Tenderly in the Wilderness

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her." Hosea 2:14

I knew there was more to Hosea that I needed to dwell in. The diction alone casts a holy spell, "behold, allure, wilderness, speak tenderly." It feels like a gentle embrace, a soft blanket, a warm fire to relax beside.

Proportionally, the majority of the text of Hosea (and the prophets in general) is devoted to detailing the sins of the people and justifying God's necessary judgement. But oh, for the culmination of His days and plans.  He gives us mere wisps of this proportionally, but they are grand, worth savoring, rich.

When I want to explore the corners of a passage, and the feelings they inspire in me, I often turn to the Biblical Illustrator Commentary.  It's a compendium of old school commentary, hit or miss, but faithful to expound and expand the conversation.

This morning, the commentators there chatted back and forth about the nature of the wilderness referenced in this passage. Is this wilderness a place of consequence, of alienation, and scarcity, or is this wilderness a place of solitude and restoration?  

Red Hills and White Flower II, Georgia O'Keeffe

Skimming the scriptures that float to the top of my thoughts, they seem a blend of both, a place of meeting, of communion with God and Satan. They can be a place of struggle and clarity--as Jacob wrestled with God in Peniel, "Face of God" literally. I would rather come away wounded than not engage myself. To me, the loneliest wilderness would be a world unconnected, uncreated, unthought of by God.

For the Israelites in Exodus, the wilderness was an in-between place, a period of progression and relapse, alternating bouts with sin but also a testimony to God's education and provision. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness as well.  And a voice cried out in the wilderness---John the Baptist's true home. I don't think it accidental that we experience both a fearful awe and a reverent release in nature--the creation declares the glory of God, it declares it and echoes it.  Yesterday our daughter Grace was referencing hurtful words someone said to her---she said she didn't want to repeat them because speaking them aloud would make them more real.

God speaks. He speaks tenderly to his people. In the beginning was the Word. 

In thinking about wilderness spaces, I remembered Robert Frost's poem, "Desert Places."

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less -

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars - on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

Robert Frost

 

I see You in these places where Frost does not.  We can frighten ourselves in these places, or we can see You there.  And if we see You there, it is because You woo us, speak to us, tenderly. Lord, may we seek You in our own desert places. May we have attentive ears and hearts. May we not scare ourselves as Frost was scared, but may the poignancy of solitude and silence turn our hearts toward You.

Hosea

 My time in Hosea has been quick, less than a week or so. Honestly, it's one of those prophetic books that feel like a long lecture from a parent--not that the parent doesn't need to lecture--but it's hard to hear all the same. 

Hosea is best known as the prophet whose marriage becomes an object lesson. His wife is unfaithful as Israel has been unfaithful to God, whoring around with pagan idols.  The particulars beyond this I've studied, but seem less the point.

Context 

(from Jack Abeelen)

Speaker: Hosea, a prophet to the Northern Kingdom for 50 years beginning in 755 BC.

For 33 years he preached to the North before the fall to Assyria. For the last 17 years, he spoke to a scattered people.

His contemporaries were Amos (North), Isaiah (South), and Micah

Jack Abeelen's sermon focused on this verse, the idea that we sow what we reap:

Hos 8:7  For they sow the wind,. and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it.

The focus of the sermon was that God is patient, long-suffering, but that in the end, we reap what we sow and should be careful what we sow.

Bullock's chapter on Hosea was much more technical.  It dives into different critical theories about the book's construction, authorship, and unity. I probably should give it another day, as I'm certain there is more I need to think about, but here's the basic situation which I did pull out and think through.

God's word came to Hosea. It was for him to marry a prostitute to symbolize the Northern Kingdom's unfaithfulness. He married Gomer, and they had a son God told them to name Jezreel. Jehu was to punished for the massacre at Jezreel. Then Gomer conceives a girl, and God tells them to name her "No Mercy" for He will have no mercy on Israel but will on Judah. When she weaned No Mercy, Gomer conceived again and had a son who was to be named "Not my People." But a time will come that in the same place, they will be called "children of the living God." On that day, Judah and Israel will chose one leader and return from exile together.

So, this entire idea of naming children as object lessons is weird too. For me, it highlights the distance between God's perspective and mine, between the time period and mindset of these prophets, this culture, and my own. It's just so weird that I don't know what to make of it.

Another question I had was about the significance of the reference and naming of the oldest son, Jezreel.  Here is the Bible Knowledge Commentary's explanation:

"The first child (a son) was named Jezreel. At this point the significance of his name was not in its meaning (“God sows”), but in its association with past and future events at the place Jezreel (cf., however, Hos_1:11; Hos_2:22-23). Jezreel was the site of Jehu’s ruthless massacre of the house of Ahab (Hos_1:4; cf. 2 Kings 9-10). In the future it would be the scene of Israel’s military demise (Hos_1:5)." -BKC

I may get back to this....or I may not, but I'm publishing and moving on for now. 

Knowledge of God, Part II, Matthew 26

This morning begins with an interesting overlap of concepts between Hosea and Luke; some of my most quietly compelling convictions come from such synergies. Yesterday's truth was we are urged to seek greater knowledge of God and that one day this knowledge will be undisputed and universal:

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3

A piece of my frustration in this world is the lack of knowledge of and respect for God---any god, never mind the true God. Those outside of traditional faiths diminish evidence or absolute understanding of anything outside of that which can be empirically quantified. Or they seem drawn to the other extreme--throwing off all reason in faith-based areas and embracing pseudo-scientific spiritual conceptions: crystals, energy waves, things that seem super regressive. 

Those inside these faith systems often choose their faith by default (family tradition) or with only a passing nod of an effort to understand the scriptures that undergird their faith, thus accepting a revelation second-hand without longing for a deeper understanding and fulfillment. To me, this is not faith but wishful manipulation of God. 

Beyond this, the nature of knowledge alone is debatable. Though there may be indisputable facts, even the hardest facts are seen and interpreted through the lens of man's understanding.  Maybe this is what makes this passage from Luke so liberating: 

"Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures...." Luke 24:44-45

God can open our minds as if flipping a light switch. This truth is woven throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus picked up that thread from the prophets--seeing but never seeing, hearing but never hearing. All of these threads speak of not just access to knowledge, but point to our questionable ability to receive and understand it properly outside of the Holy Spirit's help.

Matthew Henry furthers understanding of this principle:

"In his discourse with the two disciples he took the veil from off the text, by opening the scriptures; here he took the veil from off the heart, by opening the mind. Observe here,

[1.] That Jesus Christ by his Spirit operates on the minds of men, on the minds of all that are his. He has access to our spirits, and can immediately influence them. It is observable how he did now after his resurrection give a specimen of those two great operations of his Spirit upon the spirits of men, his enlightening the intellectual faculties with a divine light, when he opened the understandings of his disciples, and his invigorating the active powers with a divine heat, when he made their hearts burn within them. 

[2.] Even good men need to have their understandings opened; for though they are not darkness, as they were by nature, yet in many things they are in the dark. David prays, Open mine eyes. Give me understanding. And Paul, who knows so much of Christ, sees his need to learn more. 

[3.] Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. 

[4.] The design of opening the understanding is that we may understand the scriptures; not that we may be wise above what is written, but that we may be wiser in what is written, and may be made wise to salvation by it. The Spirit in the word and the Spirit in the heart say the same thing. Christ's scholars never learn above their bibles in this world; but they need to be learning still more and more out of their bibles, and to grow more ready and mighty in the scriptures. That we may have right thoughts of Christ, and have our mistakes concerning him rectified, there needs no more than to be made to understand the scriptures.

Knowledge of God in Hosea 6

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3

One of my favorite characteristics of the Lord is that He solicits mankind's active pursuit and participation in seeking Him.  He welcomes engagement instead of passive subservience. He's in it with us, even within us--Emmanuel. 

Ultimately, in the end times, this knowledge of God will become universal:

"They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah 11:9

"But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Daniel 12:4

"And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:34

In a world where people cling to their ignorance and assumptions (myself included), this universal knowledge will bring unity and peace at last.

Matthew Henry comments:

"We shall know, we shall follow to know, the Lord, (so the words are); and it may be taken as the fruit of Christ's resurrection, and the life we live in God's sight by him, that we shall have not only greater means of knowledge, but grace to improve in knowledge by those means. Note, When God designs mercy for a people he gives them a heart to know him, Jer 24:7. Those that have risen with Christ have the spirit of wisdom and revelation given them....When we are designed to live in his sight, then he gives us to know him; for this is life eternal to know God, John 17:3.

"I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart." Jeremiah 24:7

"And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3 

Matthew Henry again,

The way and means of obtaining this blessing. We must follow on to know him. We must value and esteem the knowledge of God as the best knowledge, we must cry after it, and dig for it (Pro_2:3, Pro_2:4), must seek and intermeddle with all wisdom (Pro_18:1), and must proceed in our enquiries after this knowledge and our endeavours to improve in it. And, if we do the prescribed duty, we have reason to expect the promised mercy, that we shall know more and more of God, and be at last perfect in this knowledge.

True knowledge of God brings release. False knowledge of God, man, books, learning, is a burden.