The Judgment Is for You – Hosea 5

Several place names appear in this passage.  Mizpah was the home of Jephthah the judge (Judges 10:17; 11:8, 11, 29, 34) and Tabor was the site of the judge Deborah’s general Barak’s victory (Judges 4:14).  Gibeah and Ramah both likely had shrines (perhaps to Yahweh, but forbidden in worship of Yahweh).  Beth-aven was Bethel (house of God), the site noted by Jacob when he was fleeing his brother Esau (Genesis 28), but now called house of evil.  God is cleaning house.

Hear this, O priests!  Pay attention, O house of Israel!  Give ear, O house of the king!  For the judgment is for you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.  And the revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore; Israel is defiled.  Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God.  For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the LORD.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face; Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt; Judah also shall stumble with them.  With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them.  They have dealt faithlessly with the LORD; for they have borne alien children.  Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah.  Sound the alarm at Beth-aven; we follow you, O Benjamin!  Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment; among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure.  The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.  Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth.  But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king.  But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.  For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah.  I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.  (Hosea 5 ESV)

Yahweh takes to task the leadership of Israel, kings and priests, who should have responsibly led Israel in compliance to Yahweh’s rule instead of being a snare to them for false gods.  As a result Israel has become proud and in their conceit have stumbled in sin.  Judah, the southern kingdom, is also now being affected.  And when either nation brings their offerings to Yahweh they find Him withdrawn because He knows they are really faithless.

So a warning is called for, the horn and trumpet sounding that destruction is coming for Israel’s and Judah’s sin.  Ephraim, the largest tribe in the northern kingdom Israel, will become desolate.  Judah, the largest tribe in the southern kingdom Judah, will experience God as a source of rot for their willingness to move away from Yahweh, like being willing to move the landmark boundaries that kept the tribal land inheritances sacred.

And even though God warns the nation and they can see their wound, they will turn to Assyria and its great king rather than to Yahweh for help.  Their wound is incurable and God, like a lion, is coming to tear to pieces the wounded Israel.  He’ll return to His “den” until they confess their guilt and seek His face in earnestness.

We do not want to have to go through this process by rejecting the Lord, but if we do He will discipline us as needed to bring us back ultimately to Him.