God’s Love for Israel (11:1–11)
When Israel was a child, I loved him (11:1). As we have seen already (2:16) and will see again (11:1b; 14:8), Hosea likely employs double entendre. Hosea seems to allow for two meanings of love: (1) the love of father/son adoption, and (2) the love of obligation by virtue of a treaty agreement. The first is supported by the context that follows; it is the affectionate, doting, protective love of a father for a darling, newly adopted young child.65 Hosea’s testimony here provides assurance to all that God has fulfilled the parental obligation of suitable support as stipulated in adoptive agreements. The importance of a testimony of care is well illustrated by an Old Babylonian legal case involving adoption. In that case, testimony that a child received parental care bolstered the claim, disputed by some, that the child was indeed the adopted son of his alleged father and was thus eligible to receive his inheritance.66
The second sense of covenantal love is supported by the context elsewhere in Hosea (e.g., 9:5) and by the general affinity between the notion of covenant in Hosea and in Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut. 6:5; 7:8, 13; 10:15; 23:5).67 This second sense also entails affection, but it includes loyalty that is unwavering regardless of emotions, circumstances, and the like. It is the love of just and obedient behavior that manifests itself in the loyalty of obedience to God’s commandments (as in Deut. 30:16). This covenantal meaning of “love” is attested in ancient Near Eastern treaty agreements (cf. 6:5).
Out of Egypt I called my son (11:1). In addition to this well-known rendering reflected here by the NIV and bolstered by the LXX and Hosea 2:15, there is another possible rendering that opens up two additional connotations. This alternative rendering capitalizes more on the poetic parallelism of the verse and goes like this: “From Egypt [i.e., from/since Israel’s time in Egypt] I called him my son.”68 The first connotation of this other interpretation is that it is proto-messianic: From as early as Israel’s time in Egypt, God had chosen a particular Israelite to be his (adopted) Son. (This connotation may have influenced the messianic understanding of this verse reflected in Matt. 2:15; at the very least, it resonates with Hos. 3:5.)
Regarding the other connotation (which is not independent of the messianic one), the calling of “my son” likely harks back to the legal language of adoption in the ancient Near East,69 much the same way as “you are not my wife” was suggested earlier to have a legal background in the language of divorce (see comment on 2:2). In further testimony of an adoptive connotation, a later nonbiblical, liturgical text from Qumran recalls this verse70 and combines it with language of adoption (i.e., establishment as sons) that is even more explicit: “We have invoked only your name; for your glory you created us; you have established us as your sons in the sight of all the peoples. For you called Israel ‘my son, my firstborn’ and have corrected us as one corrects a son.”71
This adoptive language is relevant because it clarifies that the statement to the children of Israel, “you are not my people” (given in 1:8), is not the last word; as intimated also in 2:23, Yahweh’s desire from the beginning to adopt Israel will not be thwarted. A key part of adoption, of course, includes inheritance of land.
Israel’s Sin and God’s Anger (11:12–13:16)
He … sends olive oil to Egypt (12:1). Olives were not grown in Egypt or Mesopotamia, but were produced in vast quantities in Syria-Palestine. For example, based on a cautious estimate, two hundred villages in the vicinity of Late Bronze Age Ugarit on the Syrian coast produced 5,500 metric tons of oil per year.72 Another study based on texts from Ugarit suggests that, as was the case at Samaria (see note on 2:8), royal officials were receiving olive oil in much larger quantities than other presumably more common (i.e., lower class) groups.73 Evidence closer to Israel clearly indicates that olive oil production was a major industry. Recent excavations at Philistine Ekron (Tel Miqne) have uncovered over one hundred olive presses.74 Presses have similarly been discovered at Timnah (Tel Batash) and Dan (Tel Dan).75
Olive press at Tel Miqne (Ekron)
Bible Scene Multimedia/Maurice Thompson
Hosea paints a picture of wealthy Israelite merchants with connections to (or who came from among) the royal household, exporting a commodity that was prized by wealthy royal officials in Egypt (and also by similar officials in Assyria). Israel shipped this produce to Egypt, knowing that the chances of this superpower coming to Israel’s aid in a time of need would only be increased. Egypt was being lubricated in more than one way!
He wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel (12:4). Hosea is more critical of Jacob here than is the Genesis narrative itself. Moreover, in Genesis there is no mention of Jacob weeping before his angelic wrestling partner, leading some to suggest that Hosea has invented elements of the story. More likely, however, Hosea had access to a slightly different version than the one preserved in Genesis 32. Indeed the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, dating to the time of Moses (Nineteenth Dynasty) and possibly itself derived from a Syro-Palestinian prototype,76 seems crudely to preserve a version of the wrestling story that has some elements in common with Hosea and other elements in common with Genesis 32:1–32.
In the Egyptian story, like the Genesis version, a younger homey brother (called Bata), after fleeing from the wrath of his older brother, prays just prior to an exchange that takes place on either side of a body of water, as a result of which the younger brother sustains an injury that gives rise to a later dietary restriction (cf. Gen. 32:22–32). In the Egyptian tale, like the Hosea version, someone weeps–namely, the younger brother–in protest of his innocence before god (the sun god Re-Harachte, who appears at dawn) and before his older brother (called Anubis). This Egyptian parallel favors the idea that the unidentified weeper in Hosea 12:4 is Jacob. The Egyptian prototype implies that the younger brother is involved in a sort of life-and-death legal trial, which makes apropos Hosea’s inclusion of the story in the context of a (covenant) lawsuit (12:2–4).
What of the implicit link in 12:4 between Jabbok and Bethel, which is disconnected by several chapters in Genesis (i.e., Gen. 32 vs. 28:10–22)? In the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, the aforementioned judgment scene at the river is closely followed by a Bethel-like incident at the Valley of Cedar (or Pine). There the younger brother, after fleeing into exile because of the wrath of the older brother, is visited by divine messengers (in the Egyptian case, the Ennead), after which time a beautiful wife is divinely appointed for him (cf. Gen. 29:1–12). Hosea’s association of Jacob’s wrestling match with Bethel can thus be seen as reflected in an ancient tradition dating to the time and place of Moses.77
Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Their altars will be like piles of stone (12:11). The Hebrew word for “piles of stone” (gallîm) is a wordplay on Gilgal.
Rock altar from Canaanite Megiddo
Kim Walton
He became guilty of Baal worship and died (13:1). Comments on 6:2 noted the possibility that the imagery of God resurrecting Israel might reapply the belief of wayward Israel in a dying and rising god of fertility. There the phenomenon of resurrection was possibly reapplied to Israel at the instigation of the true god Yahweh; here it is the opposite phenomenon of dying that is applied to Israel (Ephraim) as a result of her allegiance to “the Baal,” who was prone to dying.78 Hosea’s point is likely that, by dying, Ephraim has simply followed the way of Baal, a fate all the more tragic in light of her former “exalted” (lit., “lifted up”) state. Here, alas, the cycle of life and death has ended (for now) with death. This interpretation, though plausible, remains uncertain.
Kiss the calf-idols (13:2). Kissing was the common act of submission offered to kings and gods, as attested most famously by the black obelisk of Shalmaneser III, on which the Israelite king Jehu kisses the ground in front of the Assyrian king.79 Likewise, the kissing of the idol involved kissing its feet in an act of homage, submission, and allegiance. Thus, for example, in a letter from Mari, Kibri-Dagan, the governor of Terqa, recommends that Zimri-Lim, king of Mari, proceed to Terqa in order to kiss the feet of the statue of the god Dagan.80
Like smoke escaping through a window (13:3). The typical Israelite pillared house had no chimney through which the smoke of the small camp-fire that was set in the middle of the ground floor in winter could escape.81 Smoke could thus escape only through an open (front) door or else through the windows (which, of course, had no glass). Based on depictions from ivory plaques and, to a lesser extent, from the etymology of the common word for windows (ḥallôn, from the root ḥll, “to perforate”), windows were narrow slits in the walls on the second story of homes (so designed for security and for keeping cool in summer and warm in winter). Here a different word for window is used (ʾ arubbâ), which denotes a window specifically for allowing smoke to escape.82