Love Like Dew
Although Yahweh calls His people back to him, Israel scorns him, their life-giver, for idols that take away life. Hosea continues to call the people to repentance, employing various images depicting how ongoing sin has redefined them. Hosea likens Israel to an oven (7:4–7), a partially baked cake (7:8), a senseless dove (7:11–12), and a treacherous bow (7:16). “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds,” (7:14).
1. Yahweh’s grief over the hard-heartedness of His people is clear in his cry to both Ephraim and Judah: “What shall I do with you?”(6:4). The reason for His outburst is that their love for Him is pretense. How is Israel’s love described in these chapters, and how does it contrast with that depicted in 6:1–3? What does the type of love from Yahweh accomplish in the lives of those He loves?
2. The sort of love Yahweh wants from His people is evidenced in covenant faithfulness and committed pursuit of Him (Hos. 6:6). With what has Israel been attempting to placate Yahweh; and why, given that sacrifice was required by the covenant, did these efforts displease him? In what ways are we prone to the same thing?
3. Hosea likens Israel to an oven used to bake bread in 7:4,6, and 7. How does the oven simile show progression over the three times it is used here? What does this convey about the heart of Yahweh’s people?
4. Hosea also likens Israel to a dove, “silly and without sense” (7:11). What is Hosea conveying with this imagery? Why has Israel been “calling to Egypt” and “going to Assyria”?
5. Rather than turning to the Lord wholeheartedly, the people give themselves more fully to Baal, “gashing themselves” in hopes of economic gain (7:14). What lies behind the people’s bent toward self-destruction, and how is this folly exposed?
6. Through one man sin entered the world, and it forever changed the nature of the human experience (6:7). Israel’s story is fundamentally the story of all humankind. We all struggle with the same sinful nature they struggled with, turning our backs on our Provider just as they did. What truths in Hosea’s poetry speak to you? Where is your attention drawn to in your own life?