This week we are looking at the books of Hosea and Joel. It was my turn to teach the Sunday School lesson to a class of 9-year-olds, and I was a little nervous about how to present Hosea to that age group. In Hosea 1, the Lord tells Hosea to marry a harlot and father children with her. When children come, they are named "Jezreel" after a valley that was once fertile, but had ruined by repeated warfare, "Lo Ruhamah" which means "no mercy," and "Lo Ammi" which means "Not my people." Then his wife returns to her life of whoredom. This is a analogy for the way that Israel has betrayed their covenant with the Lord by worshiping other gods. In Chapter 2, the Lord pleads with his errant wife, Israel, to return and he promises to once again make her his betrothed.
I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion. (v 19)
In the Law of Moses a man could not only divorce his wife if she were caught in adultery, but he could have her and her lover put to death (Deuteronomy 22:22). The fact that the Lord not only does not want to destroy unfaithful Israel, but instead to once again betroth himself to "her" is remarkable. I asked my class why the Lord would want an unfaithful wife back. One little girl said, quietly, "to give her a second chance." I pressed harder, and asked, "But why would he do that?". The same girl answered "because he loved her." Of course, that is exactly right. The whole image in Hosea is that, despite Israel's betrayal, God still loves Israel, and would take Israel back if they would only turn again to him.
As I was thinking through this, my mind flashed to the incident in the New Testament, when the Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in adultery to Jesus. (John 8: 4-7) All of a sudden that story took on a totally new dimension of meaning. We have to remember that the New Testament was written by Jews for Jews. There was 40+ years after Jesus died before the gospels were written down. During that time the disciples had time to sift through their experiences with Jesus and record the ones of most significance to them. When Jesus told the Pharisees, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first," they all "went out, one by one, beginning at the oldest even to the last." I had always thought that the elders had been condemned by a sense of guilt for their personal sins, but maybe the incident brought back into their minds the books of Jeremiah, and Hosea, and all the other places in the Old Testament, when Israel was compared to an adulterous woman. I think the New Testament writers included this story to show Jews that Jesus, like Jehovah in the Old Testament, was willing to forgive Israel and was, instead, inviting them to come to him and "sin no more." (John 8:11)
Of course, neither the House of Israel in Hosea's time nor most of the Jews in Jesus' time accepted his invitation to "betroth" themselves to him again. We must remember, however, that the head of the Northern tribes of Israel was Ephraim. Today, most people who are baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints who receive their patriarchal blessing are adopted into the tribe of Ephraim. In a way, we are at last accepting his invitation to return unto him and enter into an new covenant of love.
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