The tempting philosophy of ‘God and…’ and its results
Hos 9:1-17
I recently heard the testimony of a Christian woman who raised five children while holding down a demanding job. She was Superwoman, a loving wife, mother and effective worker. Except all this took a toll and when she collapsed with a nervous breakdown, she came to understand that she was not indispensable, at work or at home. It was only as her strength was taken that she realised how much she looked not only to God but also to her performance to give her a sense of worth and identity. The issue was not either-or but both-and. Our Western culture encourages us to see productivity, efficiency, and achievement as a measure of our self-worth and a source of identity. Thus, making such a connection in our thinking may seem so self-evident, even natural that it becomes invisible to us that our trust is divided between God and other things.
Seeming success but worse to come
For Israel, the goal of daily life was fertility, in agricultural terms and in the matter of families. Bounty in produce meant living well and having children (especially sons to look after one in old age) secured the future. Ancients looked to the gods for these provisions and Israel in Hosea’s time mixed pagan practices with the worship of God. For a while, their unfaithfulness resulted in good harvests, but these were like a harlot’s earnings (Hos 9:1). Not only will the people lack agricultural produce in the future, but God will evict them from the land itself (Hos 9:2-3). They will not have the resources to celebrate, and neither will their sacrifices be acceptable in an unclean pagan land, even if they could offer anything (Hos 9:4-6). It will be like the food of mourners who were unclean because of their contact with the dead – anything they touched would become defiled (Num 19:14-16, 22; Hos 9:4).
Spiritual blindness and ingrained habits
While the prophet warns of God’s coming judgment, the people are oblivious to the threat and consider him demented because their sins blind them to the truth (Hos 9:7).[1] Like a watchman on the lookout for enemy attack, the prophet alerts Israel to danger but all he gets from the household of God (i.e. Israel) is hostility and attempts to entrap him (Hos 9:8).[2] The history lessons that follow show how unfaithfulness to God and sexual promiscuity were deeply ingrained in the people’s attitude. The ‘days of Gibeah’ refers to the gang rape of the Levite’s concubine during the judges’ period (Hos 9:9; Judg 19:1-30). The sin of Baal-Peor recalls Israel’s early failure after the exodus when they were enticed to worship other gods and engaged in sexual acts with Moabite/Midianite women (Hos 9:10; Num 25:1-18). The resonances with Hosea’s time are unmistakable and if Israel’s sexual practices were meant to achieve fertility, then it is fitting that God’s punishment will decimate the people (Hos 9:11-14) and drive them from His house, i.e. the land where He dwells (Hos 9:15).[3] The final image leaves us with a barren plant, Israel itself, uprooted and cast away (Hos 9:16-17).
The ‘God and…’ approach in our time
It may seem like combining faith in God with living according to our culture’s convictions will give us the best of both worlds (prosperity now and eternal life later). It can even work for a while, as it did for Israel, because God patiently waits for our repentance. The discrepancy in our lives may also be hard to detect because we can absorb the perspectives around us without realising it. For some, it is a sense of entitlement that we need and deserve a good life in material terms and in our health, which only comes to light when these are taken away, and we suddenly feel angry with God. For others, it may be sexual practices that seem harmless in our world where so much of such activity is normalised and are meant to be enjoyed without adverse consequences. By contrast, the Bible’s dire predictions of the destruction they cause seem like the ravings of a lunatic. Yet again, our worship of God may be defined by a therapeutic approach to religion that is so prevalent today. God’s love is sought with a focus on healing our soul without any judgment on His part or any expectation that the Lord may require something of us. May we take to heart the warning that a ‘God and…’ approach will leave us barren and uprooted in the end.
[1] The NASB follows the Hebrew of Hos 9:7 closely. There are a number of quick switches in speaker, which makes the verse hard to follow. The point is that the prophet Hosea pronounces God’s coming judgment, to which the people’s response is that he is a fool and demented. Hosea adds that their perceptions are distorted because of their sins.
[2] Once again, the Hebrew of Hosea 9:8 is difficult, but it makes better sense to see the prophet as a watchman for Israel (cf. Ezek 3:17). While he warns of danger, he only encounters hostility and entrapment from the people. The ‘house’ is best read as ‘household’, i.e. Israel.
[3] While the wording in Hosea 9:11-14 is stark, it is not meant to be read literally as the elimination or miscarriage of all newborn babies. Rather, it is poetic language to explain a reversal from the kind of prosperity and abundance that Israel experienced earlier. The phrase that Ephraim (i.e. Israel) will bring their children out to slaughter (Hos 9:13) is best understood as the indirect consequence of Israel’s sins. In other words, God will judge them for their sins by sending the Assyrians, who will also slaughter their children and remove the people from the land. Gilgal in Hosea 9:15 is a worship centre, though we do not know any specifics of the atrocities committed there, but it was likely similar to other places where idolatry and perhaps sexual immorality was rampant.
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