As part of my plans for Lent, I’ll be studying a few of the minor prophets with Doug. I will post some of my notes here. Feel free to join in the discussion if you like. First up is Hosea.
General Theme ::
God’s endless love for the fickle people he chose for himself. It’s a story of pain, agony, and betrayal. It’s filled with calls to return, promises of restoration, as well as warning of judgment.
But it’s a love story and it ends by revealing the path to life - a romantic comedy, if you will. Kind of like Lent.
Sociohistorical Background ::
Hosea lived in the Northern Kingdom (Israel), prophesying from ~786 - 722 BCE. According to the accounts of this period found in 2 Kings 14:23-17:41, Israel was governed by a series of kings who ruled poorly, enabling and encouraging the people to serve other gods (the evaluations of Israel’s rulers in 2 Kings are generally negative and repeat a similar narrative pattern).
While Hosea’s early years were rather peaceful, political tensions grew increasingly tumultuous. Beginning in 738 BCE, King Ahaz failed to make an alliance with Assyria, rendering Israel an Assyrian vassal (2 Kings 17.4).[1] Now subordinate to the Assyrians, Israel’s kings engaged in reckless dealings with other leaders in an attempt to subvert Assyrian rule. Relations worsened in the decade that followed as Hoshea took the throne. After he failed to pay tribute, the Assyrians invaded Israel, captured the king, and carried the people out of the land (2 Kings 17.5-6).
Here, the narrator (of 2 Kings 17) breaks from the earlier form of describing the succession of kings and the actions of each. He cites Israel’s worship of other gods and refusal to repent as the reason for capture (2 Kings 17.7-18). The beliefs of the fertility cult held that Baal the Canaanite storm god, not YHWH, was the source of rain and the god responsible for bountiful agriculture. With his anger burning due to his people’s unwillingness to recognize his constant work, YHWH removed his protection and allowed the people to be carried off.
As such, Hosea confronted two primary issues:
(1) Sexualized worship of fertility gods.
(2) Escalating political tension and reckless “foreign policy,” if you will.
These two problems form the basis of Hosea’s indictment and are visible throughout the text.
The message of Hosea is not merely spiritual, but political as well. Many passages decry the hierarchical, almost bureaucratic structure of Israel’s governance. This is not terribly surprising, as Hosea likely wrote as a descendent of a Levite priestly lineage that was pushed to the margins of Israel’s social structure as the monarchy rose and replaced traditional, kin-based patterns of social organization. Hosea accuses the kings of this period of concerning themselves with projecting power and accumulating wealth rather than an undying pursuit and establishment of mishpat and sedaqah (justice and righteousness) (8.4, 10.1,7, 12.7-8, 13.6,10).
As He often does, God promised to restore Israel by humbling her - overwhelming the hierarchical monarchy and replacing it with an organic village-based society in which covenant-affirming lifestyles could flourish (2.14-15; 3.4; 12.9).
Might this sound familiar? I think that this is a future we can long for even today. Perhaps we can participate in realizing it, too.
[1] It’s worth noting that Ahaz seems to have participated/encouraged the worship of Molech, which involved the sacrifice of children by fire just outside Jerusalem in the Valley of Hinnom (in the NT, gehenna). Not a bright spot, to say the least.
[ This is loosely based on a piece written by James Luther Mays and Stephen Cook. I expect that what I’ve written above is not without error. As N.T. Wright often said to his students, “One third of what I will tell you is wrong. The only problem is that I don’t know which third it is.” Nonetheless, I hope that you will find it helpful. Feel free to correct offer corrections. ]
I’ve been reading a little Baudrillard lately. Pardon this acid trip.
I’m moving Paradoxica.net and a few other addresses to (mt) Media Temple this weekend.
I don’t often read the IDS, Indiana University’s daily student newspaper. But I walked by the newsstand today and saw a headline on the front page that read, you guessed it, “Trading iPods for AK-47s.”