Holding onto life or death and why it matters
Hos 13:1-16
While grocery shopping the other day, I saw a woman ahead of me at the checkout buying traditional cigarettes. There was some delay in locating her favourite brand and as I watched the scene, I was startled at the outsized banner on top of the packet that she eventually bought, which read SMOKING KILLS. It struck me how incongruent it was that someone would go out of their way to get what spells death in such large letters. Of course, I noticed the signage because I am not used to it, while for those who habitually buy cigarettes, the banner, I suspect, is practically invisible, its message contested or dismissed. Whatever smoking does or does not do, that little scene seemed to me a striking image of the kind of spiritual malaise that Israel struggled with. God has warned them that when they choose idols, they choose death, but they seemed oblivious to the danger.
When Israel chose death
Ephraim, as a prominent tribe whose pronouncements the rest of Israel listened to with awe, led the way in Baal worship, which spelt the people’s death (Hos 13:1). Like Adam and Eve were dead after their sin, long before their physical death (Gen 2:17; 5:3-5), so Israel continued for hundreds of years before physical destruction caught up with them. Yet, the deeper they went into sin, making idols and kissing-worshipping created animals (Hos 13:2), the more insubstantial they became. When disaster struck, they would be like the morning mist and dew that disappear without a trace, and like chaff and smoke that are blown away (Hos 13:3). Perhaps most astonishingly, they had personal experience of God’s deliverance from slavery, of His care of them when they were hungry, yet they forgot the true source of their provision in the days of plenty (Hos 13:4-6; cf. Deut 8:11-20).
The rejected Helper
The very same God, their Provider, will now become their Destroyer. Comparing God to wild animals who tear their prey apart is shocking (Hos 13:7-8), but it points to the fierce judgement to come. The human instrument, Assyria will be brutal, ripping open pregnant women and dashing children to pieces (Hos 13:16) – but it will not happen without God’s knowledge or consent (cf. Isa 10:5-6).[1] Much as this is uncomfortable to hear, we must not evade the truth that those who reject the Lord as Saviour will meet Him as their Judge and Destroyer. Israel’s tragedy is summed up in the statement, ‘It is your destruction, O Israel, That you are against Me, against your help.’ (Hos 13:9).[2] Declining their only true help and trusting instead in human institutions like kingship, God will make them experience the volatility of such support (Hos 13:10-11). The reference is likely to the last years of the monarchy when assassination followed assassination (2 Kings 15:8-10, 13-14, 23-25, 30).[3] Ephraim will be like a breach baby, who will not present in the right position to be born and will die along with his ‘mother’, Israel (Hos 13:13). God will not save them; He will not show compassion (Hos 13:14).[4] Like cattle grazing in the lush environment of rushes only to find it all suddenly dried up, Israel will know famine, destitution and meet its gruesome end (Hos 13:15-16).
Wanting the goods while rejecting God
Israel’s tragedy reminds me of recent debates among atheists (Richard Dawkins and others), who insist that it is possible to construct a morality without God. They reject God but want the fruit of that reality, a good life and a good society where people do not harm each other but are loving and kind. However, such behaviour is given its raison d’être by the God who created us in His image and with intrinsic worth and who demonstrated this kind of selfless love Himself. If we and the universe are random particles that came together without rhyme or reason, then who is to say what we should or should not do, what is right and wrong? As Christians, we can fall into the same trap of wanting what only God can give without wanting God with it. We may be tempted to reject His way and His help and choose perhaps our own strength, strategies and coping mechanisms that superficially control but do not heal, or other means that promise good but can only give temporary joy or pleasure. May we choose God as our Helper, the One who gives life.
[1] Isaiah’s prophecy, however, makes a distinction in that it highlights that Assyria has its own motive for conquest and God will eventually judge it for its arrogance and cruelty (Isa 10:7-14).
[2] The Hebrew is difficult and reads ‘It/he destroys you, O Israel, that [you are] against me, against your help’, or potentially as ‘for in me [is] your help’. Either way, the sense is clear. Israel rejected God and turned against Him, their only help.
[3] Alternatively, the reference might be historical, pointing to the choosing of Saul and his later rejection (1 Sam 8:22; 9:17; 15:28) at the beginning of the monarchy. However, Hosea 13:10 speaks of the contemporary situation in the prophet’s time and may allude to the Assyrian imprisonment of King Hoshea, Israel’s last king (2 Kings 17:4-5). Thus, when Assyria finally besieged Samaria, King Hoshea was no longer there to organise the defense (Hos 13:10). Duane A. Garrett also argues that the giving and taking away of a king is closely linked to Hosea’s present. As he asserts, the Hebrew imperfect verbs in v.11 more naturally mean a future tense (‘I will give you a king… and will take him away…’). Garrett identifies the king given as the king of Assyria and the one taken away as Hoshea, the last Israelite monarch. Hosea, Joel, NAC 19a (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1997), 261. In my view, the reference is either to the rapid succession of kings in the last years of the monarchy, so that the singular ‘king’ is a generic reference to those last kings or it speaks of Hoshea as both willed by God to be king and taken away by Him. Although there are human agents in the process of kings being removed (Assyria or usurpers who assassinate their predecessor), Hos 13:11 names God as the primary cause behind the historic events.
[4] Hosea 13:14 is a difficult verse that those who know Paul’s quotation of it (1 Cor 15:55) want to read positively, i.e. that God will rescue from death. It is argued that Hosea has abrupt switches elsewhere, so it should not surprise us here. Finally, the Hebrew of the first two lines is phrased as a statement rather than a question (I shall ransom… I shall redeem…). However, it is not uncommon in Hebrew that a statement is to be read as a rhetorical question, and context determines whether this is so. If read as a statement, then God is promising to rescue Israel, but this is doubtful in my view for two reasons. First, compassion being hidden from God’s sight (v.14) suggests a negative interpretation (this is also Douglas Stuart’s argument). Hosea-Jonah, WBC 31 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 207. God is not going to step in to save Israel. Second, even though Hosea has some abrupt switches from judgment to hope, they do run on for several verses, even if they sometimes cross chapter divisions (e.g. Hos 1:10-11; 2:1, 14-23; 5:15; 6:1-4; 11:8-11, etc.). If read positively, this one verse is incongruous in a chapter of unrelenting judgement that otherwise hangs together as a unit. Finally, the NT quote need not confuse us. Paul is not giving an exposition of Hosea but re-reads this verse in the light of Christ’s resurrection. What was once a poetic call to Death to do its worst (‘come now death and bring on your sting/thorn!’), is now a taunt against death (‘where is your sting now, death?’) in the light of Jesus’ resurrection and victory over death.
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