Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

whenever I would heal Israel,
the sins of Ephraim are exposed
    and the crimes of Samaria revealed.
They practice deceit,
    thieves break into houses,
    bandits rob in the streets;
but they do not realize
    that I remember all their evil deeds.
Their sins engulf them;
    they are always before me.
“They delight the king with their wickedness,
    the princes with their lies.
They are all adulterers,
    burning like an oven
whose fire the baker need not stir
    from the kneading of the dough till it rises.
On the day of the festival of our king
    the princes become inflamed with wine,
    and he joins hands with the mockers.
Their hearts are like an oven;
    they approach him with intrigue.
Their passion smolders all night;
    in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
All of them are hot as an oven;
    they devour their rulers.
All their kings fall,
    and none of them calls on me.
“Ephraim mixes with the nations;
    Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.
Foreigners sap his strength,
    but he does not realize it.
His hair is sprinkled with gray,
    but he does not notice.
Israel’s arrogance testifies against him,
    but despite all this
he does not return to the Lord his God
    or search for him.
“Ephraim is like a dove,
    easily deceived and senseless—
now calling to Egypt,
    now turning to Assyria.
When they go, I will throw my net over them;
    I will pull them down like the birds in the sky.
When I hear them flocking together,
    I will catch them.
Woe to them,
    because they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
    because they have rebelled against me!
I long to redeem them
    but they speak about me falsely.
They do not cry out to me from their hearts
    but wail on their beds.
They slash themselves, appealing to their gods
    for grain and new wine,
    but they turn away from me.
I trained them and strengthened their arms,
    but they plot evil against me.
They do not turn to the Most High;
    they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
    because of their insolent words.
For this they will be ridiculed
    in the land of Egypt.

• Hosea 7:1-16

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Hosea 7:1-2 ‘wickedness of their hearts’: “Typically, thieves do not wish to be seen doing their evil deeds. But as a thief, Israel practiced their plunder in the streets for all to sec. Ironically, they were the ones blind to the wickedness in their own hearts. In addition, they failed to realize how Goel always observes their sins.
“Imagine a child goes against his parent’s instructions and plunders cookies from the cookie jar. He may deny performing this insubordinate deed, but his face covered in crumbs tells the true story. Many folks arc blind to or dismissive of their own wrongdoings. But God remembers all their wickedness. Their evil deeds arc obvious and observable right in front of God’s face.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 7:1 ‘Ephraim’s Rebellion’: “God’s gracious intention to heal and restore Israel was blocked by the realities of Ephraim’s rebellion. The charge here reiterated murder and looting by priests (Hos 6:7–9). God wanted to renew the nation. However, the wickedness of one segment, Ephraim, and its corrupt capital, Samaria, made that renewal impossible.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Karen H. Jobes, Minor Prophets contributor)

Hosea 7:3-7 ‘people groan’: “The wickedness of the nation went all the way to the top. The king and the princes were pleased with evil (7:3). They were guilty of adultery, drunkenness, and anger (7:4-6). Our sin affects other people, but the sin of rulers can be even more devastating than that of most because their unrighteous actions distress and influence the people of the nation: ‘When the wicked rule, people groan’ (Prov 29:2). Yet, no matter how many kings fell as a result of their foolishness, not one of them called on God (7:7).”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Hosea 7:3 ‘king and princes applauded sin’: “The king and the princes applauded this sort of behavior. In our day it is tragic when the leadership in any field—education, science, politics, or the church—give themselves over to foul and blasphemous language, as they are now doing. That is something else that is out in the open. A foulmouthed leader is applauded as being a he-man. Well, it also indicates that he has a very poor vocabulary and is not able to express himself. Unfortunately, this verse is applicable to our nation, and history tells us that it has been applicable to great nations in the past that have now passed off the stage of human events and lie in rubble, covered by the dust of the centuries.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 7:4 ‘Baal and Adultery’: “Adultery was mentioned specifically. Though primarily a reference to spiritual adultery, unfaithfulness to marital vows must have also been in view because of the cultic prostitution associated with Baalism. Hosea compared the lustful release of all moral restraints that characterized the religious and moral life of Israel to the heating of leavened bread in the oven. The heat of the oven was so intense that it needed no tending during the night and still could be revived for baking on the morrow.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Karen H. Jobes, Minor Prophets contributor)

Hosea 7:5 ‘liquor and sex’: “The king has become an alcoholic, and he is making a fool of himself. We have mentioned this before, but it is so important that we will keep repeating it. What was it that brought down the northern kingdom? It was idolatry, a turning away from God. That will always manifest itself in gross immorality. Wine and women, the bottle and the brothel, sauce and sex are the things that occupied the attention of the northern kingdom.
“Now if you think I am a square or unfair or a bigot, will you let me ask you a fair question? As you look about you today, what is the chief occupation of men and women in all walks of life? Isn’t it an occupation with liquor and with sex? Haven’t these two become the prominent things in this civilization of ours? Isn’t it true that it is being brought out in the open today as never before in our country? When these sins were brought out in the open in Israel, God said that He would have to move and judge them.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 7:6 ‘We are adults…’: “Everything is done to stir up the passions of men and women. In our day we hear this so-called sophisticated argument about pornography: ‘We are adults and should have the right to choose what we want to see and what we want to hear.’ Well, there isn’t much freedom to choose what we want to see and what we want to hear when we are bombarded with filth everywhere we turn. I don’t have the liberty to choose what is presented on television or the radio or the advertising media. I think there are a great many people who would like to see better things and hear better things than are presented to us today, but that freedom is denied us in order that the other crowd can have their freedom to give themselves over to sin.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 7:7 ‘four kings assassinated’: “’All their kings have fallen’ (Hos. 7:7). This was an appropriate description of instability in the declining northern kingdom. Within 20 years, four of Israel’s kings had been assassinated: Zechariah in 753 B.C., Shallum in 752 (within 7 months of Zechariah), Pekahiah in 740, and Pekah in 732. After the Syro-Ephraimite War ended in 732, Israel was in its final years as a kingdom.”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

Hosea 7:8-12 ‘unturned bread’: “Have you ever had food on your plate that looked wonderful only to find that the bottom was burnt to a crisp? That’s the idea behind, Ephraim is unturned bread baked on a griddle. They had gotten mixed up with foreign nations and didn’t realize they were getting burned (7:8-9), and their people refused to return to God (7:10). Ephraim, therefore, is also pictured as a silly; sense-less dove. They flit over to Egypt and then flutter over to Assyria, looking for a safe place to land. But, the Lord will bring them down (7:11-12).”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Hosea 7:8 ‘Cooking with permeating’: “The nomadic people of the Middle East baked their bread on hot rocks. If the dough wasn’t turned regularly, one side of the loaf would burn while the other side was uncooked.
“A friend recently told me about attending a ‘tailgate’ event where folks made pizza in specially designed outdoor ovens. Each pizza was regularly turned so it would cook evenly. Because of their compromising posture, Israel was ‘burned’ by Assyria on one side. Meanwhile, their lack of devotion to the Lord left them uncooked on the other side.
“People often arc overly passionate about inferior things and not passionate enough about holy things. As a pastor, I often wish folks showed as much devotion to the Lord as they do to finances, leisure, schedules, fandom, habits, and many other distractions.
“The gracious work of the Lord must permeate our entire being. Yet this is a goal in which we ALL fall short.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 7:9 ‘learning the ways of sin’: “The prophet here testified that the kingdom of Israel had learned the way of the surrounding nations and had polluted itself with their vices, and consequently the strength of the kingdom had decayed. He declares that he could discern signs of this decay-signs as manifest and certain as gray hairs that mark the decline of life, yet the in-habitants of the realm of Israel had not observed their decline. They had boasted of their strength when all the while it was departing from them.
“Many do not see their gray hairs because they do not look into the mirror to see them; we cannot perceive gray hairs without the use of the mirror or our sins without the mirror of the Word of God. These neglected, unread Bibles-how they cry out against us! What swift witnesses they will be against us in the last heart-searching day! Does God give us a gauge by which we may measure ourselves, and will we not use it? Does he send us these detectors by which we may discover whether all is well with us, and will we close our eyes and refuse to see? If we die and utterly perish, surely our blood must be on our own head. He who will not take the trouble to look into the mirror will have no one to blame if the undiscovered evil brings him into grievous ill and irretrievable mischief.“

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 7:11-16 ‘Hoshea’: “Hoshea (732–722 B.C.) was the last king of northern Israel. He led a pro-Assyrian conspiracy against Israel’s king Pekah, assassinating him and seizing the throne himself (2 Kin. 15:30). At first Israel, under Hoshea, became a vassal of Assyria (Hos. 5:13; 14:3). Sometime after the death of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 727 B.C., Hoshea stopped paying tribute and turned to Egypt for help (2 Kin. 17:4). The prophet Hosea warns that an alliance with Egypt will be of no avail (Hos. 7:11, 16).”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

Hosea 7:11 ‘a vassal of Assyria’: ”The complete failure of Ephraim to worship her true God in time of trouble led to a senseless foreign policy in which she sought help from her natural enemies Egypt and Assyria. Subsequently, Israel’s ruler Pekah went to Egypt for assistance while under the vassalship of Assyria, a fatal move that led to the loss of both his country and his life (see 2Ki 15:29–30).”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Karen H. Jobes, Minor Prophets contributor)

Hosea 7:12 ‘Silly Doves’: “I can remember as a boy that we would get a big box, prop up one end, and put corn under it. We would have the corn lead right under the box. We would hide in the barn, and the doves would come to eat the corn. They would follow the corn right under the box. Then we would pull a string, and the box would come down on them. Silly doves. That is what God says here. He will spread His net upon them. They will be caught.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 7:13-16 ‘plotting against God’: “You can sense the anguish God experienced from his people’s rejection of him: they fled from me … they rebelled against me … they do not cry to me from their hearts … they plot evil against me (7:13-15).Though he trained and strengthened them, they slashed themselves (7:14-15)-probably in a pagan ritual pleading for divine help (see 1 Kgs 18:27-29). And while the people turned to idols and other nations, they didn’t turn to what is above (7:16). If you look for counsel or aid from anywhere other than the heavenly realm, you’re wasting your time. You will only fall and be ridiculed (7:16).”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Hosea 7:13 ‘redeemed them’: “From Egypt and their other enemies.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Hosea 7:14 ‘wailed upon their beds … assembled together’: “The former phrase may speak of appeals to pagan fertility gods upon beds of sacred prostitution, while the latter, if the alternate reading listed in the translators’ note is correct, harkens to Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel (cf. 1 Kin. 18:28).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Hosea 7:15-16 ‘Egypt will mock’: “’They are like a deceitful bow.’ You put an arrow in it to shoot at something and the string breaks. It is a deceitful bow—you can’t depend upon it.
“’This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.’ He is saying that Egypt will begin to mock them and ridicule them for the way they are acting.
“You can see that this is a very severe section of the Word of God. Hosea was not the most popular prophet in his day. He wouldn’t be a popular prophet today, either. However, he still has a message for us, and we do well to listen.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

My Thoughts

Hosea paints a dire picture of total depravity.

As the scholarly quotes suggests, thieves do their best (naughtiest) work in the shadows or in darkness, but the thieves in Ephraim and Samaria do so in broad daylight.

The king and princes approve of the depravity.  They even get drunk on wine just to watch.  It is like the political logic of today.  “They will do these illegal things whether we legalize them or not, but if we make these things legal, then we can make a fortune off the taxes that are levied.”  With the political ideas of today, I think part of the kings’ interest in the false god worship and general depravity of the northern kingdom was that the kings had a monetary gain in the spreading of the activity.

Hosea uses the metaphor that the people have hearts that burn for immoral desires.  Thus their hearts are like ovens that cook from one side only.  If you never turn the bread over, you do not find that it is burned until you taste it.  The people have become so numb to depravity that they hardly taste the burned bread anymore.

I talked to people in my Sunday school class many years ago.  They had gone to a movie that was supposed to be the big summer smash.  I asked if there was nudity?  Their reply was “not much.”  I asked if there was cursing?  “Sure, a lot of that, but using God’s name in vain wasn’t used all the time.”  I asked if there was a lot of violence? “That is the big draw to the movie.  How can you have an action blockbuster movie without violence?”

How, indeed?

Even churchgoers who never miss a Sunday can become numb to the depravity in our society.  And these days, many movie production companies will not put a movie on the silver screen without glorifying the Woke agenda and denigrating God in some way.

The last movie that my wife and I saw was Jesus Revolution.  She died about a month later, and I have not seen a movie since then.

But back to Ephraim.  Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived.  Ephraim chases after the nations around them.  They ask for favors and become enslaved to them.  God will allow Ephraim to be enslaved.  They have ignored the true God and chased after false gods and false hope.

There is no hope for Ephraim.

There is hope for a remnant, but not mentioned here.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Hosea 7 1. What’s wrong with ‘food, fun and fellowship’ as the basis for one’s church group? In God’s eyes what would be missing, as with Ephraim?
“2. On what basis do you try to win God’s favor: (a) His past goodness? (b) Your good behavior? (c) Your promise to do better? (d) His for-giving character? (e) His promise to bless his own? (f) On Christ’s behalf? Which is the only adequate basis? Why?
“3. Like Ephraim, are there areas you have compromised (by ‘paying’ for continued loyalty of friends), in your personal life? Church life? National life? What effect would you expect this to have in your life, your church, or your nation, if you continue as though it didn’t matter?
“4. When you hear the Lord say, ‘I long to redeem you’ (v.13), what verbal response do you have: (a) Disbelief? (b) Self-deprecation? (c) Repentance? (d) Other:    ?
“5. Consider one specific need for repentance which this chapter brings to your attention. What action steps will you take this week in response to the Lord’s desire to redeem you?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Hosea 7 has one set of questions.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.