We have dispensed with the seven books of what one might call the Major Prophets, and arrive at “The Twelve” – a collection of prophetic books by those who are considered the Twelve Minor Prophets. Which to me is interesting, because the first of them, Hosea, an 8th century BCE prophet, is considered by Talmudic scholars as quite possibly the greatest prophet of them all. He is the only prophet of all of them who left behind his own book, written by himself, rather than scribed histories written by other people. He also had one of the longest periods as a prophet of any of them, running over sixty years of prophecy. While he is sometimes referred to as the prophet of doom, his message is one of the restoration and salvation of the Jewish people through a period of destruction. Which, at least based on my readings of the last seven books, seems to be what all of them propound in one fashion or another.
- Well this is quite the intro to our man Hosea. God appears to him and tells him to go find a prostitute, marry her, and have children with her. Somehow, Hosea knows just the woman for him, and one might suspect that his dream of God telling him to marry her was just a tad too convenient. He marries her, has three kids, each of which is named in a dream by God to indicate the coming destruction of the Israeli monarchy.
- God pivots to let us know that once false gods and faithless leaders are left behind, Israel will be restored, the Jews will once again be his chosen people, and they will become as numerous as the grains of sand on the beaches of the world. That, clearly hasn’t happened. Perhaps we still have some false gods and faithless leaders to contend with. Plus, if he’s not speaking apocryphally, 7.5 sextillion (75 plus 17 zeros) people is a bit more than this planet can handle. You’d think he’d know that.
- God really likes his metaphors. In a short page, he compares hiring a prostitute for an extended period of time with the stipulation that she never have sex with, nor marry, another man, with Israel spending a period of time without a king, leaders, or false god cult leaders. Somehow he envisions this as driving them into to being faithful to him. Given the metaphor, I’m not sure that that would work other than by some sort of Stockholm Syndrome-ish process.
- Because the folk in Israel are just not living up to the rules or the tenets of moral conduct, God’s going to punish them. We’ve seen that before. Over and over again. At times it feels like the entire Tanakh is God threatening to punish people for not following the rules. We’re back to my comparisons of God and a D&D dungeon master. Oh, but this time, he’s also going to punish all the beasts, birds, and fish. Just to teach those pesky wayward Jews a lesson. Yeah, that makes sense.
- God singles out the sins of the tribe of Ephraim, now often referred to as one of the lost tribes of Israel. It is, however, interesting to note that it was already, at the time of this historical writing, considered apart from Israel/Judea, and worthy of its own, separate, condemnation.
- I’m imagining God sipping on his chai latte… no, more likely given his disposition, a supercharged red bull (which would also fit with various biblical myths)… and musing… “oh, they’ll come crawling back to me, begging me to reconsider, and I’ll just squint at them, as if I didn’t quite recognize them.”
- God is musing on Ephraim, the second son of Joseph, who became leader of one of the famed twelve tribes, and how far he and his tribe have strayed from Torah and God’s grace. “Does he really think I’ll forget about all the sins he and his folk have committed?” he wonders. No, I imagine not, but I also imagine that Ephraim and his people, having strayed so far, don’t consider God to be much of a threat, if they think of him at all.
- God’s still on Ephraim, whom he accuses of leading the Jews astray. And while he promises to castigate Ephraim himself, he focuses much of his ire on the Jews who chose to follow Ephraim’s lead. After all, shouldn’t they have known better? Shouldn’t they have accepted and/or appointed a better leader? He threatens to return them to slavery in Egypt. Shades of modern day where the Jews of the world are being blamed for the actions of the political and military leaders of Israel.
- He’s still on Ephraim. I feel like there must be more to the story of why God seems to despise Ephraim quite so much. He also squashes some what-about-ism, with a snide comment on “I don’t care if the Egyptians sinned, that’s not justification for Israelis to sin.” Well there goes the whole “Egypt controls the southern and western borders of Gaza even more than the Israelis control the northern and eastern” argument. At least theistically. Politically, it’s still a valid point.
- I thought we’d finally moved on from Ephraim as God started ranting about Samaria and Assyria, but no. He tied it back to Ephraim and was off on another tirade. I have to admit, I’m getting really tired of the books of the prophets which seem to be a lot of directed hostility at one or another person on God’s part, often without explanation as to why that person has been singled out. I’m sure there are biblical scholars who’ve delved into these antagonistic scenarios, but some context would be nice.
- God laments that he’s been having such dark thoughts about Israel, and Ephraim, and recalls the days when he loved them as his own children. And, he muses, perhaps he should relent, and guide them back on to the righteous path. Rather than just killing them all, which seems so final, you know?
- God’s now off on the difference between the northern and southern kingdoms, Israel and Judah, noting that way back when, Judah strayed, and that led to the whole debacle of Jacob wrestling with an angel and bringing the kingdom back in line with the rules. And now while Judah stands with God, Israel is off the path, and it’s all Ephraim’s fault, and something needs to be done. I don’t know, I’m thinking maybe send the angel back for a rematch, this time with Ephraim? Seems a better approach than laying waste to the entire country.
- Ah, there it is. Ephraim’s big sin. He dabbled in other religions, checked them out, tried out some different services, but, the big sin was that he fell in with the Baal worshipping crowd. You know, the horned fertility god of the Canaanites. And God, capital G, while he’s dismissive of other gods, really, really, really, hates Baal. They clearly had some sort of falling out in the pantheon chambers. We’ll probably never know the details.
- We finish up Hosea with… Samaria (what is now the West Bank and parts of Jordan) is going to have to bear the weight of its guilt. Assyria (Syria) will keep to itself and not intervene. Ephraim, who led Israel down the wrong path, the path of idols, will realize his error and repent his ways – no need for all the planned destruction, ruin, and death. That was a whole lot of wind-up for a final shrug on God’s part.