GOD, OUR SAVIOR In this chapter, God presents Himself to His people as a true king, who can alone save them from the servitude of sin, destroying the authority of death under their feet, especially after they have diverted, corrupted, and even died spiritually. 1. Their diversion even to death 1 – 3. 2. Their salvation from servitude 4 – 8. 3. Their rejection of the Savior King 9 – 13. 4. Their salvation from death 14. 5. The destructive east wind 15 – 16. 1. THEIR DIVERSION EVEN TO DEATH: In order to present Himself as a king and a savior of their souls, God reveals to them what sin and the worship of Baal in particular has done to them: “When Ephraimites mumbled their prayers, God himself denounced Israel; they were guilty of Baal-worship and died.” (Hosea 13: 1). When Ephraim lived with the holy fear of God like his father Jacob, he was exalted among the tribes and everyone was trembling before him. God would exalt those, who humble themselves before Him. Nevertheless, when Ephraim got bound to the iniquity of worshipping the Baal, he did not only lose his reputation and dignity, but he also “died”… Therefore, he became in need for a savior capable of raising him from the dead. It is remarkable how sin draws one’s heart more from one sin to another, instead of drawing him to remorse on what he came to be, in spite of the death it bears: “Yet now they sin more and more” (Hosea 13: 2). This makes them lose the work of God’s word within them: “They have made themselves an image of cast metal, they have fashioned their silver into idols” (Hosea 13: 2). They made their gods according to their skill, understanding and their own desire, not submitting to the mind of God. They built idols to worship, “Men say of them, ‘Those who kiss calf-images offer human sacrifice” (Hosea 13: 2). This most probably means that the people told the priests, who actually killed them with their corruption and impurity, to offer the most expensive animals as sacrifice for the Baal... The priests were evil and the sacrifices were profane no matter how expensive they were. He describes those who behave that way, as if they were in apostasy from God their Savior: “Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like dew that vanishes early, like chaff blown from the threshing-floor or smoke from a chimney” (Hosea 13: 3). They appear to be like the cloud that gives good news of probable rain (a sign of God’s grace), while they are actually more like the deceiving morning cloud, which disappears utterly once the sun rises. They are like the early dew that passes away without irrigating the land, like the valueless light chaff scattered everywhere, and like the smoke from a chimney that is soon driven away (Psalm 68: 2). 2. THEIR SALVATION FROM SERVITUDE: To confirm His salvation work to them, God presented a practical lesson from the life of their fathers, whom He saved from the bondage of Pharaoh, and for whom He cared and fulfilled their needs in the wilderness. “But I have been the Lord your God 95 since your days in Egypt, when you knew no other savior than me, no god but me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in a land of burning heat, as if you were in pasture. So they were filled” (Hosea 13: 4-6). He gave them food and supported them in the land of thirst, when they were in big trouble. But when they got saturated from God’s hands, they denied Him: “And, being filled, grew proud; and so they forgot me” (Hosea 13: 6). When the person’s body gets fulfilled, he forgets God, his Creator, and his soul exalts in haughtiness. As it came in the book of Deuteronomy, “Jeshurun grew fat and unruly, he grew fat, he grew bloated and sleek. He forsook God who made him and dishonored the Rock of his salvation.” (Deuteronomy 32: 15). God stood firmly before them to confront their denial. He said, “So now I will be like a panther to them, I will prowl like a leopard by the wayside; I will meet them like a she-bear robbed of her cubs and tear their ribs apart, like a lioness I will devour them on the spot, I will rip them up like a wild beast” (Hosea 13: 7, 8). According to what Isaiah said, “Yet they rebelled and grieved his holy sprit; only then was he changed into their enemy and himself fought against them” (Isaiah 63: 10). In the bitterness of soul, God sends on His denying children His fierce chastisement, which will devour them like wild beasts, because they became “vessels which were objects of retribution” (Romans 9: 22). 3. THEIR REJECTIOM OF THE SAVIOR KING: “I have destroyed you, O Israel; who is there to help you?” (Hosea 13: 9). What dwells upon Israel is because of its destructive behavior, which led to its death; whereas its salvation is in the Lord their God and King, whom they have rejected and forgotten, asking for a king pleasing their own hearts. He says to them: “Where now is your king that he may save you, or the rulers in all your cities for whom you asked me, begging for king and princes_ I gave you a king in my anger, and in my fury took him away” (Hosea 9-11). By this, He probably refers to the time when they coveted to have a king to judge them like all other nations (1 Samuel 8: 5), which was a request that grieved Prophet Samuel’s soul. Still God gave them Saul to be king according to the desire of their hearts, then, took him away in His wrath because of Saul’s wickedness. To chastise us, God may allow us to get our desire, so that we realize our need to accept His will, and not to have things according to the desire of our hearts. They got a ‘king’ according to their heart’s desire and their iniquity increased: “Ephraim’s guilt is tied up in a scroll; his sins are kept on record. When the pangs of his birth came over his mother, he showed himself a senseless child; for at the proper time he could not present himself at the mouth of the womb” (Hosea 13: 12, 13). They did as Apostle Paul said, “You are laying up for yourself a store of retribution for the day of retribution” (Romans 2: 5), and that is how they were destroying themselves. Their sins were bound up to their account, God would never forget them and they were stored up in a secure place until the day of reckoning. They assumed that their sins were hidden, that no one could see them, and that they would be forgotten by time. They did not realize that their sins would be stored for their destruction, because they did not have them in mind, seeking forgiveness. They became like a woman who carries a fetus inside her, and to whom childbirth is certain to come. Ephraim was unwise and fled from thinking about or contemplating in what awaits him of the pangs because of sin, so that he could get to know the reason of his suffering and to be saved of it by God, his Savior. 96 4. THEIR SALVATION FROM DEATH: He, who redeemed their fathers from the servitude of Pharaoh, is the only one capable of redeeming them even from death and from Sheol (the pit): “Shall I redeem him from Sheol_ Shall I ransom him from death_ Oh, you’re your plagues, O death! Oh, for your sting, Sheol! I will put compassion out of my sight.” (Hosea 13: 14) God realizes for them what any other king cannot realize. He would not only release them from captivity, but He has the authority to bring them forth from the pit (Sheol) as well and save them from death, which was actually realized when the Savior put Himself to death to destroy its authority. St. Jerome said, “We have the consolation, that the Word of God has slain death… Our Lord Jesus died, so that, by His death, He brings death itself to death1”. Talking to death, he said, “You have swallowed our Jonah (our Christ), yet He is alive even in your belly. You carried Him as dead, in order that the storm of the world would calm down, and that our Nineveh would be saved through preaching Him. Yes, He has overcome and slain you… By His death, you yourself were brought to death, and by His death, we became alive… You swallowed Him, to find yourself swallowed! While being consumed by longing to get your claws on the body He took, as a prey for your greed, you were wounded inside yourself2”. That was God’s promise to us… He granted us the authority over death, and He would never have remorse. He said, “I will put compassion out of my sight”; namely, ‘I shall not go back on My promise. 5. THE DESTRUCTIVE EAST WIND: If the Lord Christ grants life by His death, bringing death to death; yet He would allow an east wind to blow, dry up the fountain of the Holy Spirit inside man, and let him lose all His fruits. “Though he flourishes among the reeds, an east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord, rising over the desert; Ephraim’s spring will fail and his fountain run dry. It will carry away as spoil hi whole store of costly treasures. Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground, her women with child shall be ripped up” (Hosea 13: 15, 16). This talk was literally realized, with the Assyrian captivity, which came from the east and utterly destroyed Israel with its capital Samaria. It will be realized at the end of time as well, when the wind of the anti-Christ blows, coming from the east. It is called “the wind of the Lord”, because it is allowed by Him. 1 Ep. 75: 1. 2 Ep. 60: 2.
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