Hosea 2:14,15

LOVE RECONCILINGISRAEL IS LURED

TEXT: Hosea 2:14-15

14

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

15

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall make answer there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

QUERIES

a.

Where is the wilderness where God will bring Israel?

b.

Where is the valley of Achor?

PARAPHRASE

Because I am the faithful Covenant God who never retracts His promise, and because you have forgotten Me, I am going to make love to you again and woo you by speaking words to your heart when you are in your despondency in captivity. Out of her deprivation shall come again to her prosperity; out of her tribulation and trouble shall be opened to her a door of hope. And she shall compose and sing her songs of faith in answer to My love as she did in her early days of deliverance from Egypt.

SUMMARY

God will use the judgment which Israel brought upon herself to woo her back to Him. Out of her tribulation will come an open door to hope.

COMMENT

Hosea 2:14-15. I WILL ALLURE HER. GIVE HER. VINEYARDS. AND THE VALLEY OF ACHOR FOR A DOOR OF HOPE; AND SHE SHALL MAKE ANSWER THERE. Therefore points back to Hosea 2:13. Not only in spite of, but because Israel forgot God and went a whoring after other gods, Jehovah-God initiates action designed to allure or woo Israel back to Him. Love divine, all love excelling. Oh, what mercy, and what grace! Israel had played the fool. Headlong she had plunged into idolatry which was the path of self-destruction. Headstrong and stiff-necked she rejected Jehovah and delighted in perverting His Law and blasphemously keeping His feasts and sabbaths. And because of this God loved her! We are reminded of the song:

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;

Were ev-'ry stalk on earth a quill,

And ev-'ry man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Tho-' stretched from sky to sky.

by F. M. Lehman

It also reminds us of Francis Thompson's poem, The Hound of Heaven. This beautiful poem about the ever-seeking love of God is reproduced at the conclusion of this book. Please read it and re-read it until you feel it.

The phrase, ... the valley of Achor for a door of hope is an interesting figure of speech. Two ideas are placed in close connection and declared to be inter-relatedTroubling and Hope. God would have Israel understand that her troubling in captivity is the reason she may have hope. In Joshua 7:26 we find the valley named Trouble because of the terrible and swift judgment of God which fell upon Achan, the man who troubled Israel because of his secret sin. It was only when Joshua dealt with this trouble that hope and victory returned to Israel.

Many are the New Testament passages which teach us to understand that our tribulation gives us reason to hope. In Hebrews 10:32-39 we are told that our tribulation builds confidence; we have need of endurance so that we may do the will of God and receive what is promised. In Hebrews 12:3-11 we are told that only through chastening may we have hope that God loves us as sons. If God did not chasten us and trouble us what would happen to us? We would be left to our own self-destruction and most certainly destroy ourselves! Paul relates in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 that he was brought to despair of life itself in tribulation in order that he should be brought to rely not on himself but upon God! Read Paul's revelation in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 in this connection also.

These two verses use the history of Israel's deliverance from Egypt to typify God's future deliveries of His New Covenant people through Christ, the Messiah. Just as the wilderness wanderings of Israel in the days of Moses were days of probation and trial wherein God was training a people by want and privation to the knowledge of its need of Divine help, and on the other hand by miraculous deliverance in the time of need to trust to His omnipotence, so the entire time from the captivities (of both Israel and Judah), through the restoration, culminating in the coming of the Messiah would be a time when God would allure a New Israel. God would test and try this New Israel and speak comfortably to her through her prophets of the exile; through the post exilic prophets; through His acts of redemption and material blessing and finally through the coming of the Messiah. This would be the return of her vineyards from thence.

The valley of Achor is a type showing how God restores His favor to His people after the expiation of guilt by the punishment of the transgressor. God will so expiate the sins of man, and cover them with His grace by punishing them in Christ (cf. Isaiah 53), that the covenant of fellowship with Him will no more be broken by transgressionvictory for His people will be assured. The New Israel (the church of Christ) will then answer the Lord in praise and promise by keeping the new covenant just as Israel did in the days of her youth at Sinai (cf. Exodus 15; Exodus 24).

QUIZ

1.

What did the bringing of Israel into the wilderness have to do with alluring her back to God?

2.

How did God speak comfortably to Israel?

3.

What does the name Achor mean and how could it become a door of hope?

4.

In what way did Israel make answer. as in the days of her youth. ?