Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When Ephraim spoke, people trembled;
    he was exalted in Israel.
    But he became guilty of Baal worship and died.
Now they sin more and more;
    they make idols for themselves from their silver,
cleverly fashioned images,
    all of them the work of craftsmen.
It is said of these people,
    “They offer human sacrifices!
    They kiss calf-idols!”
Therefore they will be like the morning mist,
    like the early dew that disappears,
    like chaff swirling from a threshing floor,
    like smoke escaping through a window.
“But I have been the Lord your God
    ever since you came out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
    no Savior except me.
I cared for you in the wilderness,
    in the land of burning heat.
When I fed them, they were satisfied;
    when they were satisfied, they became proud;
    then they forgot me.
So I will be like a lion to them,
    like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
    I will attack them and rip them open;
like a lion I will devour them—
    a wild animal will tear them apart.
“You are destroyed, Israel,
    because you are against me, against your helper.
Where is your king, that he may save you?
    Where are your rulers in all your towns,
of whom you said,
    ‘Give me a king and princes’?
So in my anger I gave you a king,
    and in my wrath I took him away.
The guilt of Ephraim is stored up,
    his sins are kept on record.
Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him,
    but he is a child without wisdom;
when the time arrives,
    he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.
“I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
    I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
    Where, O grave, is your destruction?
“I will have no compassion,
    even though he thrives among his brothers.
An east wind from the Lord will come,
    blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
    and his well dry up.
His storehouse will be plundered
    of all its treasures.
The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
    because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
    their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
    their pregnant women ripped open.”

• Hosea 13:1-16

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Hosea 11:12-14:8 ‘Israel’s Sin and God’s Salvation’: “The prophecies in this passage intermix past and future fulfillment. Hosea begins by contrasting the nation of Israel with Jacob, the father of Israel (11:12-12:14). Whereas Jacob sought after God and His blessing, Israel sought idolatry and, for that reason, calamity came upon the land (13 1-16). However, the judgment upon Israel, which will be a judgment of destruction, will not be total (13:14), for God declares that death and Sheol will nor win, and God intends to ransom Israel from Sheol and death. When God declares that ‘compassion will be hidden from My sight’ (13: 14). He is saying that He will not change His mind about the future salvation of Israel. Therefore, it will indeed come.
“Hosea concludes with a look at Israel’s future and final salvation (14:1-8). He begins with a call to repentance (verses 1-3), which is followed by God’s promise that once Israel does repent, God will indeed respond (verses 4-5). This in turn will lead to Israel’s future fruitfulness (verses 5-8). Thus, in the messianic kingdom, Israel will be a fruit-bearing nation that will benefit the Gentiles as well. With that positive note, Hosea concludes his book by confessing his great impression of the wisdom of God, just as the apostle Paul does in Romans 11:33-36.”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Hosea 13:1-3 ‘sin is like cancer’: “When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling (13:1) is another way of saying there was great respect. Idolatry and rejection of the living God, however, had since ruined them (13:1-3). This is what sin does to a person. No matter a person’s strength, ability, social status, or economic capability; moral degeneration and foolishness are cancers that eat away at character. Such people become like the morning mist … chaff … smoke (13:3); they are blown away.”

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

Hosea 13:1 ‘trembling’: “When Ephraim, the most powerful tribe, spoke early in Israel’s history, it was with authority and produced fear. he died. Because of his sins and in spite of being feared, Ephraim died, spiritually and now nationally.”

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

Hosea 13:2 ‘Mistaking the Sun and Moon for Deities’: “As Job takes an oath of innocence (Job 31), he swears that he has never been enticed to worship the sun or moon (31:26, 27). Possibly worshipers threw kisses to these celestial deities, since kissing was part of idol worship (1 Kin. 19:18; Hos. 13:2). Job again swears that he has not gestured such kisses (Job 31:27). Job’s oath reflects the popularity of both the sun and the moon as deities in Syria-Palestine.
“Yareah, the moon god, is mentioned in the Ugaritic ritual and mythological texts, dating around 1400 to 1200 B.C. In one narrative Yareah is a guest at a drinking feast of the gods, but there is little mention of him otherwise. The moon god Sin of Haran was worshiped throughout Syria-Palestine and Mesopotamia from the 3rd millennium through at least the Hellenistic period (332–37 B.C.). The characteristic crescent moon with dangling tassels, which symbolized this deity, has been found on numerous inscriptions and steles (stone slabs), including those discovered in Judah and Israel.
“Much more is known about Shemesh. This deity, who could appear as either feminine (sun goddess) or masculine (sun god), was important in all ancient Near Eastern pantheons. In Ugarit the goddess Shapshu (meaning ‘sun’) was the arbiter of divine judgment as proclaimed by the chief god El. In this she mirrored an image, found from Egypt to Mesopotamia, of the sun as a god of justice.
“People of the ancient Near East believed that the sun god rode through the sky by day and the netherworld at night, and thus saw and knew all human activity. Such knowledge made Shemesh useful for locating anyone who was to receive a message from El. In the Ugaritic texts, El sends Shapshu to order Baal and Mot to stop fighting. In Egyptian thought, the sun god (who had several names including Re and Aton) was believed to be the creator of the universe each morning.”

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

Hosea 13:2 ‘what are our idols?’: “ The Hebrews abandoned Jehovah for Baal and his idols. However, this brought only spiritual emptiness. While folks today do not tend to fashion crafted images to worship, people can still grant ultimate value to things that are not ultimate. Some possible examples include power, leisure, work, wealth, family, recreation, and hobbies.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 13:3-4 ‘the Only Savior’: ‘Listen to Him, my friend. You may work out a plan of salvation, but He is the only Savior, and since He is, you had better come His way. The Lord Jesus said, ‘… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’ (John 14:6). Now either that’s true or it’s not true. Millions of people have come that way, and they have found it to be true. You may think you have your way of salvation, but God is the only Savior, and He is the only one who can offer you a plan of salvation.”

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

Hosea 13:3 ‘guilty pleasures do not last’: “Those who will have gods of their own making will have but a brief enjoyment of them. He who truly worships the everlasting God will have an ever-lasting blessing. But he who worships gods he has made himself-mere objects of this mortal day-will have but a short day of it. He will be as the early dew that glistens brightly, but .is soon gone-or as the morning cloud that is banished by the rising of the sun.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 13:5-6 ‘God loves them, God judges them.’: “God says, “I have been your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt. I am not about to give you up, but I am going to judge you.””

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

Hosea 13:6 ‘Quote’: “The ultimate expectation in Marriage is not in our consensus that we are one, but in our commitment to something bigger than any of us. – Gloria Gaither”

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

Hosea 13:7-8 ‘the lion, the leopard, the bear’: “There is a prophetic sidelight here that is very interesting. In Daniel’s vision (ch. 7) Babylon is pictured as a lion, Greece (under Alexander the Great) is pictured as a leopard, and the empire of Media-Persia is pictured as the bear. Now here in Hosea’s prophecy God is saying that in the future He will come against them like a lion and a leopard, but in the immediate future He will come like a bear—represented by Media-Persia, which at that early date was dominated by Assyria. God says, ‘I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps.’ There is nothing more ferocious than a mother bear that has been robbed of her cubs, and she is an apt illustration of the brutal Assyrian army.”

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

Hosea 13:7 ‘forgetting God’: “When people forget God, they may expect to meet with some terrible judgments. And especially God’s own people will find this to be the case with them if they forget the Lord. Our God is a jealous God, and when his children set their hearts on other objects instead of on him, he will take care to embitter those objects of their affection to them-he will make their idols to be loathed by them. If God did not love us much, he would think little of our faults, but just because he loves us so much, he can-not bear that any part of our heart’s affection should go away from him. So, if he sees that we deal unfaithfully with him, he will make us realize that sin is exceedingly evil and bitter. His anger against us will be like that of a bear robbed of her cubs, or of a lion or leopard leaping on his prey.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 13:9 ‘sin is destructive’: “We have destroyed ourselves by our sin, but God will restore us to his favor by his grace. We may look within ourselves for causes of repentance, but we must not look to ourselves for the means of restoration. We must look to him, our Savior and our God.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 13:10-11, 16 ‘Hosea and the Kings of Israel’: “Hoshea’s refusal to pay tribute to Assyria had dire consequences. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser V (726–722 B.C.) laid siege to Samaria from 725 to 722 B.C. and, at some point, imprisoned Hoshea. Samaria lost her king (Hos. 10:3, 7; 13:10, 11). The policy pursued by King Hoshea to lean upon Egypt for help against Assyria would not succeed in preserving the nation from destruction (11:5, 6; 13:16).”

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

Hosea 13:12 ‘bound up … stored up’: “Israel’s sins are all well-documented and safely preserved for the day of reckoning (cf. 7:2; Deut. 32:34, 35; Job 14:17).”

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

Hosea 13:13 ‘Labor pains, but no baby’: “God used the familiar figure of a woman giving birth to alert Israel to the fact that the sufferings and calamities she was experiencing (‘Pains as of a woman in childbirth’) are meant as refining judgments, which could lead Israel to a new birth. Unwisely, the child refused to heed the signals of birth, and so the womb became a grave.”

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

Hosea 13:14 ‘Paraded before the King of Terrors’: “The god Mot is mentioned in the Bible occasionally where Death is described as a person. Yahweh personally addresses ‘Death’ in Hos. 13:14. In Job 28, Job asserts that wisdom belongs only to God, and he quotes the speech of Death. The netherworld (which Job calls ‘Destruction’) and Death say, ‘We have heard a report,’ but they do not know of wisdom’s whereabouts (Job 28:22). If Mot does not know wisdom, with all the people who ever lived assembled in his realm, and he being a god as well, then wisdom truly is God’s and God’s alone.”

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

Hosea 13:14 ‘Death Comes through your Windows’: “The Hebrew word for ‘death’ is mot. In the Hebrew Bible, mot not only refers to the place of death, but is also personified, referring to the person ‘Death.’ The prophets knew that Yahweh could redeem His people from the plagues of Death (Hos. 13:14). In Ugaritic mythology, Mot was the god of death, who was understood to have final power over all humans, since all people die.
“Throughout the ancient Near East there were numerous deities of death. The notion that Death creeps into personal dwellings to steal away the living can be found expressed in almost the same terms in an elegy from Assyria. Written as if by a woman who has died, the poem describes how Death crept into her bedroom and drove her away from her husband.”

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

Hosea 13:14 ‘victory over death’: “God promised to redeem his people even from all powerful ‘death.’ God has authority over death and the ‘grave.’ The apostle Paul quoted this verse in his teaching on the resurrection, where Christ’s power over death and hades (Gk., lit. ‘the place of the dead,’ the equivalent of Heb. she’ol) is final (see 1Co 15:55–56).”

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

Hosea 13:16 ‘loving discipline’: “The people had to endure some consequences for their rebellion. Remember, a judge who never punishes a criminal is not a good judge but a bad judge. A parent who never disciplines a child is not a good parent but a bad parent. When I was a boy, I did not get punished for every wrong I committed. Still, I was disciplined enough to know my parents lovingly set and enforced proper boundaries for me. The wages of sin is sin and there is destruction left in its wake.
“God had shown Israel love in the past by delivering them from Egypt. He gave them a home in the Promised Land. He provided for them. And He allowed them to be an established nation. Now the Lord demonstrated them love through their experience of discipline.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 13:16 ‘Assyria’s vicious attack’: “Because Samaria rebelled against her covenant with God, she would no longer enjoy his protection when the wrath of her enemies (the ‘east wind’ of Assyria, v. 15) fell upon her. The viciousness of this attack was revealed in the horrific picture of Israel’s infants, born and unborn, falling victim to the onslaught.”

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

My Thoughts

This chapter starts with Ephraim being king, but then he died.  Israel had many kings, but at certain times in their history, the person who killed the king was the one who was made king.  So, if there had been a succession of kings from the tribe of Ephraim, this could have been what was being mentioned.

The kings worshipped Baal, and the people followed.  Ephraim was a great nation, but they did not follow God’s decrees.  They made idols and worshipped them.

Kissing the calf might sound trivial or vulgar, but we see it today.  When this Bible study goes out, it is less than a month since there were trophies being kissed.  The media begged for the “money shot.”  What is that?  At the Open Championship (British Open), the media will not let the winner go until the winner kisses the claret jug.  And the same is said about the FIFA World Cup.  And back in June, I am sure there were people who kissed the NBA trophy and the NHL’s Stanley Cup.

But how many online gamblers kiss their phone when they make a bet?

We kiss a lot of man-made things for “luck” while ignoring God’s blessings.  Ephraim was rich, but their wealth was squandered or stolen as spoils of war.  Thus, who will remember them?  They will be like the morning mist or smoke escaping a window.

Have you ever fallen asleep on the sofa while something was cooking and the fire alarm woke you up?  You might open every window in the house to rid yourself of the smell.  And microwave popcorn that burns will hang in the air for hours.

That is the image here.  When sinners dig that deep of a hole, the only memory that you have of such people once they pay the ultimate price is how foul the stench was when they were here.

God identifies Himself in verse 4 as the only Savior.

But since they ignored God, God will be the lion, the leopard, and the bear.  The lion and leopard lurk in the shadows and then pounce on their prey.  The bear makes a brutish frontal attack that is fierce, especially the mother bear looking for her young.

Ephraim asked for a king.  Out of God’s anger, He gave them a king.  When thinking of all Israel, God gave them Saul.  God knew Saul’s heart, but God wanted Israel to know what they would get with a king.  But God also chose David, out of love.  Through David’s offspring would come Jesus, our Savior.

But this could also mean when the nation split.  God allowed one king after another to reign in the northern kingdom, and none were good kings.

Their sin will lead to destruction.  And the pain will be like a woman in childbirth.  I have heard many mothers say that the pain was indescribable, but you knew the baby was coming.  But picture going through that pain and there is no happy ending, just more pain.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Hosea 13 1. Have your own desires ever been self-destructive: Any addictive behaviors, substances or relationships? How did you treat those who tried to help you? What saved you from completely destroying yourself with these ‘hand-made idols’?
“2. What warning is there for those individuals and churches who let success go to their heads (v.6)?
“3. What makes you feel secure: (a) Job? (b) Home? (c) Pension? (d) Spouse or friends? (e) Health? (f) Other:   ? What would you rely on if these were taken away?
“4. How might we falsely presume upon God’s forgiveness and favor: (a) ‘Serve him with time and money? (b) ‘Claim’ his promises? (c) Cry ‘crocodile tears’? (d) Make plans and ask him to bless them? (e) Other:   ?
“5. When you have experienced God’s ‘rod,’ how have you felt his love?”

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

Hosea 13 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.