Au In the beginning was the Word
 

1. -       Hosea message is like a forgotten cloth in the chest of the Bible. It needs to be aired. It is addressed to a people, who confess himself believer, but that is prostituted. Something unheard of is announced to him: You will come to know Yahweh (Hos 2,22). It is not a theoretical knowledge, but practical. You can spend the whole life following empty rites, without knowing the Lord, without listening his word, without an experience of faith. Gospel´s full pages acquire a new, deeper meaning. The message is present.

2. -       The prophet begins his mission in Jeroboam the second, king of Israel, (782-753) late years. At his death, after reigning thirty years, a deep social, political and religious crisis shows up. Revolts and assassinations take place. Kings and priests follow the canaanite way of life; they forget the ancient traditions (the exit from Egypt, the Sinaí´s covenant, the Jordan crossing, the promise of the land) and celebrate immoral practices like the sacred prostitution (Num 25)

3. -       About Hosea´s life we know his last name (Beerí´s son, that means well), his wife´s name (Gomer), prostitute and adulterous, and the name of his three children, two boys and a daughter (I will ask for the reason, un-loved, not-my-people), children of the prostitution.  At the bottom of his own well, Hosea looks at the conjugal drama of the Lord´s with his people: The Lord told Hosea: Go, take a sacred prostitute and have children born of prostitution, far from the Lord. So he married Gomer, and he was with child and bore a son. The Lord told him: Name him Jezreel, for I will soon punish the family of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel. (Ho 1,2-4). Jezreel is a real palace, associated to the crime of king Ahab against Naboth (1Re 21). Gomer was again with child and gave birth to a daughter. The Lord said to Hosea: Name her Unloved, for I will have no more love for the nation of Israel nor I will forgive them… After weaning Unloved, Gomer was with child again and had another son. The Lord said: Name him Not-my-people, because you are not my people, nor I I-AM for you (Ho 1, 6-9). It means the relationship rupture. The living God asks for reason, he retires his compassion, he breaks the relationship with his people, he distances his presence.

4. -       Withal and although looking like a dream, the growing, renewal and reunification hope does not die: Yet the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “you are not my people”, they shall be named “sons of the living God”. The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, they will appoint one leader to rule over them…You will say your brothers: My-people and your sisters My-loved-ones.

5. -       But business does not follow that path. Words are hard, because the situation is hard too. The Lord pronounces a rejection formula, which means the formal rupture: Denounce your mother, denounce for she is not my wife, nor am I her husband! Let her rid her face of her ornaments and her breast of her lewd idols! … How could I love her children? They are children of adultery. Their mother has played the harlot and they are children of debauchery. She said, “I will go after my lovers, who gave me my bread and water, my oil and my wine” (Ho 2, 4-7).

6. -       The Lord is a jealous God, who says to his people: Do not have other gods before me (Ex 20,3). The living God knows about the human fecundity and the earth fertility (Dt 28,4). If Israel´s home looks for that fortune recurring to other gods, the Lord will lead her to ruin: I will block her way with thorns and I will put before her a barrier so she could not find her paths. She will pursue her lovers and she will not overtake them, she will look for them and she will not find them, and she will say: “I will go back to my first husband, for I was better off then than now. She would not acknowledge that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil, and the silver and gold (Ho 2, 8-10)

7. -            Regardless the rupture, the Lord is not able to forget. If she does not change, he shall be obliged to change, he will change his tactics, going back to the love´s origin: So I am going to allure her, lead her once more into the dessert, where I can speak to her tenderly. Then I will give back her vineyards, make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will answer me as in her youth, as when she came out of the land of Egypt… You will be my spouse forever, betrothed in justice and integrity, in love and compassion, I will spouse you in faithfulness and you will come to know the Lord (Ho 2, 16-22).

8. -       The land is, really, pagan, far from the living God knowledge: Hear the word of Yahweh, Israel! For Yahweh has an accusation to bring against the inhabitants of this land. There is neither truth nor goodness nor knowledge of God in this country; only perjury, lies, murder, theft and adultery, with continual bloodshed. (Ho 4,1-2). The prophetic denounce is addressed to the people and its religious and civilians chiefs: Hear this, O priests! And you, people of Israel, pay attention! Hear, officials of the king for you are to be judged.(Ho 5,1).

9. -       The priest should be intercessor of the living knowledge of God, but he is an empty rites functionary only. He lives on the neighbour´s sin: But let no one apologize or accuse another, for it is you, priest, whom I single out! … My people perish for want of knowledge, I also reject you like priests, and since you ignore the law of your God, I will ignore your children too… They eat of the sacrifices for sin (Ho 4, 6-8). Hosea denounces Israel´s (Ephraim) and Judah´s religious idolatry, from the north and the south. The cult offered to the Lord is not well accepted. O Ephraim, what shall I do with you? O Judah, how shall I deal with you? This love of yours is like morning mist, like morning dew that quickly disappears. This is why I smote you through the prophets, and have slain you by the words of my mouth… For is love that I desire, not sacrifice; it is knowledge of God, not burnt offerings. (Ho 6,4-6), They offer sacrifices to me, but Yahweh does not accept them (Ho 8, 13), he has brought Israel to trial (Ho 12, 3).

10. -     The prophet also denounces the political idolatry. In an epoch of large convulsions, the Israelites look for salvation out of God, in the alliances with Egypt and Assyria, the great military powers of the moment: Ephraim is like a silly pigeon, now calling on Egypt, now turning to Assyria; but wherever they turn I shall throw my net over them for they rebelled against me and they will fall like birds (Ho 7, 11-12), they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind (Ho 8,7).

11. -     The prophet, God´s sentinel, is rejected: The prophets will go out of their mind; the seers become like mad men (Ho 9,7). Who is wise enough to grasp all this? Who is discerning and will understand? Straight are the ways of Yahweh; the just walk in them, but the sinners stumble.  (Ho 14,10).

12. -     Jesus in the Evangel assumes Hosea message. The one who receives God´s word is son of God (Jn 1, 12), the one who rejects it, is son of prostitution (Jn 8,41). The word has the dramatic destiny of being rejected not only by the word, but also at home: He was already in the world and through him the world was made, the very world that did not know him. He came to his own, yet his own people did not received him (Jn 1,10-11). Jesus dialogue with the Samaritan takes place near Jacob´s well. Jacob`s well forwards towards the origins, to a time is which division between jews and samaritans had not taken place yet, in which Lord´s wife had not yet gone behind her lovers (Ho 2,7). Jesus states to the samaritan, five times married, living symbol of her land, the question of God´s knowledge, it is to say, the faith experience like a gift: If you only knew the Gift of God… (Jn 4,10).

* For personnel and group reflection: Hosea´s message is present

-         we are sons of God or sons of prostitution

-         the religious situation is that of repudiation

-         there is hope of change, renewal and reunification

-         there is religious and political idolatry

-         winds are sown, whirlwinds will be reaped

-         we know the gift of God