TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   4.   Hosea’s charge: God’s people are unfaithful (5:4-7)

4 Your deeds won’t let you return to your God.

You are a prostitute through and through,

and you do not know the LORD.

5 “The arrogance of Israel testifies against her;

Israel and Ephraim will stumble under their load of guilt.

Judah, too, will fall with them.

6 When they come with their flocks and herds

to offer sacrifices to the LORD,

they will not find him,

because he has withdrawn from them.

7 They have betrayed the honor of the LORD,

bearing children that are not his.

Now their false religion will devour them

along with their wealth.[*]

NOTES

5:4 You are a prostitute. Hosea seized upon the Lord’s simile comparing Israel’s desertion of God to a prostitute’s abandonment of her husband. Although the NLT renders the verbs in the second person, thus seemingly continuing the Lord’s words from 5:1-3, the verbs are third person in the MT and favor the view that Hosea is now giving his own reaction to the Lord’s pronouncement.

5:5 arrogance. Lit., “pride.” Israel’s vaunted prosperity is that which will bear witness to its wayward course of action. When the good times come to an end, Israel’s source of pride will prove to be misguided. Later, God will point out that already their ground of boasting is shaky at best (7:8-10).

stumble under their load of guilt. The northern kingdom will fall due to its sin. Ultimately, Judah will fare no better.

5:7 bearing children that are not his. Israel’s devotion to Baal produced a generation of people who had not only been immersed in spiritual adultery but had passed it on to the next. The image of prostitution is thus carried forward. Like a wayward wife who has borne children out of wedlock, so apostate Israel has given birth to a society that does not know Israel’s true God.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Hosea pointed out the seriousness of Israel’s spiritual desertion. So entrenched had Israel become in its devotion to Baal that, humanly speaking, Baal’s ubiquitous presence kept the people from knowing God. Because of the great prosperity during the eighth century BC, Israel was all the more attracted to Baal. As the weather and fertility god, he was considered to be the provider of all that they enjoyed. When God’s judgment came against the northern kingdom, the people would see that they had put their trust in a false religious system. They would make frantic attempts to resume their worship of the Lord and its associated sacrifices. By then, however, the tide of doom would be irreversible. Rather than finding God, they would find that their abandonment of him had severed their relationship with him. Indeed, they would face the coming invader alone and without help. The price of betrayal would take its toll. Neither their prosperity nor their Canaanite god would be able to save them in that crucial hour.

How foolish it is to trust in worldly wealth! For it can all disappear so easily (Prov 11:28; 23:4-5; 27:24; Rev 18:14). Riches can do nothing to secure the salvation of one’s soul or make one’s eternal destiny sure (Ps 49:12, 16-20; Luke 12:13-21; 16:19-31). In fact, they may serve to hinder one’s quest for immortality (Matt 19:23-24; Luke 8:14). The wise person will be concerned to receive the eternal riches of God’s Kingdom rather than being preoccupied with the transitory needs of this world (Matt 6:25-33).

It is far better to possess the riches of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, through whom there is the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7) and the availability of eternal life (Acts 4:12; Eph 2:7; 3:8; Col 1:27). With eternal riches secured, the believer can come to understand the nature of true wealth and experience God’s provision of those spiritual blessings that accompany genuine godly living (Phil 4:19; Col 3:16; 1 Tim 6:17-19).