Hosea 1:10-11

GOMER'S INGRATITUDE SPIRIT OF HARLOTRY

TEXT: Hosea 1:10-11

10

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass that, in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

11

And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up from the land; for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

QUERIES

a.

When would they be called sons of the living God?

b.

How will they be gathered together?

c.

Who will be the one head appointed over them?

PARAPHRASE

Yet in spite of the judgment of God that is surely coming, God will just as surely keep the covenant He made with Abraham when He promised that his descendants would be as innumerable as the sand of the sea. It shall come to pass that just as it has been said Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto all, both Jew and Gentile, who follow the example of Abraham's faith, Ye are the sons of the living God. And all the people of God, whether Jew or Gentile, shall be united together in one spiritual nation and they shall have one Leader, the Messiah, over them and they shall be delivered from their bondage. Out of the sowing (Jezreel) of judgment God will bring a great, victorious day of sowing (Jezreel), a new sowing of a new Israel.

SUMMARY

Immediately upon the announcement of the complete judgment and rejection of the northern kingdom of Israel follows an announcement of deliverance and covenant fulfillment to spiritual Israel.

COMMENT

Hosea 1:10. ISRAEL SHALL BE AS THE SAND OF THE SEA. AND. IT SHALL BE SAID UNTO THEM, YE ARE THE SONS OF THE LIVING GOD. It is very interesting to note here that the opening phrase of this verse is almost verbatim the words of the covenant promise made to Abraham in Genesis 22:17; Genesis 32:13. This confirms our Introductory principle of interpretation called Covenant Background. All the events of history, as interpreted by the Prophets, take place on a covenant background. Even the future restoration of the Jews to Palestine after the Babylonian captivity in the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, and, the future kingdom of God under the Messiah, the New Testament Church, is portrayed as the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham.

Hosea announces the complete rejection of Israel, the northern kingdom, from being God's people. Some of the faithful remnant might then conclude that God had forgotten His immutable covenant with Abraham. So Hosea is directed by God to write that Jehovah will eventually fulfill His covenant with Abraham (to make of Israel an innumerable people), even though the physical nation of Israel would be forever overthrown.

Perhaps this received its initial fulfillment in the restoration under Zerubbabel when a few of the Ten Tribes returned to Palestine in company with the nation of Judah, But its primary fulfillment is to be found in the founding of New Israel, the Christian Church, under the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. This cannot be misunderstood! It has the sanction of apostolic pronouncement (cf. 1 Peter 2:10; Romans 9:25). The restoration of the Jews in 536 B.C. was only typical of the New Israel to be instituted on the Day of Pentecost.

Lange says, As to the main application of these verses, it is probably best to regard its promise as partially and but to a very small degree fulfilled in the case of those out of the Ten Tribes who returned to Jerusalem after the Exile, and to be constantly undergoing its fulfillment in the increase of the true Israel until the great multitude which no man could number of all nations-' (the 144,000, the mystical number of those sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel), shall be completed. That the Messianic application is almost exclusively the true one is evident both from the grand comprehensiveness of the promise, and from paucity of evidence as to subsequent reunion to any extent of the representatives of the two kingdoms.

Pusey says, Both St. Peter and St. Paul tell us that this prophecy is already, in Christ, fulfilled in those of Israel, who wear the true Israel, or of the Gentiles to whom the promise was made.

Peter applies the prophecy to the exiles of the Dispersion in his day while Paul specifically applies it to the Gentiles in Romans 9:25. The Gentiles, formerly called not My people, would henceforth, by believing in the Seed of Abraham, be called My people.

Hosea 1:11. JUDAH. AND. ISRAEL SHALL BE GATHERED TOGETHER. ONE HEAD. UP FROM THE LAND. GREAT. THE DAY OF JEZREEL. Pusey says, A little image of this union was seen after the captivity in Babylon when some of the children of Israel, i.e. of the ten tribes, were united to Judah on his return, and the great schism of the two kingdoms came to an end. More fully, both literal Judah and Israel were gathered into one in the one Church of Christ, and all the spiritual Judah and Israel; i.e. as many of the Gentiles, as by following the faith, became the sons of faithful Abraham, and heirs of the promise to him.

Ezekiel symbolizes the union of all God's people under the leadership of one shepherd, David (the Messiah) in Ezekiel 34:1-24. Ezekiel symbolizes the same Messianic union by the two staffs in Ezekiel 37:15-28, (cf. also Jeremiah 3:15-18; Isaiah 11:12-13). This, of course, finds its fulfillment in such N.T. scriptures as Ephesians 2:11-22; Ephesians 3:4-11; etc.

The name Jezreel loses its stigma. Henceforth it will be great. Jezreel means, as we have pointed out before, sowing. There, in Hosea 1:4 it meant God would disperse them in judgment. Here in Hosea 1:11 it is used in an exactly opposite way to mean that God will, out of the wreckage of former Israel, make a new sowing or planting and raise up a New Israel.

QUIZ

1.

How do these two verses fit into our principle of interpretation called Covenant Background.

2.

Where in the New Testament do we have an inspired interpretation of the fulfillment of these two verses?

3.

How can the Gentiles be included in the fulfillment of these verses?

4.

What other O.T. scriptures refer to the union of Israel and Judah in a Messianic sense?

5.

What does the name Jezreel signify used in this context as compared to Hosea 1:4?