Commentary on Hosea 11:1-4,8-9

This lovely chapter on the relationship between Yahweh and Israel relates to chapter 2 of Hosea, part of which we read on Monday (of Week 14 of Ordinary Time), though here Israel is not the beloved, unfaithful wife, but rather the child ungrateful for all the love he has received:

When Israel was a child, I loved him…

For Hosea the beginnings of Israel’s history begins with dark days of slavery in Egypt and the liberation of the Exodus. As we saw before, he sees the long journey through the desert as a golden age in Israel’s relations with Yahweh. He does not seem to know or ignores some of the great incidents of the earlier patriarchal period.

The imagery, too, as mentioned, changes from Israel as the unfaithful spouse to that of the ungrateful child. And that “childhood” is seen as beginning with the liberation from Egypt.

He uses the loving expression of that liberation:

…out of Egypt I called my son.

This is cited by Matthew in his Gospel (2:15) as a foretelling of Jesus returning from the flight into Egypt back to Galilee.

But for Hosea, it is a call that is now being spurned more and more:

The more I called them,
the more they went from me…

Perhaps there is an image of this in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Hosea continues:

…they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and offering incense to idols.

These are seen as acts of total ingratitude. He continues:

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk…

“Ephraim” is another name for the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the passage refers to walking in the Lord’s way. It was Yahweh who took Israel lovingly in his arms. It would be difficult to find a more tender image of Yahweh in the whole of the Hebrew Testament.

The prophet continues:

I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.

By this he describes the truly intimate and loving relationship. Yahweh does not force them as one leading draft animals, but rather draws them to himself with gentleness and affection.

He says:

I was to them [the people of Israel-Ephraim] like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.

Could one find a more gentle and touching image, picture a more tender scene of love between father and child?

In spite of that:

I took them up in my arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.

They did not recognize that it was Yahweh, not the Baals who made them whole, who fulfilled the deepest needs of their lives. The tender love of the Father is spurned and brushed aside.

In other passages of the Old Testament where God’s reaching out to his people is spurned, the response of the prophet is to speak of Yahweh’s rage, anger, vengeance and the threat of terrible punishment. Here God’s reaction is shown as altogether different:

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

How could Yahweh treat Israel, his beloved child, with the fate of Admah and Zeboiim, two cities which were destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (mentioned in Deut 29:23)?

On the contrary, God says:

My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.

Yahweh is angry with his child, but he will not destroy him again. The reaction is less of anger than one of grief and of compassion for a people who do not know the significance of what they are doing.

And the reason is very clear:

…for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

Although Israel has revealed the unreliability of the human character, God will not be untrue to the love he has shown toward Israel. Israel will be chastised, but not destroyed. Yahweh is:

…the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath….

He will not stoop to human ways of reacting. This is a breakthrough in Old Testament thinking—something quite new.

It is normal for us humans to hit back when we are rejected, humiliated and insulted. We call it ‘only being human’. And it is understandable to project our ways of behaviour on God. But our God is not ‘only human’. He transcends our tendency to react emotionally. He rather sees the weakness and the blindness of the one who rejects and insults. God does not need to defend himself or his good name. Nothing can change that. He thinks only of the one who is showing hurt in trying to hurt another.

We can see this demonstrated so clearly in the whole life of Jesus, and most clearly in his Passion. Jesus is:

…the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Is 43:3)

It was he who told us to “turn the other cheek” and to pray for our enemies and those out to destroy us, and who showed us this way by his own example. We are called to go beyond being merely ‘human’. This means we are not to yield blindly to our feelings, but to operate out of a deeper level of understanding and from a position of inner security which does not need to hit back or to lower oneself to the level of the attacker.

Today’s passage should be an inspiration for us to try to become more and more like our God, with the help of the example of Jesus’ life. It is this frame of mind that Jesus urges on us when he says:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matt 5:48)

Or as it is put in Luke’s Gospel, to:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

Let us react less in brittle anger and touchiness and reach out more in compassion to those who can only relate out of fear and insecurity of which their abusive language or anger is a symptom.