Hosea 1: Minor prophet major outrage
/By: John Griffiths
John Griffiths reflects on the challenges Hosea faced. What would Hosea’s marriage look like in a close community and church today?
What do you do when you marry the wrong person? What are your options? Did Hosea’s wife have an eye for other men from the start? Or was her morose suspicious husband so uncommunicative that she looked for attention anywhere else, because she wasn’t getting it at home?
In the understanding of a disappointed husband, where everything had to have a reason, the marriage was God’s fault. Hosea had married a wrong ‘un and that was the will of God. Not helpful. And this fractured relationship was complicated by the simple facts of life – without contraception, expect a baby every couple of years.
Public suspicions of adultery
And when there was a new arrival, a private misery became public spectacle. There would be a service of christening in front of the whole village – naming the baby in a society where names mattered. The first year there were raised voices in the vestry and then the priest emerged looking furious, the father surly, the mother expressionless.
Then the priest announced the child would be named – ‘This is your Last Chance.’. How the village gossiped afterwards. But no one said anything to the couple and time passed. For the second baby, the hall was full – what would happen this time? Again, voices raised in the vestry, another late start and the priest and parents emerged and made their way to the front. ‘The child’s name is ‘“I don’t love you”’’ (Hosea 1:6) announced the priest.
The community was aghast. But once again nothing was said. The naming of the third child was accompanied by unruly toddlers causing more disruption than was needed – hadn’t their parents taught them how to behave? And the priest emerged with the parents and the latest offspring and announced the name of child number three was ‘It’s not mine’ (Hosea 1:9).
Should a marriage be behind closed curtains?
The congregation received this announcement in muted outrage. If you have a bad marriage, keep your misery behind closed curtains. Keep your bruises and scars to yourselves. Why parade it so the rest of us have to endure it? And Hosea, staring them down, snaps. ‘How dare you be so judgemental?’ he cried. ‘You claim to be the people of God. You think God has a covenant with you? Well, let me tell you, God’s marriage with you is on the rocks’ (Hosea 1:10).
God’s marriage with Israel
Hoseas’s outrageous leap from his own unhappy marriage to God’s is one of the most profound theological insights in the Hebrew Scriptures. I can’t imagine any church where such an analogy would be acceptable. But the whole of the book of Hosea extends that analogy – of Hosea, his awful marriage, his unfaithful wife, and relates it to God’s rocky marriage with Israel.
You would think such a book would be suppressed. But in our Christian Scriptures, Paul and Peter pick up Hosea’s words and explain how ‘You’re not my people’ (Hosea 1:10) turns into ‘You are my people.’ When Jesus tells the Pharisees to find out what the saying ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ means, it is Hosea he is quoting. We know that Christ rose after three days ‘according to the scriptures’: Hosea again. His experience of brokenness becomes a story of healing and reconciliation.
Broken and Restored
Hosea’s broken and restored marriage is such a standard in our Scriptures – to be treasured, taken out and improvised upon because it shows that, by the grace of God, even unhappy marriages are not the last word.
John Griffiths
John Griffiths is a preacher and a lay reader in the Church of England, he is a trustee of Leaders of Worship and Preachers Trust (LWPT) and Preach magazine.
