Deeper Commentary

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt- As noted on Hos. 8:1, God had entered into marriage covenant with Israel at Sinai. He had called them out of Egypt for that to be possible; but they had in their hearts returned to Egypt and thereby despised their marriage covenant. So often in Hosea, God seeks to remind Israel of their national beginnings, and the grace He showed. His calling of them was the sign of pure grace, Paul reasons in Romans. That call was not because they were righteous, just as Hosea didn't call Gomer to marriage because she was righteous. The call is in the Gospel; we who have heard it only heard it by grace. So we should never doubt His grace and intention toward us. We note that God's love for Israel was shown by His call of them. Paul argues the same in Romans, that Divine love is instanced through our being predestinated, chosen and therefore called. This calling was all of grace, both for Israel and for the new Israel.

So often in the prophets, Hosea especially, God idealizes His past with Israel, and then bitterly laments their present unfaithfulness. The truth was that they were unfaithful from the start. But again we see in this something very human, something we can imagine in Hosea's feelings towards Gomer. He idealized their past relationship, even though she was a whore when they married; and laments her present unfaithfulness. He now actualizes in his mind the knowledge he had all along; that she was a whore. And God is revealing Himself as going through the same process. This does not make Him capricious or somehow not all knowing. It simply reflects how we are made in His image and therefore this 'human' capacity to be like this- is in fact a reflection of how He also is.

God had said that Israel would return to Egypt (Hos. 8:13; 9:3), but then says here that they would not (:5). He comes to that feeling on remembering how He had brought them out of Egypt. But these words are quoted about the Lord Jesus as a child being brought out from Egypt. Perhaps the connection of thought is in the fact that His same grace toward His people was supremely in His Son. Or it could be that the failed 'son' of God, Israel, becomes a type of the Lord Jesus in an inverse sense, just as the way the High Priest stood serving is seen as the intended inverse of the way the Lord Jesus is seated whilst serving in the heavenly sanctuary.  

 

These words are quoted about the Father calling Joseph and Mary to bring His Son out of Egypt (Mt. 2:14,15). But that is hardly the context here. It is not necessarily so in Bible study of quotations that "context is king". The New Testament sometimes seems to quote the Old Testament without attention to the context- at least, so far as human Bible scholarship can discern. The early chapters of Matthew contain at least three examples of  quotations whose context just cannot fit the application given: Mt. 2:14,15 cp. Hos. 11:1; Mt. 2:17,18 cp. Jer. 31:15; Mt. 1:23 cp. Is. 7:14. Hosea's plans for Gomer ultimately failed, and so did God's desires to save the Israel of Hosea's days and subsequent generations. But this doesn't mean that His word was falsified, nor that the objectives He has set in human history didn't ultimately work out. "Israel" here becomes the Lord Jesus; just as the "servant" prophecies of Isaiah were initially about Israel as a nation. They didn't live up to them at the restoration, and so they were reinterpreted and reapplied to the Lord Jesus. He and then those in Him became the Israel of God, who did respond.

The passage condemns Israel's behaviour from a child. It has been observed that it has many similarities with documents which are formal disownings of a child, giving all the reasons. Rather like some of the criticisms of Israel are expressed in terms of contemporary divorce statements. This is God disowning His own child, just as Hosea disowned 'His' children by Gomer, calling them Lo-Ammi, not mine. And yet Yahweh is unable to finally do this for His beloved child Israel. Such disownings of a child even to having them executed were known by the Israelites from Dt. 21:18-21. We have a similar passage in Is. 1:2-20, where hope is still held out that the child may repent. Here, God is as it were the plaintiff before a court. He presents the evidence, but then in :8 and onwards He as it were withdraws the case, overcome by love for His child. Death was the punishment for a rebellious child (Dt. 21:18-21), but here God decides not to go ahead with this. His reactions and feelings are those of every parent of wayward children- they remember the infanthood and early childhood of the child, and this pulls at their desire to discipline and judge.  

Hos 11:2 The more I called to them, so they went away from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images- The more God revealed His word of call and invitation to Israel, the more they rebelled against Him. This is also how God's word function now; it elicits either our response or our rejection. Hosea knew all this from his personal experience of being the vehicle of God's call and word to Israel. The more he tried, both with Israel and Gomer, the more they turned away (Jer. 2:27). "I called" is AV "They called", referring to the ministry of the prophets. God's intention was that a reborn Israel, born again by the Spirit which would be given as part of the new covenant, would again as it were come out of Egypt to Him, and this had been Hosea's hope of Gomer too (Hos. 2:15). "They went away" is literally, 'they walked away from My face'. The Divine call to Israel was a revelation of His very face, an invitation to intimate relationship. But they turned away from it, telling Moses that they didn't want to hear the voice of Yahweh nor come near to Him; they wanted mere religion instead, Moses going near and telling them what he heard. And Gomer likewise rejected Hosea's desperate desire for an intimate, exclusive relationship with him.

Hos 11:3 Yet I taught Ephraim to walk. I took them by his arms; but they didn’t know that it was I who healed them-  God likens Himself to Israel’s father, teaching His little child to walk for the first time; or more precisely, teaching the child to walk despite a handicap that required healing and the strengthening of its arms. We noted the same on Hos. 7:15. As the child ‘makes it’ into the Father’s arms for the first time, there must be a tremendous excitement for the Father. A few uncertain, jittering steps- and He is thrilled and telling the whole world about it with joy. No matter how clever or powerful that man is in the world. And so this is how God was with His people, it’s how it is with us too as we take our first unsure steps after baptism. He has the capacity for thrill and excitement, just as we do, who are made in His image.

The statement that God "healed them" is in the context of His teaching Israel to walk as an infant. He graciously saw their sins and resultant bruises as being the result of their attempts to walk, and falling over. Teaching an infant to walk involves a lot of comforting and 'healing' of them because they inevitably fall over. In reality, their sins were rank rebellion, but Yahweh kindly, lovingly viewed them as mere mistakes made whilst learning to walk with Him.

That Israel "did not know / recognize" God's love was so painful, for Yahweh and also for Hosea in his unrequited, unappreciated love for Gomer (Hos. 2:8; 5:4; 11:3). God wanted to destroy Israel for this lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6,14). He had called them out of Egypt, but they in spirit had returned there. Perhaps He calls them "Ephraim" because Ephraim had been born in Egypt [Joseph's son by Asenath]. They had forgotten that calling out because of the massive material blessings which Yahweh had spoilt them with, thus fulfilling the scenario envisaged in Dt. 6: 12, “Then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery". Forgetting Him was not knowing Him.  

Healing is a major theme in Hosea. The other nations [cp. Gomer's lovers] could not heal Israel (Hos. 5:13), but Yahweh could, if they repented (Hos. 6:1 "Let us return / repent to Yahweh and He will heal us"). But He was hindered in that by their refusal to accept that healing (Hos. 7:1). The healing was in fact potentially done- they just had to accept it: "they didn’t know that it was I who healed them" (Hos. 11:3). Finally God simply states in Hos. 14:4 "I will heal their waywardness ["backsliding", "disloyalty"], I will love them freely", and they would again be fruitful. For Him. Despite 'healing' being predicated upon repentance (e.g. Jer. 3:22 "Return [repent], O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness", Ps. 30:2 "I cried to You [in repentance] and You healed me", Is. 6:10 "Understand... convert... and be healed"). It's as if God scraps even that basic requirement and wants to force through His desire for them to have a heart for Him; just as Hosea fain would have done this to the heart of Gomer but lacked the power to do so. Just as so many unrequited lovers would do for the object of their love.

In Hosea 2, Yahweh and Hosea offer their women a remarriage under a new covenant, seeing they had broken the old covenant. The offer of a new covenant in Ezekiel and Jeremiah involves the gift of a new heart to God's people, His spirit, His mind, a heart solely for Him. Jer. 3:22 is clear: "Return [repent], O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness". "I will restore... I will heal you... I will heal them and reveal unto them the abundance of peace [with God]" (Jer. 30:17; 33:6). The wonder of Jer. 30:12-15 is that the wounds which are "incurable" would be healed by God. He could do the psychologically impossible, through the gift of His spirit which would accompany the new covenant. This is available to us who have accepted the new covenant today. It's why and how believers are psychologically transformed.

This is the same idea as in Hos. 14:4. Their disloyalty would be healed, their unfaithful mind would be changed. We are helped to understand this by the Hosea-Gomer situation. He desperately wanted her to love him, to have a heart for him, and not constantly looking at other men and committing adultery. It was His hope that she would one day love him, and he would do anything to give her such a heart. Israel had a heart for the idols and not for Yahweh, just as Gomer is presented as a sex addict who is mentally enslaved to her addiction. But Yahweh earnestly wanted to heal their heart. This is Hosea's form of the offer of a new heart and spirit to Israel, which was part of the new covenant offered in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. That healing is offered to Israel, but they refuse. Until at the very end, in Hos. 14:4, God seems to as it were force through His plan with them. We who have willingly signed up to the new covenant have even more ample access to this spirit. If we want it- we will be given it. And we potentially have it.

 

Remembering how He had felt towards His child Israel in earlier days, God cries out in :8 with a stab of pain: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?”. The memory of Israel’s childhood was just too much. It made God change His mind with regard to totally rejecting His wayward son. In preaching to Israel, we are beseeching the prodigal child to return to the desperately grieving Father... for His sake we do this. It is too much for me to think of God so hurt... we surely have to do something about it, to appeal to His people.

 

The strengthening of their arms was an act of 'healing', and the same word is used of how God healed Israel as they left Egypt (Ex. 15:26), so that there was not one feeble amongst all their tribes (Ps. 105:37). They were not an attractive child, in this sense. But God loved them as His very own, just as Hosea did Gomer.

 

Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with ties of love; and I was to them like those who lift off the yoke on their necks; and I bent down to him and I fed him- This all continues the baby /  toddler analogy; swaddled tightly in swaddling clothes, which were wrapped by "a man", when this was and is stereotypically a mother's work. Likewise it is the mother who bends over to breastfeed. But it was God, who lifted the yoke of Egypt from them, who is presented as performing these classically feminine, motherly roles. It was all a most unusual image for the Israel of those days. But this was God's most unusual care for Israel. Acts 13:18 emphasizes it: "For about the time of forty years, as a nursing father He carried them in the wilderness". Or we can read this as: "I was drawing them with human cords, with bands of love, I was with them like those who lift an infant to their breasts; I bent down to feed him". In this case, God is expressing His ability to relate to Israel as their mother as well as their Father. He is presented as Father but can be compared also to mother. Dt. 32:18 speaks of God as the woman who gave birth to Israel: "You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth”.

God as a kind farmer released the yoke so that it didn't weigh so heavily. But they abused that.

Hos 11:5 They won’t return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent- Because of the memory of how He had saved them from Egypt, God now changes His planned judgment- instead of returning to Egypt, they would go to Assyria. God can change His plans, and He has emotions. He had earlier stated that they would return to Egypt and be derided there (Hos. 7:16). God says this clearly in Hos. 8:13; 9:3,6. But just as clearly He now says that they will not return to Egypt but rather experience captivity in Assyria. Here we see how God's changes of heart were so kindled, as were Hosea's regarding Gomer (Hos. 11:8). But then in :11 He speaks as if they will go into Egypt. In all this we see an example of His terrible churnings of heart spoken of in :8. He is not capricious, rather does He allow Himself to genuinely struggle within Himself over His people, wishing to save and so not wanting to condemn.

For a man to be someone's king was a Hebraism for being a husband to a wife. As Gomer committed adultery against Hosea, so Israel had done with the Assyrians. And so Assyria would be their king, the husband they had chosen. Exile there and becoming part of the Assyrian kingdom was therefore what they had chosen. 

Hos 11:6 The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans- Instead of trusting in Yahweh for help, Israel had trusted in their fortresses (see on Hos. 10:14) and barred gates; and they had made clever plans to get help from other nations. But all such scheming would fail. "The bars of their gates" can also be translated "their branches", continuing the allusions to Israel as a tree without fruit. Their very branches would be cut off, used as a figure of Israel's rejection in Rom. 11:17. They would now be unable to bear spiritual fruit, the possibility to be spiritua

Falling by the sword  is the language of the curses for breaking the covenant (Dt. 26:25). As Gomer had broken the marriage covenant, so Israel had broken the old covenant. But they were by grace being offered a new covenant- but even that they, and Gomer, refused. And so it was offered to us.

l would be taken away from them. Similarly Gomer was made barren, because she would not bring forth fruit unto Hosea.

 

Hos 11:7 My people are determined to turn from Me. Though they call to the Most High, they certainly won’t exalt Him-  See on Hos. 6:6 The knowledge of God. They would not exalt Him in the way which true repentance requires. "Judah has not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly" (Jer. 3:10). They did turn back to Yahweh- but not in their heart. Israel rejoiced in the light of John’s teaching- and he taught real, on-your-knees repentance. They thought they’d repented. But the Lord describes John as mourning, and them not mourning in sympathy and response (Lk. 7:32). They rejoiced in the idea of repentance, but never really got down to it. Israel called both to Yahweh, but also to Egypt for help (Hos. 7:11 s.w.). They didn't therefore accept Him as "the Most High". He was just another possibility to try. They prayed, they repented- but just on a surface level. This ability of human nature to display pseudo spirituality must provoke our endless self-examination. In Israel's case, they did all these things whilst "determined to turn from Me". Yahweh as "Most High" was therefore to be lifted up high. But they did not put meaning into words. They said He was "most high" but wouldn't lift Him high, just as we can use terms and phrases in prayer and worship- without at all living according to them.

But we could translate "And My people waver whether to return to Me". As if, when the prophets teach them to return to Me, they are in doubt whether to return or not to return; the allusion is to Gomer.

 

Hos 11:8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?- God recognized that Israel and Judah and Jerusalem were as Sodom, as the prophets make clear (Judah particularly is likened to Sodom- Is. 1:10; 3:9; Jer. 23:14; Ez. 16:46). But all the same, remembering their childhood (:1), He could not bring Himself to judge them as Sodom and her surrounding towns of Admah and Zeboiim; even though Jerusalem had sinned worse than Sodom (Ez. 16:48). Jeremiah's complaint that God had judged Jerusalem more harshly than Sodom (Lam. 4:6) therefore totally failed to take into account His internal struggles. And those who too quickly accuse God of being too harsh or unfair likewise need to consider these passages in Hosea, which reveal just how God struggles over judging sin. Admah and Zeboim are mentioned because Isaiah had observed that God's people were as Sodom. But God would not punish Israel for being as Sodom, even though He punished Sodom for being Sodom. The argument is full of intentional conflicts and paradoxes because it reflects God's own internal conflict. 

Clearly the contrast is with God's own words in Hos. 4:17 "Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone!". But God Himself cannot leave Ephraim alone. We see the intense disquiet and trouble within the soul of Yahweh Himself; between 'letting them go' and the desire to never let go of the beloved. We have here in Hosea 11 a unique window onto "God against God", His wrath against His love, His judgment against His pity, His requirement for repentance against His pure grace. There is no space in the cosmos for any 'God against Satan'. The essential struggle is revealed as God's internal struggle. All because of His love. We see "Ephraim" spoken of in the same way in Jer. 31:20: "Is Ephraim still my dear son, a child in whom I delight? As often as I turn my back on him, I still remember him". 

My heart is turned within Me, My compassion is aroused- The Hebrew for "turned" is a form of the verb "overturned" used about the overturning of Sodomon, Gomorrah and the surrounding cities just referenced. Instead of overturning Israel as He had done to those cities, His heart is overturned. We must understand that the heart is understood in Hebrew not simply as the center of emotion, but the center of decision making. "I said in my heart..." clearly means "I decided...". And that is the context. God's decision to punish and destroy Israel (as Hosea's regarding Gomer) is now overturned by other emotions and considerations, so that it is His very decision making which is "overturned" or traumatized. The tension within God is apparent. This verse is one of the deepest insights into God's internal struggle. God wants nothing more to do with His adulterous people; and then He pleads with them to come back to Him, breaking His own law, that a put away woman can’t return to her first husband. As Joseph's heart was 'warm' for his younger brother Benjamin, so the same word is used about how the heart of God is 'warm' in yearning for His ungrateful people (Gen. 43:30 cp. Hos. 11:8). This is the Divine emotion revealed as never elsewhere. And Jeremiah has something similar: “How can I pardon you… shall I avenge myself on a nation such as this? Shall I not punish them for these things?” (Jer. 5:7-9,28,29). God reveals Himself as oscillating between punishing and redeeming, judging sin and overlooking it. God is open to changing His stated plans (e.g. to destroy Nineveh within forty days, to destroy Israel and make of Moses a new nation). He isn’t like the Allah of Islam, who conducts a monologue with his followers; the one true God of Israel earnestly seeks dialogue with His people, and as such He enters into all the contradictory feelings and internal debates which dialogue involves. ‘God loves the sinner and hates the sin’ has always seemed to me problematic, logically and practically. Love is in the end a personal thing; in the end love and hate are appropriate to persons, not abstractions. And the person can’t so easily be separated from their actions. Ultimately, it is persons who will be saved or condemned. The prophets reveal both the wrath and love of God towards His people, in the same way as a parent or partner can feel both wrath and love towards their beloved.

Another translation is "My heart recoils within Me", as if deep within God's heart He sees His anger and neccessary judgment, but turns away from it. So often do we read of God 'turning from His anger', and this refers to the same thing- turning away deep within His own heart from His wrath. This is arguably the Bible's most intimate window onto the heart of God Himself.

God’s threats to punish His people and His desire to forgive them don’t somehow cancel each other out as in an equation. They exist within the mind of God in a terrible tension. His many ‘repentings’ or changes of mind are “kindled together” (AV) as He struggles within Himself to give up His people as He has threatened. And this struggle was reflected within the emotions and through the speeches / writings / poetry of Hosea concerning Gomer. Therefore Hosea’s speeches have an air of turbulence and struggle about them, which reflected the spirit / mind of the God who inspired him. The very way he was told to marry, in marked contrast to Jeremiah who was told not to marry (Jer. 16), perhaps indicates the duality of God’s feelings toward Israel- a desire to marry them and yet not to do so. The extent of God's wrath with Israel, and His harsh, angry language against her, was an outcome of His love for her. "For the wrath of God is the love of God", wrote Emil Brunner long ago. It's like when we see a child run out in front of a car and narrowly escape death; the mother is angry and shouts at the child. Whilst we the onlookers breathe a prayer of thanks to God in much calmer terms. And this may help explain to us what appears the harder side of God at times. See on 9:15 Love them no more.

Insofar as we realize that God is not passive, but has feelings toward us far more deep and passionate than we can ever know, so far we will realize that life with Him is a daily, passionate experience. It cannot be ‘the same old scene’. Consider the passion of God also in Is. 42: “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant”. The prophets are full of such passionate intensity. The prophets are not just predictions of the future. They reveal the passion of God’s feelings for His people. At the very time when He condemns them for their adultery against Him, their ingratitude, their worthlessness, He cries out His belief in the blessedness He will one day grace them with.

Almighty God struggled awfully with all this. The way He did it can be read as an omnipotent God bringing about tragedy. Yes, they were taken to captivity, but not without the acutest grief and pain of God Himself. The reality is, God can be aggrieved, hurt, feel rejected. Even though He is Almighty and could avoid all the situations that cause Him these feelings from arising in the first place. Or take Jer. 31:20: “Is Ephraim my dear son?…for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him”, or "Is Ephraim still my dear son, A child in whom I delight? As often as I turn my back on him, I still remember him". And the later grief and emotional breakdown of Jeremiah in Lamentations, sitting by the street with none to comfort him, tears dropping in the dust, clutching his hair with his hands… was an intended statement to Judah of God’s feelings for them.

This internal struggle of God is found also in Ezekiel. He says that He decided to destroy Israel, but "worked", within Himself, for His Name's sake, not to do so (Ez. 20:8,9,13,14,21,22).

 

Hos 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of you-  See on Hos. 9:11 Glory. As discussed on :8, God struggles with His feelings; He has said He would destroy Ephraim and now He relents. He can do this, because He is God, the one true God, and not the stone faced gods of the nations, for whom any change of their apparent position was seen as a sign that they weren't really gods. And yet finally God did not turn away His anger from His people, and destroyed them at that time (2 Kings 23:26; Jer. 4:8); but He ultimately will turn away His anger, due to the work of the Lord Jesus. See on Hos. 14:4. His mercy and grace is far greater than human parental love. In this sense He is God "and not man". God is kinder than man. This for all time removes the problem of people assuming God has the very limited love and compassion which they found in their parental figures. As Jeremias put it: “For Hosea, the true distance between God and human beings is not marked by inaccessible eminence but by his victory over his justified anger, by his decision to save those who are guilty and condemned to death. In face of this divine self-control all analogies of human thinking and acting fail". "I will not execute the fierceness of My anger" implies His anger was within Him, but He exercise painful self restraint in order not to execute it.

We note that "man" is ish and not adam. God is saying that He is acting to His woman in a way that no mere mortal male ever would. Amazing as Hosea's love for Gomer was, Yahweh's love was even greater, to the point of the all powerful God whose word is truth actually not operationalizing that full word. Because of His love. The Biblical God is so far from the concrete, unemotional gods of other religions, whose will must simply be submitted to. The triple "I will not..." is perhaps an inversion of "I will be who I will be", just as earlier God has said in Hos. 1:9 that "I will not be" [your God]. But now "I will not [be]" as I said I would be. We see here a struggle within God, within the very core principles and characteristics that are part of His Name, His most essential personality.

God says this fully aware that He is not a man who repents / changes, but does what He says (Num. 23:19). He alludes to this when He says that He changes because He is God and not man. Because of this, He can sct beyond His own nature and principles. Just as love leads us all to transcend our own intrinsic bounds. We would do for our child what we would do for nobody else, and find strength beyond our normal natural limits.

Hosea dreamt or fantasized about the day when, he hoped, Gomer [cp. Israel] would return to him. And we find God through the prophets doing this often, as an expression of His love for them. He dreamt of how Israel as His vineyard would again be fruitful: “In that day: A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!... I [will] guard it day and night; I have no wrath” (Is. 27:2,3). He had wrath, and yet at the thought of Israel’s blessed future with Him, He could say “I have no wrath”. And so here, the God who spoke of slaying Israel with thirst in Hosea 2 could then comment: “I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man… and I will not come to destroy” (Hos. 11:9 AV).

God utters His word of judgment, but there is a gap between that point and the execution of it. It is in that gap that we can repent, and He can change His intended judgment. However it seems that during that gap, God also carries on thinking; and in this case, His memory of Israel as a child in the desert was so overpowering and choking that He Himself changed the execution of His threat, despite their lack of repentance.

He was still in the midst of them. And yet the visions of Ezekiel visually demonstrate His presence in the cherubim removing from Jerusalem. So even this relenting was still only temporary. The only other reference in Hosea to "in the midst" is in Hos. 5:4: "The spirit of prostitution is in the midst of you". There, in the midst of their very heart, a heart filled with prostitution and lust- there was God, in all His holiness in the midst of their unholy hearts. And despite being there, He within His heart would not bring Himself to destroy them as He had said He would, and as His own Name and inner heart required Him to do. It is a strange figure- the depth of God's holy heart is revealed, and also the depth of their unholy heart. Through all this we at least learn that love is not painless and involves suffering.

And I will not come in wrath- Perhaps Paul had this in view when he asks the Corinthians rhetorically whether he should come to them in judgment with the rod of wrath, or in the spirit of meekness (1 Cor. 4:21). Or as AV "I will not enter into the city". This could refer to how Sennacherib appeared all set to enter Jerusalem, but this was averted; not simply by the prayers of the faithful remnant, but by God's own change of plan. But finally God did, at the head of the Babylonian and Roman armies. So again we see God's desire to relent, even His decision to relent, overturned by His need to judge rightly.

 

Hos 11:10 They will walk after Yahweh, who will roar like a lion; for He will roar, and the children will come trembling from the west- The "trembling" in view here and in :11 is trembling in repentance; "When Ephraim spoke with trembling, he exalted himself in Israel" (Hos. 13:1). "Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to His blessings in the last days" (Hos. 3:5). The idea seems to be that when God roared upon the lands of their exile, which were imagined to be Egypt and Assyria, then Israel would repent, both Judah and Ephraim, and would return to Zion in repentance, 'walking after Yahweh'. Just as Hosea planned to make Gomer suffer so that she would then return to him completely, so it was God's intention that the exiles in Babylon and Assyria would lead to a humbled people returning to Him spiritually and literally, to Jerusalem. He would judge their captors like a lion, and the Messianic Kingdom would have been established in the reestablished Kingdom of God in Israel. But this scenario didn't happen, just as Gomer never really returned to Hosea.

"The west" here is the Hebrew word yam, which simply means "the sea". The reference could be to a second exodus from the Red Sea, which other prophets also envisage.

Hos 11:11 They will come trembling like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses, says Yahweh- This was God's fantasy for Israel, as it were. He assumed that they will indeed go into captivity in Egypt, but He would bring them out of it. This never happened; see on :5. God twisted and turned within Himself (:8) as to whether to send them to Egypt in exile, speaking as if He would, imagining Him again bringing them out of there (:1) and remarrying them at Sinai (see on Hos. 8:1). They had gone to Egypt and Assyria for help as a dove without a heart (Hos. 7:11); but He would bring that dove out again.

For those who really 'got it', the marvel of God's grace would lead them to come trembling to Him (Hos. 3:5). He has this hope in view also in Hos. 11:11 "They shall come trembling out of Egypt". Jer. 33:9 hopes that at the restoration, they "shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure to [Zion]". The awesome grace would make men tremble as they accepted it, and so it should be with us. Likewise Is. 60:5 "Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall thrill [s.w. "tremble"] and be enlarged". Then we will have the opening of mind to perceive how great is His grace, something which we sense but only see from far in this life. But we will only appreciate that grace to the extent of trembling, if we first accept our deep guilt and whoredom against the God of all grace and love.

Hos 11:12 Ephraim surrounds Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit- Despite the amazing love of God for Israel, resulting in such torments in the heart of Almighty God (:8,9), Israel like Gomer just refused to perceive the amazing love and grace being shown to them. As Gomer lied and deceived, so Israel did to God. They surrounded God with these lies, perhaps alluding to a woman like Gomer hugging her husband, when she was in fact having an affair with others. But even in this there is hope and potential for repentance, for Hos. 12 will go on to demonstrate that Jacob / Israel was a deceiver who repented.

 

Judah still remains with God, and is faithful to the Holy One- But just two verses later: "Yahweh has also a controversy with Judah" (Hos. 12:2). Hosea clearly knew that both Israel and Judah would fall together in condemnation for the same sins (Hos. 5:5; 6:4,10,11; 12:1,2); and yet Hosea appeals to Judah to not sin as Israel had so that they would avoid that same condemnation (Hos. 4:15; 11:12). These positive words about Judah are therefore irrational, because Judah has so often been bracketed together with Israel in Hosea's prophecies. But this desperate hope that the unfaithful beloved is in fact faithful, just as Hosea hoped for Gomer, speaks of the desperate love of God for His adulterous people. And God has shown this kind of desperate hope at other times, hoping against hope and His own foreknowledge that there would be different outcomes. For desperate hope is all a function of true love. Thus knowing the destruction that would come on all except Noah, God waited in the hope that more would be saved. He as it were hoped against His own foreknowledge that more would saved (1 Pet. 3:20). We are not so perfect, but we are left to imagine God's joy that we have responded...

But the text can be translated: "and Judah vacillates still with God".