03.10. GOD’S RESPONSE TO ISRAEL’S FAITHLESSNESS

GOD’S RESPONSE TO ISRAEL’S FAITHLESSNESS

How, we wonder, did the Lord respond to the spiritual adultery characterising His bride’s conduct? The prophecy of Hosea gives us some indication. From ‘Lo-Ammi’ to ‘Ammi’ – Hosea 1:1-11; Hosea 2:1-23 The Lord instructed the prophet Hosea to marry: a prostitute: “When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea: ‘Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry...” (Hosea 1:2). When reading this, one cannot help wonder why Hosea had to do such a revolting thing. The Lord’s answer immediately follows: “for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the LORD” (Hosea 1:2). Hosea had to be a living display of what the people themselves were doing, i.e. committing spiritual adultery against their covenant God, their Husband. So Hosea married a whore, “Gomer the daughter of Diblaim,” and had children by her. The Lord Himself decided on the names the children were to receive. Hosea was to name the oldest, a son, Jezreel meaning ‘God scatters.’ The second child, a daughter, was to be called Lo-Ruhamah meaning ‘not loved.’ The third child, another son, had to be named Lo-Ammi, a name consisting of the three Hebrew words: ‘Lo’ (= not), ‘am’ (= people), and ‘mi’ (= my/I). So, when father Hosea called out to his third son, people would have heard “Not my people!” Imagine the looks on people’s faces when they heard a name like that! No doubt they would have asked amongst themselves “why on earth such a name?” Yes, why? It was a name containing prophecy directed at them. In the name of Hosea’s third child God warned Israel how He would disown them on account of their unfaithfulness in their marriage-by-covenant to Him. By their adultery they had renounced their privilege of being God’s people. However, to be rid of His covenant people, to permanently sever the relationship, was not at all God’s motive. Just as Hosea was commanded to continue loving Gomer and to take her back to himself when she was unfaithful to him, so God was unrelenting in His love for His people. His relentless love sought Israel’s well being and hence her repentance and her return to Him. That God regarded His marriage with Israel as a permanent relationship is obvious from what we read in Hosea 2:16. If it required divorce to make Israel repent, i.e. to be sent into exile, then God would resort to that, but, with the sole aim of winning His bride back to Himself. Not only does Hosea prophesy of judgment and ‘divorce’ but also of repentance and the subsequent restoration of the marriage. When prophesying about God’s. mercy after a period of wrath, Hosea must say, “And it shall be, in that day,” says the LORD, “that you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master.’ God’s use of the word ‘master’ here is a play on words: one of the two Hebrew words for ‘husband’ is ‘Baal’ meaning ‘master.’ Hosea’s prophecy continues:

“For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, to make them lie down safely. I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the LORD ... I will say to those who were not my people, “You are my people!” And they shall say, “You are my God!” (Hosea 2:17-23).

Israel was committing harlotry with the: Baals; she had become a whore, despicable in God’s sight. Yet, in spite of all her harlotry and being driven to calling her “Not My people” (Lo-Ammi) God’s final word to His bride is, “My people” (Ammi). Here is God’s faithfulness; He does not send His people ultimately away, in the fullest sense of the word. No, even in the face of His bride’s faithlessness, God maintains His marriage With Israel. Even calling them “Not My people” was intended to save the marriage, not to terminate it.

“Return ... for I am married to you!” - Jeremiah 2:1-37; Jeremiah 3:1-25

Jeremiah prophesied a number of years after Hosea. Note how in Jeremiah 2:20 Jeremiah picks up on the same theme as Hosea: “For of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, ‘I will not transgress,’ when on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down, playing the harlot..” Jeremiah describes Israel’s conduct over the decades and centuries in terms of harlotry. Jeremiah is most graphic on the subject:

“How can you say, “I am not polluted, I have not gone after the Baals?” See your way in the valley; know what you have done: you area swift dromedary breaking loose in her ways, a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that sniffs at the wind in her desire; in her time of mating, who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they will find her. Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. But you said, “There is no hope. No! For I have loved aliens, and after them I will go” (Jeremiah 2:23-25).

Jeremiah must portray Judah’s behaviour as that of a wild donkey on heat. There is no way that she can contain her lust for the heathen gods! In that context God raises the topic of divorce. Jeremiah 3:1 : “They say, ‘If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, may he return to her again?’ Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return to Me, “ says the LORD. “ The quote within this quote(“If a man divorces his wife...”) is a reference to the Lord’s instruction in Deuteronomy 24:1-22. In that passage the Lord had told Israel that if a man divorces his wife and she marries again, and if the second husband dies or divorces her also, then the first husband may not take her back (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). So the answer to the question in Jeremiah’s quote had to be negative; the man who divorced his. wife may not, after his ex-wife married another man, woo her to himself again.

Despite that prohibition, though, God insists that Israel -though she has played the harlot with many lovers- must “return to Me.” Why does God insist? Why does the Lord not feel free to desert Israel and seek another covenant partner? The answer lies in God’s faithfulness to His promise. Israel and God were bound together by covenant, forever (Genesis 17:7). But Israel broke her side of the covenant: “Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see: Where have you not lain with men? By the road you have sat for them like an Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickedness” (Jeremiah 3:2). Israel committed adultery. Yet God does not sever His bond with Israel; despite her dedication over the years to foreign gods, the Lord -faithful that He is- keeps calling out to His faithless bride: “return to Me.” In fact, in the days of Jeremiah the ten northern tribes had already gone into exile with the Assyrians. The fact that the Lord sent Israel into exile amounted to putting her away and giving her a certificate of divorce (Jeremiah 3:8). Yet the Lord did not consider Himself free of the northern tribes; despite the “certificate of divorce” that God had given, He calls Israel to repentance. He tells Jeremiah to “go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: ‘Return, backsliding Israel,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not cause My anger to fall on you. For I am merciful,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not-remain angry forever….Return, O backsliding children,’ says the LORD; ‘for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, ‘and I will bring you to Zion” (Jeremiah 3:12, Jeremiah 3:14).

How remarkable! Though Israel had committed adultery and God had divorced her, God does not say to her, “Now it is all over between you and Me; that is the end of our relationship!” On the contrary, God calls her back: “Return..., for I am married to you!” Since divorce does not put a final end to His marriage God’s pose remains one of calling His bride to repent and return, for God considers Israel still to be His wife! Here is faithfulness to marriage vows that knows no end. In fact, even the exile itself (=divorce) was intended to call God’s people back to her lawful Husband. In light of God’s example in His marriage with Israel, what room is left for impatience between husband and wife? Surely, the example God showed leaves no room for the child of God to think that God has created marriage with an escape door by which one can become absolutely free of the spouse. Instead, God intends human marriage to be permanent, “until death us do part”. And even if a marriage between a man and a woman should come to divorce, the purpose of the divorce ought to remain this: to call the other back.