Go, show your
love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress (Hosea 3:1).
On the surface,
Hosea is the tragic story of a marriage ravaged by infidelity. Hosea’s wife
Gomer is a prostitute. Written to the northern kingdom, the tale of the prophet
and his wife parallels that of Yahweh and Israel. Yahweh is the husband, Israel
is the wife, and Baal is her lover who threatens the marriage. The clear
message is that God would be well within his rights to divorce Israel. He has
been humiliated enough.
In a tender turn of
events, God makes the choice to continue loving his wife. I am going
to [romance] her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her (NIV 1984, 2:14). Likewise, even though
Deuteronomy alludes to serving an unfaithful wife with a certificate of divorce
(24:1), God tells Hosea to once again pursue his bride.
In what must have
been a degrading response to his overtures of love, Gomer apparently demanded
payment (a measure of barley and fifteen shekels of silver) before going home
with her husband (3:2).
Hosea’s message is
that God loves Israel not because it deserves to be loved, but because that’s
the way God’s love is. It is also a wonderful reminder to us of God’s
faithfulness.
What if we loved
others the way God loves us?
TODAY’S MEDITATION
What does it mean to you
that God remains faithful even when we are unfaithful?
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