Context: Hosea and his times (2 Kings 15:29, 17-6-9,13-14, 1 Chronicles 5:25-26)
- Meaning: Hosea from Joshua or Jehoshua meaning Jehovah is salvation
- Timeline (Judah): Uzziah,Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah
- Timeline (Israel): Jeroboam king of Israel to the last king of Israel
- Timeline (Other prophets) during this time: Isaiah, Amos, Jonah and Micah
- People were corrupt. Exploited vulnerable folks. Followed other gods.
- People of Israel already faced captivity from various kingdoms around them
- Syrians – Naaman the leper had a captive girl from Israel
- Assyrians – Pul, Tilgath Pilneser
What was the problem with Israel and Judah? (v6:4,6:7-7:2)
- Dew disappears as soon as the daylight starts up
- Ephraim and Judah’s love was similar to the dew – temporary
- Adam was disobedient. Israel and Judah were also disobedient and unfaithful.
- While we don’t know what exactly happened in Gilead – we get a hint here
- That they are full of iniquity and filled with blood – bloodshed?
- Gangs of robbers
- Even priests? Murder? Commit shameful crimes?
- Problem is not just with Gilead which is part of half tribe of Manasseh
- But also the rest of Israel that Manasseh belongs to
- Horrible things in Israel – it’s defiled.
- But also the rest of Israel that Manasseh belongs to
- Iniquity in Ephraim
- Prostitution? Spiritual?
- Thieves inside and robbers outside
- Israel and the tribes have stopped considering that God would remember their sins
- But their sins, in God’s perspective, completely covered them
What was God’s message to Israel and Judah? (v6:1-3)
- Return to God
- God is the One who tore them to pieces and injured them
- No one else can heal them and bind their wounds except God
- God will revive us in two days – will raise us up on the third day
- That is very soon! If they return
- Another interpretation, is a day = 1000 years?
- That is very soon! If they return
- God is the One who tore them to pieces and injured them
- Acknowledge God (accept / admit the existence or the truth of)
- He will come with showers of blessings – like spring rain that waters earth
- Focus on mercy and knowing God
- Not sacrifices and burnt offerings
Can sacrifices and burnt offerings get in the way of gaining knowledge of God? (v6:6)
- How do we gain knowledge of God?
- ___________________________________________________________________________
- Are there “religious” things today that get more priority or easier to do than gaining knowledge of God?
- ___________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion / Application
- Are sacrifices and burnt offerings keeping me from gaining the knowledge of God?
- Am I acknowledging God in everything I do? (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Main Passage Hosea 6:1-7:2 – World English Bible (WEB)
6 “Come! Let’s return to Yahweh;
for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him.
3 Let’s acknowledge Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear.
He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.”
4 “Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early.
5 Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning.
6 For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7 But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.
8 Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.
9 As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man,
so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.
10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled.
11 “Also, Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
7 When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria;
for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.
2 They don’t consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face.
Notes / Cross References
2 Kings 5:1-2 1 Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 2 The Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maiden; and she waited on Naaman’s wife.
2 Chronicles 30:9-10 9 For if you turn again to Yahweh, your brothers and your children will find compassion before those who led them captive, and will come again into this land, because Yahweh your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.” 10 So the couriers passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun, but people ridiculed them and mocked them.
2 Kings 15:29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.
1 Chronicles 5:25-26 25 They trespassed against the God of their fathers, and played the prostitute after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God destroyed before them. 26 So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.
2 Kings 17:6-9,13-14 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 7 It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8 and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. 9 The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;
13 Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” 14 Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God.
1 Samuel 15:21-23 21 But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the best of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.” 22 Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.”
