Hosea 10:1 the prophet is back to what is his present day. And he describes the Israel of his day as “a luxuriant vine.” Now, Hosea is not the only Old Testament author who likened Israel to a vine. The fact that the Lord planted Israel like a vine in the land of Canaan and caused her to bear fruit and prosper is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Psalm 80:8-9 says, “You removed a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground before it, and it took deep root and filled the land.” Jeremiah 2:21 says “Yet I planted you a choice vine, a completely faithful seed.” Isaiah 5:1-3 says, “Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved,” this is Yahweh speaking about Israel, “had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine.” And then here in Hosea, Israel’s described as “a luxuriant vine.” And that reference to it being “a luxuriant vine” is referencing its agricultural prosperity in its once golden past.

But the text then takes a quick turn with these next words, “He produces fruit for himself.” Israel was prosperous and it was successful, but it was self-sufficient, “He produces fruit for himself.” Not only that, as the people prospered they erroneously attributed their success to the false gods of the land, rather than to the Lord. We saw that earlier in the book when Yahweh says, in Hosea 2:8: “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil.” This was a big deal because back in the days of Moses this exact type of selective memory and misremembering of history and failure to attribute to God what was due to Him was specifically warned against by God against an earlier generation of Israelites.

In fact, turn with me to Deuteronomy 8, Deuteronomy 8. Earlier days, still days of grumbling as we know but overall better days as they looked to the Promised Land. Look at Deuteronomy 8 starting in verse 7, this is God speaking to Israel. They are on the peninsula, approaching the Promised Land finally after their years of wandering, getting ready to enter and look what the Lord says. Deuteronomy 8:7, He says, “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. It shall come about that if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.”

What we see warned against here in Deuteronomy 8, fast forwarding 700 or so years, was an apt description of the Israel of Hosea’s day. They were a luxuriant vine, they were productive and prosperous, but they had forgotten Who it was who had made them prosper. “He produces,” it says, “fruit for himself.” Quite the slap in the face to the One who had actually produced and provided for them.

Not only that, though, the rest of verse 1 gives us even more dark clues about the orientation of the hearts of these people. Let’s read the rest of verse 1, it says, “The more his fruit, the more altars he made. The richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars.” In other words, the more the Lord blessed them the further they turned away from the Lord. They were putting on this outward show of religious devotion, but their devotion wasn’t to Yahweh. They were Israelites in name only. Their devotion was to the false gods of the land who they foolishly thought were filling their bellies. So, the more the land prospered, the people doubled down on their false worship practices. And they built and beautified these altars and sacred pillars which they used to worship these pagan deities. And God hated their religious hypocrisy. He had already warned them in Hosea 6:6 where He said, “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” And He had already called out their hypocritical formalism in Hosea 8:13 where He says, “They sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but the Lord has taken no delight in them.”

So, in one sense, Israel was a luxuriant vine, it was still in Hosea’s day a productive and a fruitful land. But it was bringing forth its own fruit, not the type of fruit that God was looking for. Israel was a withered vine. Yes, there was some fruit still on the vine but upon closer inspection of the fruit, what it showed was that the hearts of the people were far from their God, in other words, the fruit was rotten. Nevertheless, Yahweh was and is a merciful Vinedresser. And as we’ll see in a few weeks when we get there, He had promised Israel, in Hosea 14:7, that they would one day again “blossom like the vine.” But that day hadn’t arrived yet and judgment and exile were still imminent.

So, Yahweh here gives His divine assessment of Israel’s condition in verse 1. In verse 2 He begins to outline the divine judgment that’s about to fall on them. Look at verse 2, He says “Their heart is faithless; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars.” That word “faithless” in Hebrew is “halaq.” It literally means slippery or smooth. We often see this word used in the Old Testament to describe deceitful, unreliable speech. Like in Psalm 12:2 it speaks of those who “speak falsehood to one another; with flattering lips,” that’s the word “halaq” there, “with a double heart they speak.” Or Psalm 55:21 says, “His speech was smoother,” that’s the word here, “halaq,” “than butter, but his heart was war; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.”

So, when used to describe the tongue with this word here for “faithless” that we see in Hosea 10:2 refers to a slippery, smoother than a knife cutting through butter, type of tongue. But here in verse 2 Hosea’s not referring to the tongues of the people. He’s referring to the heart of faithless Israel, he says, “their heart is faithless.” And applied to the heart that Hebrew term, “halaq,” refers to the hypocrisy which characterized Israel’s approach to the Lord. Their hearts were divided, their hearts were treacherous which we’ve just seen in verse 1 where it says, “The more his fruit, the more altars he made. The richer his land, the better he made the sacred pillars.”

But also, we’ve seen this idea, this divided and treacherous mindset and Israel’s divided and treacherous hearts all throughout the book. Israel has been described so far, in Hosea, as a harlot, as an adulteress, as a stubborn heifer, as revolters, as a cake not turned, as a silly dove, as a deceitful bow. And a faithless and divided heart had long been Israel’s tragic flaw. They knew that they were called to a singular and devoted love for the Lord. Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” They would have stated their allegiance to Yahweh as His chosen nation, as His people, as those with whom He had entered into covenant. But at the same time, they were very openly living lives and engaging in practices which undermined their statement of allegiance. I appreciate how one commentator puts it. He says, “Through the law, Israel had received a sense of what was right, but that sense was met by an overwhelming love for doing what was wrong.” They did not cleave to the Lord. They did not have a singular devotion to Him. They were double minded (if I can borrow from this morning’s sermon). They were two souled. They said with their lips that they were worshiping Yahweh but in reality their hearts were far from Him. They had been warned going back to the days of Moses and the second giving of the Law in Deuteronomy against having this kind of divided heart, but they ignored the warnings and now they were about to pay the price.

That price is given in the next part of verse 2 where it says, “now they must bear their guilt.” Israel was guilty, guilty of unfaithfulness, guilty of spiritual adultery. And guilt before an all-holy, all-pure, all-just God necessitates punishment. And Yahweh here was about to issue His sentence. He was about to deliver His punishment when He says, “now they must bear their guilt.” And we’re going to see similar language about punishment and retribution later in the book of Hosea. You can jot down for now, Hosea 12:14 where it says, “Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and bring back his reproach to him.” Or Hosea 13:16 says, “Samaria will be guilty, for she has rebelled against her God.” Israel’s sin, in other words, had necessitated her punishment.

And Israel’s punishment was going to be leveled at the very places which represented the heart of her false and compromised worship. Look at the end of verse 2. Here we see the judgment and the retribution starting to come down. “The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars.”

Well, it wasn’t just the religious altars though. And it wasn’t just the shrines that Yahweh was going to cause to topple and collapse as He shattered and broke them down. He was also going to tear down the political structures of the land. Look at verse 3, he says, “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?’” Now, going back to the earliest days of Israel’s history we know from Sunday School days that Israel, the nation had always wanted a king. It wanted a king because it wanted to be like the other nations which had kings. It wasn’t satisfied, the nation wasn’t, with the truth of Psalm 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” They wanted to do things their way, not God’s way.

Well, they got their kings. They got Saul. They got David. They got Solomon in the days of the unified kingdom. And then they got various other men, various other kings in the days of the divided kingdom leading all the way up to the time of exile. And the last five kings of Israel by the way, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, Hoshea, (not Hosea) were such abject failures and so completely unworthy of trust or respect that the people of Israel here in Hosea 10:3 are being portrayed as recognizing that the situation was so hopeless and dire and recognizing that the kings of their nation were so impotent and powerless that not even they, meaning their kings, could be looked to as a source of hope and relief from the judgment about to come upon the nation from Yahweh. It was as though, as it says at the beginning of verse 3 here, that “we have no king.” Which then leads to this pointed question, at the end of verse 3, where it says, “As for the king, what can he do for us?” And the answer was nothing.

We can see the reality of, the futility of, relying upon kings fleshed out in fuller detail in Hosea 13:9-11. Hosea 13:9-11, you can actually turn there with me. It’s just a page over. Look at Hosea 13:9. We’ll be here in a month or so. It says, “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.” No king, no mere man, even if he wore a crown, even if he held a scepter in his hand, was going to rescue Israel now. And the irony here is incredibly thick because we have to remember when Israel first asked for a king - or better stated, demanded a king - back in 1 Samuel 8, what was one of the reasons they gave to God for why they needed a king? 1 Samuel 8:20, they say they needed a king to “go out” for them and to fight battles for them, to lead them into battle, to protect them from their enemies. But now, as of the time of Hosea their optimism in their kings you could say had waned because now they are saying in Hosea 10:3, “As for the king, what can he do for us?”

A dark picture is being painted here, but even then we have this glimmer of hope and it’s wedged right between these two statements here in Hosea 10:3. Look at the middle portion of Hosea 10:3, it says, “For we do not revere the Lord.” That’s a pretty incredible sentence.
First, because they are using God’s personal name here. They hadn’t forgotten that the name of the Lord, the name of their God, is Yahweh. But second, because there is at least some recognition here on the part of Israel that they did not revere Him, they were not worshipping Him aright, they did not fear Him. And they did not give Him the exclusive and diligent honor and reverence that He is due.

Now is this a statement of repentance, like full on repentance as in: we do not revere the Lord and we’re going to start revering Him now? I don’t think so. I actually don’t think this is godly sorrow. The kind of godly sorrow that Paul later in the New Testament would speak of in 2 Corinthians 7:10. At most, what I think we see here when it says, “for we do not revere the Lord,” is awareness. It’s an awareness that they did not revere the Lord the way an atheist in our day is aware that they reject the God they claim is not there. (Which, by the way, itself highlights the illogic of the atheistic position.) But the atheist’s awareness of where they stand is not repentance, right? No. It’s just that, it’s awareness. So it was with Israel, their awareness that they did not revere the Lord did not mean that they had repented, had turned to the Lord.

Why do I take the position I do? Well, I take that position actually because of what comes next in verse 4 where it says, “They speak mere words.” What an indictment! You know, throughout its history Israel had spoken meaningless words of allegiance to the Lord while making covenants with surrounding nations and worshiping false gods with which the Lord had nothing to do. And this here in verse 4 is yet another concrete manifestation of the peoples’ devious hearts. Their words were hollow, their promises were weightless, they were double-minded deceivers, they couldn’t be trusted. And their lack of concern for the Lord Himself was only further demonstrated by their lack of regard for the covenants they entered into where it says, “with worthless oaths they make covenants.” Their word was not their bond, their yes was not their yes, their no was not their no, they couldn’t be trusted.

And so, because of their faithlessness in each of these areas, in their compromised worship, in their divided faithless hearts, in their untrustworthy speech, in their broken bonds, the people of Israel here were about to yield to a harvest of judgment. Look at the rest of verse 4, it says, “And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.” The picture here is of a farmer going out to the field that he’s plowed and planted, expecting to find a good crop, only to find poisonous plants have overtaken the field instead. Israel sowed seeds of its own judgment which were now sprouting like poisonous weeds. What they had sown wasn’t producing something enjoyable or even eatable, instead what they had sown was producing poison. Again, Israel was not only a luxuriant vine, she was a deceptive and a destructive vine, and ultimately a withered vine who was yielding false and poisonous fruit.

Now, as we turn to verses 5-8, we’re here given some of the details of the approaching judgment and exile that was coming upon Israel. Take a look at verse 5, and we’ll read into the first part of verse 6, it says, “The inhabitants of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn for it, and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it, over its glory, since it has departed from it. The thing itself will be carried to Assyria as tribute to King Jareb.”
Now, what’s being described here is truly pitiful, truly pathetic. You know, the people of Israel had been calling themselves the children of God. But at the same time, they’d been worshiping the deities and the idols of the surrounding nations, which included this particular idol, a calf idol, which was done in connection with worshiping the local Canannite god, Baal. And Israelites were doing this at Bethel, which means house of God, the very place where Jacob several generations earlier had laid his head down and had that very infamous dream. But in the eyes of God, Bethel was no longer Bethel (Bethel meaning house of God), instead, Bethel was Beth-aven, which means house of iniquity. What a sad and stunning turn of events. We saw a reference to this calf idol back in Hosea 8:5, where Hosea says to the people, “He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’ ” Well, here in Hosea 10:5, what’s being described as “the inhabitants of Samaria,” which is the capitol city of the northern kingdom, fearing for the calf of Beth-aven, the calf of Bethel, they are fearing for their idolatrous calf god, who is going to be carried away by the invading Assyrians.

Do you sense the problem here? Do you sense how out of sorts things were in Israel at this time? Just a couple of verses earlier this evening, verse 3, we saw that the people of Israel are described as arriving at this place of self-recognition, where they say, “we do not revere the Lord,” we do not fear Yahweh. And now, in this shocking and saddening contrast with judgment by way of destruction and exile staring them in the face, they are described in verse 5 now as saying, we fear for our calf, the calf at Beth-aven. They don’t fear Yahweh, but they do fear for their idolatrous calf.

Not only that, verse 5 continues, “Indeed, its people will mourn for it, and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it, over its glory, since it has departed from it.” As we saw this morning, in James 4, we as Christians, are called to be miserable and mourn and weep over our sin. Well, God has always expected such a response from His people when they stumble into sin. But that wasn’t the response of the Israelites here. They weren’t miserable and mourning and weeping over their sin, but they were miserable and mourning and weeping over their precious calf idol that was about to be taken away from them. What’s truly ironic and what’s truly sad is that back in the days of Samuel it was the capture of the actual ark of God which Israel lamented. In 1 Samuel 4:21-22, “ ‘The glory has departed from Israel,’ because the ark of God was taken,” it says. But fast forward a few generations and a few centuries, and now Israel is shedding tears for a captured idol. And this once symbol of apostasy, they were lamenting and crying and sad, not because they had grieved the heart of God, but instead, because their precious calf idol was about to be rolled away on a cart.

Indeed, that’s what we see in the first part of verse 6, it says, “The thing itself,” I just want to pause there, that’s an appropriately generic description for the calf idol that Israel was worshiping and now lamenting. It’s not described here, you notice, as the god or this precious treasure or this precious item. It’s given this generic description, “the thing.”

And then the text continues, “The thing itself will be carried to Assyria as a tribute to King Jareb.” The idol which Israel had been so committed to, would be taken away and given as a tribute, a gift, to Assyria’s great king. That’s the meaning of King Jareb, by the way, as we saw back in Hosea 5. Jareb is not the proper name, the given name, of this king; it’s rather a reference to the greatness of this Assyrian king.

Now, ironically, you know, gifts and offerings would have in a prior day been given as offerings to this calf by the Israelites during the heyday of their worship of this calf. But now the calf itself is being offered as a gift to the king of Assyria. There could have been nothing so humiliating to a people to see this god, in whom they had trusted and whom they had been worshiping, carried off captive and taken away, and rolled away on a cart, being pulled by a string or a rope. But that’s exactly what’s happening here in Israel. The god that they had bowed down to and provided gifts and offerings to, was now being carted away. Which again, we’ve seen over and over in this book of Hosea, that highlights the ultimate futility of worshiping man-made idols and images.

And then, continuing on in verse 6, with her god now in the hands of her enemy, in the hands of this Assyrian king, the one the Israelites had so foolishly sought to enter into covenant with for protection, the nation of Assyria, it says that “Ephraim will be seized with shame and Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel.” Finally, though it was ultimately too late, Israel would realize that its worship of the calf god was in violation of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, and its prohibition against worshiping graven images. And finally, Israel would realize its error in following the leadership of Jeroboam all the way back in the days of 1 Kings 12 when he was the one who established calf worship both at Bethel and at Dan. And finally, they were at this point of reaching this right point of being ashamed. Ashamed that they had chosen a golden calf, over a sovereign God. Ashamed that they had chosen an impotent piece of metal, over an all-wise, all-powerful God who loved them. Ashamed that the idol that they had kissed and cradled and bowed down to was capable of being deported and now exiled, over the one who they should have been worshiping all along and given allegiance to all along. Ashamed that they’d clearly made the wrong choice and sinfully so.

But there’s also this reference at the end of verse 6 to them being ashamed of their own counsel. And that’s a reference to the people’s unwise policy of seeking Assyria’s favor and Assyria’s protection in the very years leading up to Assyria’s now plundering them and taking them into captivity. We looked at that a few different places, Hosea 5:13 says, “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound[s], then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb.” Now, Hosea 7:8 says, “Ephraim mixes himself with the nations.” 7:11 says, “Ephraim has become [like] a silly dove, without sense; they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” And Hosea 8:9, these are all these references to them seeking a partnership with Assyria, says, “For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers.” Well now Israel’s false sense of security with Assyria was being stripped away.

And the words of judgment continue on in verse 7, it says, “Samaria will be cut off with her king like a stick on the surface of the water.” Not only Israel’s calf god, but Israel’s king was going to be removed in the coming invasion by Assyria. Having lightly estimated the warnings of God up to this point, Israel, here portrayed as Samaria, would along with her king be cut off and become like a stick floundering helplessly at the mercy of the current along the water.

I’m going to be honest with you guys, teaching through Hosea is tough, Hosea is a tough book, Hosea is a book that is difficult to understand. It’s a book that’s laden with very difficult themes, and some difficult truths. It is a difficult book to teach and preach. I have had many of you say, ‘why did you pick Hosea?’ And I often don’t have a really good answer anymore. But we’re going to get through. But I hope that through teaching this book I’ve been able to give some sense of clarity about what is happening in this book as we work through its various pages and its verses.

But not withstanding its many difficulties, one thing that really stands out in Hosea is its use of vivid and clear imagery. Such as right here in verse 7 where the king that Israel had clamored for, the king they had trusted in, the king they had previously thought would be their source of strength and protection like a mighty oak or a sturdy redwood -- is now here portrayed as a mere twig on the surface of a stream of water, moving along the water, totally beholden to the direction of the current, with no control, with no ability to change its course, as its whisked helplessly away.

Now, earlier in this chapter, in verse 3, the theme of political impotence of the king was introduced. “As for the king,” it says, “what can he do for us?” Now it’s being truly emphasized. The answer is he can’t do anything. He’s “like a stick on the surface of the water”, and he’s about to be carried away, “cut off,” done away with. The sheer folly of looking for deliverance from such a powerless and helpless king, that’s what’s really being stressed here. You’ve got to think of passages like Psalm 93:1, which says, “The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength.” You’ve got to think of contrasting passages, like Psalm 99:1 – “The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble; He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake!” The people had that Lord that they could have called on to be their king. They instead looked to mere men, human kings, sinful kings. And now, their king is being compared to this helpless stick upon the water.

As we turn to verse 8, we read more stark and foreboding words of judgment. It says, “Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed; thorn and thistle will grow on their altars.” Now, high places were unfortunately prevalent throughout these dark chapters of Israel’s history. 1 Kings 14:23 says “For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree.” We saw back in Hosea 4:13 “They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains and burn incense on the hills.” Here “the high places of Aven” are being singled out and that appears again to be a reference to Beth-Aven which is actually Bethel. And Bethel as we saw in verse 5 was now being referred to by God as Beth-Aven, meaning house of wickedness. And all sorts of wickedness was being done in the high places of both the northern and southern kingdoms.

And these high places in verse 8 are called “the sin of Israel” and they’re doomed to this destruction, it says they “will be destroyed.” Now the reference to the destruction of the high places here is actually ironic because when the people of Israel first entered into the Promised Land the Lord commanded them to do what with those high places? Destroy them, but Israel famously failed to do so and instead sidled up to and cozied up to all these false gods and their places of worship. So now the irony is a foreign nation, the Assyrians, were coming to do what Israel should have done long ago., crumble and take down these pillars and high places. And after their destruction these old altars, it says, would be overcome by weeds, it says, “thorn and thistle will grow on their altars.” And then this: “then they will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!’ And to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’ ” What that’s referencing is that the captivity in Assyria, the Israelite’s captivity in Assyria, would be so severe that the people would in utter desperation pray for the mountains and the hills to fall on them, to crush them, to kill them, because death would be preferable to life. And we know of course from Revelation 6:16, fast forwarding in history, that after the church is raptured and the period of Tribulation comes upon this earth, a similar plea is going to be made by unbelievers who are left here as they experience the terror of God’s unleashing of His wrath and as He begins to issue His various judgments.

Bringing it back to Hosea though, the question just has to be asked… as they are giving this prayer saying to the mountains “cover us,” to the hills “fall on us,” the question has to be asked, where are the calf idols? Where’s the golden calf to rescue them in their time of distress? The answer is, of course, they weren’t there. They were on a cart being rolled away, noticeably silent, typically ineffective.

While the orientation in verses 1-8 here is more present and future oriented, when we get to verse 9, Hosea takes us back into Israel’s past. Look what it says, “From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel.” As he did back in Hosea 9:9, which we saw last week, Hosea again here is referring back to that shameful incident at Gibeah mentioned in Judges 19 involving the Levite and his concubine, and her rape and her murder and her dismemberment, and the shame that that incident brought upon the house of Israel in those days.
So, in the way that Jesus would later in Matthew 24 speak of “the days of Noah” as days of judgment, Hosea here is speaking of “the days of Gibeah” as this particularly dark period in Israel’s history which was marked by unrestrained wickedness. And what’s being said here is that since that time, which was several hundred years before Hosea’s time, Israel had persisted in sin. So, here is Hosea giving this warning that the whole nation of Israel is standing like Gibeah of old in a position that demands the judgment of God. Look at the text, verse 9, “There they stand,” which can also be rendered, ‘they have taken their stand there,’ ‘there they have continued,’ ‘there they have remained.’ It’s as though that dark picture from the past in Judges 19 has become freeze-framed, still defining the people of Israel in Hosea’s day.

And then there’s this question at the end of verse 9, “Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah?” And that’s a rhetorical question, very clearly meant to be answered “yes.” But look at how Yahweh describes the people of Israel there. He calls them “sons of iniquity,” sons of wickedness, an unjust people, they were the very embodiment of sin and wickedness and evil. Quite the contrast from the luxuriant vine that they started out as. Quite different than how we saw them portrayed back in Hosea 9:10, where He says, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.” And then, at the end of verse 9, He speaks of “iniquity overtak[ing] them in Gibeah.” And I believe this is a literary device being used by Hosea to bookend this section, this verse 9, to describe the two things that Gibeah was known for. It was known for gross iniquity. We saw that last week, when we studied Judges 19, and the account of the Levite and his concubine. And I do think Hosea’s picking up on that here in verse 9.

But there is also another side to Gibeah’s history, a more recent development during the years of the rule of King Saul. See, under Saul’s reign Gibeah was known for being a city which relied heavily on its force of arms, its military might. In Saul’s day Gibeah was more like a fortress with thick walls and fortified garrisons. So, bringing it forward to Hosea’s day, many centuries later, the words, “Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah,” appears to be a reference to the fact that no matter how strong they tried to be militarily, Israel’s military might would be no match for the coming Assyrians. The people of Israel, the “sons of iniquity” which they were now known as, would be overtaken and overrun and defeated, destroyed, hauled off into captivity. In other words, here in verse 9 both aspects of Gibeah’s history: the wickedness of Gibeah during the days of the judges, and the military build-up of Gibeah during the days of King Saul, appear to be in view with what Hosea’s saying here. And the major idea is Israel’s punishment was about to come via a destructive war and destructive invaders, the Assyrians, who are going to take out these “sons of iniquity.”

And as the next verse tells us, when the Lord brings His judgment on Israel, it will be according to His timetable and no other. Look at verse 10, he says, “When it is My desire, I will chastise them.” At the time of My choosing when I please, I will chastise, literally ‘discipline’ them. Which He would do by gathering the peoples He says, the nations, and in this context meaning Assyria. And He would bring Assyria in to invade them, not one day too early and not one day too late. His perfect justice would be dispensed at just the right time. According to His perfect and sovereign will and decree.

Ephesians 1:11, which chronologically is the first verse of the bible, says that the Lord “works all things after the counsel of His will.” All things, including Israel’s exile, Jesus’ crucifixion, and your recent medical diagnoses, all things. All take place, all have taken place, in accordance with that singular eternal decree. And all that He’s decreed, He accomplishes according to His perfect timetable. And as we know from 2 Peter 3:8, His timetable isn’t always the same as our timetable. 2 Peter 3:8 says, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” So, if the exile seemed too soon for the people of Israel or it seemed too far off for Hosea as he grew more frustrated with the people, it ultimately didn’t matter. Because justice was going to be dispensed perfectly at the right time, in God’s perfect timing. He says, “When it is My desire,” verse 10, “I will chastise them.” At that time, Hosea says, “the peoples will be gathered against them,” which again is a reference to Assyria, the nation that was getting ready to descend on Israel, to pluck her away, to bring he into captivity.

And then there are these words at the end of verse 10, “When they are bound for their double guilt.” And that word “bound” here isn’t being used in a way we might think of it, like ‘it was bound to happen,’ or like ‘they were bound for double guilt’ in the sense that they were destined for double guilt. Rather, that’s not the sense here. The language here is referring to what the people were bound to, what they were tied to, what they were harnessed to. And they were harnessed to their double guilt. Israel here, is being pictured as being yoked to her sin like a cow or like an ox.

And what is its double guilt? Some have seen this as a reference to Israel receiving a deserved double portion of judgment for all of her sin. And there was much that falls under that umbrella of all of her sin. I think a better rendering here of double guilt actually is double sin. As we just saw in the reference to Gibeah, there was much in Israel’s past, its former sin, that it was still yoked to that was worthy of judgment. But there was still very much, plenty of sin in Israel’s present, in Hosea’s day, as we’ve seen throughout this book. So, in that sense, past and present, Israel was bound or harnessed to her double guilt. There was a ‘then and now’ aspect to Israel being harnessed to her sin. They were bound to their sin then and they were bound to their sin now during the times of Hosea.

And the thrust of what’s happening here is clear. Yahweh here is preparing to bring down judgment upon Israel for their sinfulness, He’s about to “chastise them.” And He’s going to do it as He says, “When it is My desire.” And He’s going to do it by way of these surrounding nations, namely Assyria. And He’s going to do it because of their “double guilt”, to which they’ve been “bound” and harnessed. So, in verse 10, we see Israel described as being harnessed, yoked, bound to their sin.

The agricultural references continue in verse 11 where he says, “Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, but I will come over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.” Now, by now, most of you know that I’m a Californian. I’m a total city slicker. So, when I first encountered this passage as I studied it this week, you can imagine the size of the lump forming in my throat, because I had no idea, literally, what was happening here in verse 11. When I saw the words “heifer” and “threshing” and “plowing” and “harrowing,” I don’t even know if I even pronounced the word “harrowing” correctly, I was worried. Well, after a lot more studying of the word, and I’ll admit a YouTube video or two, I think I’ve been able to figure it out.

Verse 11 starts with, “Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh.” And Ephraim here is another term again for Israel, the northern kingdom. And it’s called here a “trained heifer,” a female cow that is not yet given birth to a calf, and it says, it “loves to thresh.” And threshing compared to other tasks and activities that cows of this day would engage in was considered comparatively light work. And it was made even better, by the fact, from the cow’s vantage point, that the cow would be unmuzzled for this task, meaning as they were pulling the threshing sledge they could actually eat along the way whatever was being threshed. So, lighter work and an ability to eat while on the job, not too bad. Again, this is picturing though, Israel in her earlier days in the land of Canaan.

But looking back to verse 10, we see that Israel chose a harder way. They chose to wear the crushing weight of the yoke of sin. They chose to be “bound for their double guilt.” And sin is, and always will be, a brutal taskmaster. But look at what Yahweh says He would do for Israel, as we continue reading in verse 11. He says, “But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke.” A better yoke, not as weighty as the yoke of sin, but a yoke still.

And He says, “I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.” Ephraim and Jacob, those are references to the Northern Kingdom Judah is a reference to the Southern Kingdom. Judah would plow, meaning break up the hard earth. And Jacob would harrow, meaning that next phase of flattening and leveling the ground that had already been plowed.
The idea here though is that from north to south, all over the kingdom, harder days were ahead. And the judgment that Israel was about to face was comprehensive. They were moving from the relatively easy task of threshing, which was a picture of their time in the Promised Land, to this extremely arduous work of plowing and harrowing, which was a picture of the many hardships they were about to face in Assyria. They had had it easy back home in Canaan, they were threshing, they were laboring lightly. They were eating while they were doing so. But now, these hard and difficult years of plowing were ahead of them in Assyria, hard days which would make them yearn for the days back in the Promised Land.

That would have been a hard message to hear. That would have been a difficult message to take in. Even then though, Yahweh signals in the next verse that He wasn’t through with Israel. And that there still was the potential, the possibility, of repentance and blessing. Look at verse 12, he says, “Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.”
Still using agricultural imagery here, sowing, reaping, raining, breaking up fallow ground. Hosea here urges Israel to turn to the Lord and to seek the Lord. There was still time to turn to Yahweh, there was still time to repent. Until that first Assyrian invader broke through the city gates, there was time to abate God’s judgment. And they could do so by sowing righteousness, it says, and reaping in accordance with kindness (the word there is “hesed”), and breaking up the fallow ground of their hearts which had been so cluttered with idolatry.

If they were going to accept Yahweh’s gracious offer though, they needed to act quickly. Because look at what it says here in verse 12, midway down it says, for “it is time to seek the Lord.” That calls to mind, different context, different day, different author, the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:2, when he says, “Behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation.’ ” There’s no time to waste.
And verse 12 here in Hosea ends with these words, “Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” And that’s an event, by the way, that’s going to happen ultimately for Israel in the millennial kingdom reign of her Messiah. In other words, we have here as we’ve had throughout this prophecy, an instance of prophetic foretelling happening here.

But this glimpse into Israel’s glorious future is quite short-lived. Israel is not presently in the millennium, nor is the church. And in verse 13-15, we’re immediately pulled back away from this vision of future millennial blessing to the realities of Israel’s sinful ways, in its realities in Hosea’s day. Look at verse 13, reading into verse 14, he says, “You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors, therefore a tumult will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed.”
Instead of plowing new ground of righteousness… in other words, Israel had continued to turn up old ground of wickedness. Instead of plowing loyal love, they were bent on a harvest of injustice. Instead of sowing righteousness and reaping kindness and breaking up the fallow ground of their stony sinful hearts, Israel went in the complete opposite direction, as they plowed wickedness, and reaped injustice, and ate the fruit of lies, it says.

Instead of faithfulness, Israel had plowed the opposite, sowed the opposite, faithlessness.
Not only that, while David had said in Psalm 20:7, “some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God,” Israel went the other way. Israel trusted in itself, that’s what it says here in the middle of verse 13, because “You have trusted in your way.” Which in turn, was tied to the fact that they had, it says, “numerous warriors.” They weren’t trusting in God’s power. They were trusting in human, military might, which was in direct violation of Psalm 146:3, which says, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.” As a sinful nation and a sinful people, the people of Israel had placed their faith and their confidence in the wrong objects. They had trusted in anything, everything, anyone except their God. Armies, altars, their identity as the chosen people of God, just not God Himself.

And with this misdirected placement of trust, that would lead them to more military defeats, as we see laid out in verses 14-15. And that brings us to the final scene, at least of this section and chapter, which describes some of the military defeat that Israel was about to face.
We’ll just read all of verse 14, it says, “Therefore a tumult will arise against your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed,” And by the way, tumult there is just describing the sounds of war. The roaring, terrifying sounds of ancient combat, the clashing of metal, the clip-clopping of hooves, the battle cries, the shouts of wounded soldiers and civilians. And then it says, “All your fortresses will be destroyed,” meaning no part of Israel will escape destruction. The picture here is of buildings collapsing, and city walls imploding, and city stones tumbling, and people dying, and bodies being buried under the rubble.

And the event that was about to befall the people of Israel is compared to a different event. Here we see it in verse 14, it says, “As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.” In other words, the severity of the judgment that was about to come upon Israel, is emphasized by comparing it to this historical incident that was apparently very well known to the people of Hosea’s day. And we don’t actually know with precision the identity of this Shalman. As good a guess as any is that it’s Shalmaneser, an Assyrian ruler who campaigned against the West in the ninth century B.C. The exact location of Beth-arbel is actually uncertain. But what is certain is that this particular battle was remembered by the people of Hosea’s day for their atrocities, and especially here, the slaughter of women and children. And what is certain is that the memory of those heinous crimes would have lingered like a shadow over the people of Hosea’s day. And now they’re being told that they’re going to experience a similar fate because of their sin.

And then verse 15, “Thus it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.” There’s that comparison language, “thus it will be done to you,” meaning Israel. And then it says, “At dawn the king of Israel will be completely cut off.” And the king mentioned here, by the way, is Hoshea (not Hosea), the king who was toppled in 722 B.C. He would be defeated, as it says here, at dawn. And his fall would be signaling the conquest of the people as a whole by Assyria. Yahweh had given the people of Israel warning after warning about the punishment that He was about to bring on His own people. And now that day was upon them. They were to be completely “cut off.” And they, this once luxuriant vine, was now a withered vine and they would be cut off, too.

Not forever, though, right? Not forever. As we’ve already seen, this metaphor of the vine is not reserved to the book of Hosea. Earlier we quoted Psalm 80:8-9, earlier we quoted Jeremiah 2:21, and earlier we quoted Isaiah 5:1-3, as all being prior references to Israel being a vine.
Well, there’s one more vine passage that we need to consider. One that I’ve held behind my back so far and kept from you. One that has a future orientation. And one that looks ahead to the future Kingdom blessings that Israel will one day enjoy during her 1,000-year reign, the reign of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, here on earth. Turn with me, if you would, to Isaiah 27. We’ll close with this this evening. Isaiah 27, and we’ll pick it up in verse 2. It says, “In that day, a vineyard of wine, sing of it! I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day. I have no wrath. Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, then I would step on them, I would burn them completely. Or let him rely on My protection, let Him make peace with Me, let Him make peace with Me. In the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom and sprout, and they will fill the whole world with fruit.”
What promises for Israel. What a glorious hope for Israel. And what a glorious future we as the church have as we look forward to sharing in these future blessings with God’s original covenant people, ruling and reigning with the One who is called the “true vine,” John 15:1, the Lord Jesus Christ, one day.

Let’s pray. God thank You for this evening in Your word. Thank You for the book of Hosea. Thank You for its truths. Thank You for the truth of Your word as a whole. Thank You for the reminders throughout this book of Hosea of how faithful You are, how perfectly faithful You are and always will be. And thank You for the picture and the truth that we have here of a faithless people, Israel. A people who You had described in Your word as being the apple of Your eye, but a people who were obstinate and stiff-necked, and turned away from You so often. Yet, as we continue to see in Hosea, You have a plan for Israel. You are a faithful covenant-keeping God, who will always remain faithful to Your promises. And that’s a promise and a truth that we can carry over into the modern-day church age. Knowing that You are that same faithful God that we worship, the God who has spoken to us, the God that has revealed Himself in creation and nature. The God who revealed Himself through our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The God who reveals Himself through the word. We can look to the word and we can know that You are that same faithful, promise-keeping, covenant-keeping God that Israel turned away from. May we learn lessons from this text. May we learn lessons from the book of Hosea. And continue to see our temptation to drift into faithlessness, but Your continual and steadfast faithfulness. Thank You for this Lord’s Day, God. Thank You for the privilege that we have had to gather around Your word and to enjoy its riches. May we represent You well. And glorify Your great name in the week ahead. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen