Taken as a whole, the Cycle reveals the pain of a loving father who grieves over each detail in the long history of Israel’s disunity from him. In fact, 71 of the 136 “negative” verses, more than 50 percent, specifically call out their disunity.
Don’t miss this. If you truly want to feel God’s pain as a loving father, read these chapters.
And ask yourself how he feels about us today as his disunited church.
But don’t stop there. Salted in between the preponderance of painful verses is the power of a parent who never, ever gives up, even when things look their very worse. The beauty of the Cycle is that we can focus on the Spring rain amidst all the parched desert that was Israel in Hosea’s day:
- “Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days” (3:5, ESV) - repentance.
- “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” (6:3) – unity with God.
- “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (6:6) – unity with God.
- “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” (10:12) - restoration.
- “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you up, O Israel?...My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (11:8) – never-ending love of God.
- “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God” (12:6) - command.
- “But I am the Lord your God…you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior” (13:4) – unity with God.
- “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon…” (14:4-5) – never-ending love of God.
- “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them” (14:9) – unity with God versus disunity.
After temptation, disobedience, disunity, warning, and judgement, the Cycle culminates in never-ending love, repentance, restoration, unity with God, and at last obeying the Lord’s commandments, that is those of God and of Jesus.
As humans we repeat the Cycle over and over (thank God we are allowed to!), with joy and relief at repentance and restoration.
As the church of Jesus Christ, we have never achieved this universal culmination of the Cycle desperately needed to arrive at the perfect unity Jesus prayed for.
I just turned on my sprinkler system this week to water a lawn severely parched by an extremely dry winter. I invite us as the church to the same to our own parched disunity.
Capture the Spring rains of Hosea illuminated by the Cycle.
It is time. Let us become the church united, thrilling the Father and the Son. Let us not be like the Israel of yesterday grieving them.