I Will Seduce You

Because God is beyond our understanding, because we can’t fully know God as he is, because he transcends everything we know or can know (that we describe God as “he” or “him” is itself, evidence of our limitation), we are given a variety of pictures of our relationship with God, Metaphors to help us in our limitation. To illuminate what might otherwise remain a dark and impenetrable cloud of mystery the scriptures provide us with a number of illustrations to describe the way God interacts with us.

One of those metaphors -that of a husband and a wife – is especially illustrated in the life and preaching of the prophet Hosea.

Hosea lived and preached during a time of economic prosperity. King Jeroboam II had enlarged the territories of the northern kingdom – Israel – almost back to the size of the kingdom during the glory days of the illustrious King Solomon.

But it was also a time of turmoil and distress and political danger. During the time that Hosea acted as a prophet there were six kings that followed Jeroboam II - of those kings, four were assassinated and one was captured in battle. There were six kings in 25 years. Now, that might not seem so strange to us; we are used to replacing a president every four years, but in a culture where a king was expected to rule for life and to be succeeded by his son this rapid succession of kings would have seemed like almost perpetual chaos.

Externally, the nation of Israel was threatened on both sides by the two “super-power” nations of that day: Assyria to the North and East and Egypt to the South and West. In order to stave off invasion by these powerful and aggressive nations, the kings of Israel made treaties with one and then the other. Ultimately these efforts were futile. Assyria invaded, the capital city of Samaria was captured, and the people were sent into exile – just as the prophet Hosea warned.

Hosea warned the people of Israel that they would be destroyed as a nation and scattered as a people because of their sins. He warned them that the nation of Israel would cease to be.

God came to the prophet and told him to take a wife. This was not an extraordinary command. It was normal for men to be married. It was an oddity that God came to the prophet Jeremiah and told him not to marry. But even still, Hosea’s command to marry was beyond the norm: he was instructed to marry a “promiscuous woman” or an “adulterous woman.” Some translations are more direct: “Go, marry a whore.”

It’s somewhat unclear whether the woman was promiscuous before their marriage or only after – but either way Hosea knew he was in for a heartbreaking relationship. The command to marry a woman who would be unfaithful to him wasn’t just the arbitrary command of a capricious deity or a test to prove Hosea’s faithfulness – the marriage relationship was to be a metaphor – a living picture of God’s relationship with Israel. "Go; take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.” So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim.

This marriage between the prophet and the promiscuous woman was to become one of those illustrative metaphors. There are, of course, other ways that our relationship to God is described in the scriptures. Sometimes the relationship is described in terms of a shepherd and his sheep, or a judge and a defendant. Sometimes the relationship is that of a king and a vassal or a master and a slave or a father and a son.

These various examples show us that we are involved in intimate and meaningful relationship with God –not just an abstract contemplation of an unknowable transcendent deity. But one thing to note is that each of these metaphors also describes a relation of un-equals. The shepherd leads the sheep- not the other way round. The judge decides the fate of the defendant. And in culture of Hosea’s day, the husband was the superior to his wife. (Even though we might resist such a relation today, we have to remember to read scripture as the original audience would have read it…)

The prophets were not content to merely make esoteric and intellectual arguments against sin and the breach of covenant. Instead they used vivid imagery that reflected their intense passion. Gomer and Hosea became a living picture of the living God. Their stormy relationship served to illustrate the relationship of the people of Israel to their God. In the real life of a man and a woman and their children the word of Yahweh became human and historical. In the story of Hosea, Gomer, and their children the word of God became incarnate (an idea made even more significant when one realizes that Hosea is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek name, Jesus).

Hosea and Gomer had three children whose lives and names also became part of the description of God’s relation to the people of Israel. The first child was a son. God told Hosea to name him Jezreel – which means, “God sows” – a seemingly pleasant name conjuring up ideas of fruit and grain and harvest and plenty. But God gives a different interpretation for the name. He told Hosea that the name refers back to the Valley of Jezreel and the slaughter which occurred there during the rule of King Jehu.

This would be somewhat akin to a preacher today naming his son “Trail-of-tears” in reference to the forced exodus of Cherokee in 1838 and 1839 from their southeastern homeland to the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma wherein about 4000 died from starvation, disease, and exposure while on the journey westward or in stockades awaiting removal.

The next child was a daughter, and again God gave Hosea the name: Lo-Ruhama – which means “Un-Loved” or more specifically, “Un-Pitied.” This wasn’t just a passive lack of love but an active expulsion from a relation of love.

The third and final child was Lo-Ammi – which means “Not My People” (which might reflect his wife’s promiscuity.) God said, “I am not Yahweh to you,” or as another translation says, “I do not exist for you.”

How terrible! What sad names to give his children. Can you imagine a father giving his children these kind of names today- a son named after a cruel and tragic event in the nations history, a daughter named, “Unloved,” and another son named, “Not Mine”?

But these children weren’t just ordinary children; they were part of that living metaphor. The children – along with Hosea and Gomer – describe God’s relation with the people of Israel. Each of the children’s names describes the deteriorating relation between Israel and her father God.

In the second chapter of Hosea, the prophet gives a message to the people of Israel. But this is not your ordinary dignified Sunday morning kind of sermon. No. It’s more of a rant, a tirade. His speech is not a cool and logical argument or a rational presentation of facts. It is highly charged and emotional and, at times, it is a nearly irrational rant at his wife, Gomer.

Hosea’s begins his diatribe by addressing his children first:

“Say of your brothers, 'My people,'
and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'

“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.”
     Hosea 2:1-2

This may or may not be a formal divorce – but the language is certainly that of a legal setting. The New Jerusalem Bible says, “To court! Take your mother to court!” If, in this statement, Hosea hasn’t formally divorced his wife, he has at least made it public knowledge that the marriage is not working.

Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.

I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.

Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, 'I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water, my wool and
my linen, my oil and my drink.'

Therefore I will block her path with thorn-bushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
'I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.'

She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine, and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold--
which they used for Baal.

"Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her nakedness.

So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.

I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days--all her appointed feasts.

I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.

I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings
and jewelry, and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,"

declares the LORD.
     Hosea 2:1-13

Hosea’s rant is a vivid expression of the emotional distress that he is suffering. He has been grievously wounded by his wife and we can hear that pain in this passionate outburst. But this isn’t just Hosea’s speech. At times God’s voice overpowers Hosea’s and we hear the impassioned plea of a wounded God. God is the victim. God suffers. Some theologians speak about the impassability of God – the idea that God doesn’t have changeable emotions - but the prophet Hosea shows us a God that grieves and suffers in his relationships.

Edith Hamilton observed: “When love meets no return the result is suffering and the greater the love the greater the suffering. There can be no greater suffering than to love purely and perfectly one who is bent upon evil and self-destruction. That was what God endured at the hands of men”  1

The metaphoric marriage relationship between Yahweh and his people describes the monotheistic standard that God demanded; for, while a man could have multiple wives, a woman could have only one husband and she belonged exclusively to her husband. Yahweh expected exclusive devotion; worship of other Gods was intolerable. Yahweh is also an avenging husband. And sometimes the punishment seems –to us- exceedingly cruel. And it maybe it was, but that was the price of living in covenantal intimacy with the Living God.

Adultery, in this marital metaphor, describes the idolatry practiced by the Israelites. The wife, Israel, is condemned for her adulterous pursuit of her other lovers, the Baals. In Canaanite mythology, Baal was the god of storms and was thought to be responsible for the life-sustaining rains. Part of the worship of Baal involved the reenactment of Baal’s marriage to his lover, Anat, and included their sexual intercourse. During this cultic reenactment “Canaanite men, from the king on down, had ritual sex with the cultic prostitutes in order to ensure the fertility of the land….Some critics even suggest that Hosea’s wife, Gomer, like other Israelite women (4:14), was a cultic prostitute.”  2

Just as adultery is a violation of the marriage promise between a husband and a wife – idolatry was a violation of the covenant between Yahweh and the Israelites. But Yahweh is not only the wounded and jealous and avenging husband, he is also the devoted and ever-loving husband.

"Therefore I am now going to seduce her,
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.

There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

"In that day," declares the LORD,
"you will call me 'my husband';
you will no longer call me 'my master.'

I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.

In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field
and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.

I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.

"In that day I will respond,"
declares the LORD--
"I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;

and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.'
I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people';
and they will say, 'You are my God.’ "
     Hosea 2:14 - 23

After chastising his wife, and threatening her with abuse and shame and even threatening to kill her Hosea/God speaks tenderly to his wife’s heart.

But it was inconceivable that Hosea would reunite with Gomer. According to the standards of the law this relationship could not be restored. The death penalty was demanded for adulterers: “If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.” Deuteronomy 22:22

It was against the law to re-unite with an adulteress: “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.” Deuteronomy 24:1-4

Hosea had divorced Gomer, put her away. According to the law, she was now dead to him. There could be nothing more between them.But, because God wasn’t done with his people the relationship would be resurrected. God told him once again. “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the people of Israel.” The relationship that once described death and rejection now become pictures of a resurrected relationship.

And not only is the relationship between Hosea and Gomer restored, the children are as well. They are given new names

Jezreel – formerly a name of blood and slaughter becomes, “I will sow,” a name of harvest and fruitfulness.

Lo-Ruhamah – formerly “Not Pitied” becomes “I will have pity.”

Lo-Ammi – formerly “Not My People” becomes “You will be my people again….”

There is restoration and resurrection – but it comes only after only after the death of the relationship. The same is true of the Israelite people. There would be a restoration and a resurrection – but only after the death of exile.

The book of Hosea is less about Gomer (Israel) than Hosea (God). It is a description firstly of how God interacts with his people – a fact that can easily be lost in such a dangerous metaphor. And it is a dangerous metaphor. It’s easy for us in the 21st century to become titillated or repulsed by sordid details of Gomer and Hosea’s relationship. It’s also easy to be distracted by the violence of this metaphor. Does the abuse that Hosea / God heaps on Gomer / Israel somehow justify marital abuse today? No. I don’t think any of us would argue that. But the violence is there in the story. We can’t get around it. It’s more than a little disturbing to think of God as a “wife-beater” and it should be.

The metaphor isn’t about the sordid details of her adulterous affairs, neither is it about the violence and abuse of an enraged husband. The metaphor is about the restoration and resurrection of fractured and broken relationship.

It’s about the ever-faithful husband that says to his willful and rebellious bride
“I will seduce you.
I will speak intimately with you.
I will restore you in love.”


1  Edith Hamilton - The Prophets of Israel, 1936
2  New Interpreter’s Bible vol. 7 pg. 202-3