THE PROPHET AND THE HARLOT WIFE God used every possible analogy to reveal His close relationship with humanity and His love for it. He also revealed the bitterness of His soul because of every sin committed by man to hurt that relationship. This book presents the people of God as an unfaithful bride to her heavenly groom, yet the groom presents all His divine possibilities to bring her back to Him, after sanctifying her. 1. Introduction 1 2. Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim 2 - 3 3. Children of harlotry 9 - 4 4. Longing for return 10 - 11 1. INTRODUCTION: Although Hosea is considered a prophet to Israel (the northern kingdom), yet, the Holy Book dates the time of his prophecy by the kings of Judah, mentioning only one of the kings of Israel. If that man of God was called to minister to the people of the kingdom of Israel and to warn them against captivation, yet his heart was spacious with love for the salvation of all; and so rejoices in God’s work with all, “Then the people of Judah and of Israel shall be reunited” (Hosea 1: 11). This shows that whoever ministers to God knows no limit to love, but desires the service of everyone and the salvation of all. Some scholars believe that Hosea mentioned only one of the kings of Israel, because all the kings of Israel were evil and not worthy of mentioning. He mentioned only one who, although was equally evil, yet was honored to be designated as “the one who saved his people” (2 Kings 14: 27). His reign was characterized by a series of riots, assassinations, and chaos that ended by captivation. The prophet starts his book by “The word of the Lord which came to Hosea son of Beeri” (Hosea 1: 1), as if he wants to prove that his book is not from him, but it is “the word of the Lord”. Hosea only transfers the word of God to the people and testifies it. Being described in this book as a desolate land and a barren wilderness, whose “spring will fail and his fountain run dry” (Hosea 13: 15), Israel became in need of sitting together with the Savior by the well like the Samaritan woman, to quench her thirst from the water of His spring that never dries up. Hosea’s words of salvation are from that divine well, “Whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst any more” (John 4: 14). 2. GOMER, THE DAUGHTER OF DIBLAIM: Some people may wonder, how could God command His prophet to take for himself a harlot in marriage, and to beget from her children of harlotry telling him: “Go, take a wanton for your wife and get children of her wantonness; for like a wanton this land is unfaithful to the Lord” (Hosea 1: 2). First: As this term is translated in English as ‘harlot’ and not as ‘adulteress’, some believe that it may not mean a woman who practices adultery according to the general concept, but may mean one whose life is dedicated to Baal, and hence is counted as a ‘harlot’ especially that worshipping the Baal is related to practicing adultery. Gomer, 18 the daughter of Diblaim, was probably one of those who dedicated their life to the account of Baal1. As Idol-worship was actually called ‘harlotry’, so being related to the worshippers of Baal was enough to be called a ‘harlot’, even without practicing harlotry2. This concept is probably true, as most of the Israelite women at that time, if not all of them, were connected to idol-worship, that it was almost impossible for the prophet to find for himself a wife who was not, although not all of them practiced actual physical adultery. Second: A few scholars believe that what came in this chapter and in chapter 3 is just a vision or a symbolic portrait presented to the people, so as to reveal the horror of their fall, their diversion from the worship of the living God and their betrayal to Him. That was what they did instead of committing themselves to their covenant with Him, despite which He still seeks them, and longs for their return and for sanctifying them. However, the majority of scholars believe that what came in these chapters are facts through which, on the one aspect, God intended for His prophet to experience, together with Him, the great bitterness He feels because of the diversion of Israel, and on another aspect, to proclaim to humanity the extent of His love and care for man. And as said by father ‘Sherimon’: “The divine Word portrayed the extent of God’s care for us on the tongue of the prophet Hosea, by symbolizing Jerusalem as a harlot, who diverted in a zeal, full of denial… He compares Jerusalem (the human soul) to a harlot wife who seeks another man; and compares His love for us to someone who loves his bride until death. God persist on proclaiming that His goodness and love for all men are only overcome on our part through forsaking our own care for our salvation, and fleeing from God’s care for us. In other words, they are overcome by our evils. It could only be compared to someone consumed by the fire of his love for his wife, despite seeing how she keeps on despising him3”. Third: Most scholars believe that the prophet Hosea got married to Gomer, and loved her immensely and only then did he discover her harlotry (whether according to the general physical concept, or as a mere connection to Baal-worship). He chose to keep her as his wife and did not divorce her. On the other hand, some scholars believe that the prophet was aware of her past and of her harlotry, yet he consented to marry her for the sake of the divine command; realizing, by his own life, a symbolic portrait of what was actually the case between God and His people. Fourth: The word ‘Gomer’ in Hebrew means “the end of perfection” especially the perfection of futility, whereas the word ‘Geblaim’ means “a double cake of pressed fig or raisin discs”. This type of cake was used in the feasts of idol-worship, as it was said about the people of Israel: “They resort to other gods and love the raisin-cakes offered to their idols” (Hosea 3: 1). Thus, Hosea’s marriage to Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, refers to the connection to the people of Israel who reached the end of blamelessness (Gomer), begotten to the idol-worship with all its abominations (Diblaim). Or as though Israel, having become ‘Gomer’, she is but a daughter to ‘Diblaim’, which means that she is a daughter to the filthy feasts that prevailed on the whole land. She became as a cake offered to Baal, a filthy food, and an unclean banquet for the devil and his followers! 1 H.W. Wolf: Guilt and Salvation. A Study in thr Prophecy of Hosea, Interpretation (1961). P 274-85. 2 Jerome Biblical comm., P 256. 3 Cassion: Conf. 13: 8. 19 As ‘Gomer’ kept on her evil ways, giving birth to children of harlotry despite her marriage to a pure man and a blessed prophet; so also Israel kept on its spiritual harlotry, despite God’s proclamations about His unity with it. Although Hosea was not defiled by his marriage, Gomer’s judgment, on the other hand, would become more severe, because of her marriage to the prophet, unless she returns remorsefully in purity to her man. The punishment of Israel will be also greater and bitterer, unless it returns to God by faith. St. Jerome sees in ‘Gomer’ a symbolic image of the church: “What shall I say about the prophet’s marriage to a harlot, which is a symbol of the church formed, either of the Gentiles or of the Jews?!… It was first set by Abraham – an idol-worshipper, and now, having denied the Savior, confirms its betrayal to God. Consequently, it will be denied of its altar, its priests and its prophets. And it will remain as such for a long time until she returns to its first man (Hosea 2: 7; 3: 11), as by the fullness of the Gentiles, Israel would be saved (Romans 11: 25, 26)1”. St. John Chrysostom says, “Like in the past, when they took harlots as their wives, God accepted nature that played the role of a harlot as His (blameless) bride. The prophets proclaimed from the beginning that this happened in the Jewish Sanhedrin (Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 23:4, 5, 11). Yet, this bride has been a denier concerning her Man, whereas the church, having got rid of the evils it inherited from its fathers, remained embraced by her Groom2”. The Lord says to Hosea “For like a wanton this land is unfaithful to the Lord” (Hosea 1: 2). It is as though adultery is a natural status for man by his departure from the Lord and by forsaking the unity with the eternal Groom of his soul. It is strange that God says “For the land” instead of “For Israel”. As mentioned in the introduction, Israel has become “land” with no heaven by bowing toward the earthly things. Regarding us, by melding with the dust, we would hear the voice of God saying: “Dust you are, to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3: 19). We would return to where and what our heart longed to be. On the contrary, if we take off our ancient earthly man that we wore through our relation to the earthly Adam, and if we put on the new man, the image of our heavenly Jesus, we would hear the divine voice saying: “Because you are heaven, to heaven you will return”. In yourself, you have carried the heavenly, and your inner man has become heaven, that is why you will return to where you longed to be, and to what you have become – to heaven itself. We have become a land by having forsaken our heavenly groom, so what would this groom do to us, his bride? He has carried our earthly body, yet with no corruption, and came down to the earth to which our heart got attached. Temporal things had no place in his heart. He did all this in order to make out of us “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21: 1). It is said that this earth is dwelt by the righteousness itself, namely by the heavenly Lord, the secret of our justification. 3. CHILDREN OF HARLOTRY: The Lord not only commanded his prophet to marry a harlot, but to have from her children of harlotry as well. God gave them the names: “Jezreel”, “Lo-ruhamah”, and “Lo-ammi”. Calling them “children of harlotry” does not mean that they are the fruit of harlotry, but the fact that they are born from a harlot mother who was connected to Baal 1 Ep. 123: 3. 2 In. Matt. Hom. 3: 5. 20 (idol-worship) is the reason for calling them by that name, although they are actually the children of the prophet1. They would have this name until they accept the message of their father and reject the old spirit of their mother. First: “Jezreel” means “God plants”. He is the first child of Hosea and Gomer. His name refers to that the chastisements that God plants in us are the fruit of our doing. “Jezreel” reminds us of what “Jeho” did to “Joram”, the son of “Ahab” and of the wicked “Jezebel”, who murdered and took possession of the vineyard of “Naboth the Jezreelite” by force. The dogs licked her blood in the same field that she grabbed (2 Kings 9: 25). The way she sought and possessed the field by force and shed innocent blood in order to have was how she got her heart’s desire, and, thus, she perished at the same location as a natural fruit of her deed. The Lord says about the children of Israel: “became as loathsome as the thing he loved” (Hosea 9: 10). Man gets what he loves, together with its natural fruits. Whoever loves the mortal earth and the corrupt body lusts would get corruption and would become earth himself. On the contrary, he who loves the eternal heavenly God will enjoy the everlasting life. Second: “Lo-ruhamah” means “I shall have no mercy”. When man has no mercy on himself, he falls by being connected to idol-worship, and so he shall not expect mercy from God, because who despises the longsuffering and mercy of God is like: “you are laying up for yourself a store of retribution for the day of retribution” (Romans 2: 5). The Lord says, “For I will never again show love to Israel, never again forgive them. Then I will love Judah and will save them. I will save them not by bow or sword or weapon of war, by horses or by horsemen, but by the Lord their God.” (Hosea 1: 6, 7) Israel plunged in evil and forsook God its Savior. It cannot be saved by bow, by sword, by horses or by horsemen. On the other hand, Judah will get salvation by the Lord her God. That is because it refers to the church of the New Testament, which is the body of Christ, who comes out of the tribe of Judah. About the Savior, He says, “The Lord their God”. He refers Himself to them as being their God, in case they are sanctified. Moreover, he would be proud of them just as He calls Himself “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. God does not refer Himself to the wicked, to whom He says: “I will not be your God” (Hosea 1: 9). According to the Greek version, it is “To you, I am not Jehovah”. The Lord says, “I will save them by the Lord their God”. Here, God, the Father, talks about God, the Son and the Savior. As said by father Novatian: “If God says that He saves by God, and as He does not save except by Christ, so how could anyone hesitate to call Christ “God”, as proclaimed by the Father Himself in the Holy Book?! Yes, if God, the Father, does not save except by God, so no-one could be saved by God, the Father, unless he confesses that Christ is God; in whom, and by whom, God promises to grant His salvation2”. Third: “Lo-ammi” means “not my uncle” or “not my people”, as the word “am” in Chaldean means “people” or “tribe”. Therefore, if sin produces “no mercy”, so the bitterness of “no mercy” is for man either to be denied of being referred to God, or of God being referred to him. How can someone referred to God if he is referred to Baal? Our highest reward will be to enjoy “new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from 1 Terome Bib. Comm.. 256. 2 Conc. The Trimity 12. 21 God” (Revelation 21: 2) which is “Now at last God has his dwelling among men! He will dwell among them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.” (Revelation 21: 3) 4. LONGING FOR RETURN: God combines chastisement with hope as He proclaims here that His chastisements would not be absolute and that rejecting them would not last forever, but until a certain time. He anticipates their return to Him to give them more splendor and glory… to make them one strong and great kingdom, planted in Him and enjoying childhood to Him. To them, He will be the Head: “The Israelites shall become countless as the sands of the sea which can neither be measured nor numbered; it shall no longer be said, ‘They are not my people’, they shall be called Sons of the Living God. Then the people of Judah and of Israel shall be reunited and shall choose for themselves a single head, and they shall become masters of the earth; for great shall be the day of Jezreel.” (Hosea 1: 10, 11) Amid the bitter chastisement, God offers a new promise, and enters with his people into a new covenant that was realized not by their return from captivity, but more by their enjoyment of the Messianic era whose features are: First: “The Israelites shall become countless as the sands of the sea which can neither be measured nor numbered”. That way He realizes the promise previously given to Abraham, namely: “I will bless you abundantly and greatly multiply your descendants until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore” (Genesis 22: 17). It is the promise that Jacob held fast and said to the Lord: “But thou didst say, I will prosper you and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is beyond all counting” (Genesis 32: 12). Indeed, “He may punish cruelly, yet he will have compassion in the fullness of his love” (Lamentations 3: 32). By our Lord Jesus Christ, the failing soul, and the dry bones will turn into “a mighty host” (Ezekiel 37: 10). It would not be like Jerusalem, “majestic as the starry heavens” (Songs 6: 4) that the devil, with all his hosts and deceit, would not be able to take up for himself, but would be like a multitude of strong horses that carry the divine chariot in the procession of conquest. That is why the Groom says to his bride (the human soul): “I would compare you, my dearest, to Pharaoh’s chariot-horses” (Songs 1: 9). The apostle Paul says: “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3: 8). The believer, being like one day that passed, would become in Jesus Christ as a thousand years. He would carry the heavenly feature (thousand) with strong and mighty energies in the spirit. Instead of being one day, he becomes many years with no limit, and instead of his human weakness, he would carry the qualities and qualifications of Christ: his mind, will, features, and glory! That is the feature of the Messianic era, which transformed our human life into “a life in Jesus Christ”. Instead of the debasement, we came to have an inner supernal glory and instead of the temporal mind, we came to live in the heavenliness. Second: Mercy does not stop at the abundance (quantity) or at the strength (quality), but what brings pleasure to our heart is being referred to God as His children: “It shall no longer be said, ‘They are not my people’, they shall be called Sons of the Living God” (Hosea 1: 10). Instead of being rejected, we shall be counted as children and heirs of God, heirs together with Christ, the only-begotten Son! We have become the 22 children of the living God and we would be living by our living Father. The Jews carried the dead nature of their parents, by calling the dead Baal their father and his wife “Ishtarouth” their mother. God’s promise was given, not only to the Jews who after being rejected will be received at the end of time when they receive the Savior Messiah, but it touches our lives as well, we, the Gentiles, who were previously rejected because of our past rejection of Him. Now, the door of childhood to God is open to us. In addition, as said by St. Augustine: “The apostle understood that promise, as a prophetic testimony about the call of the Gentiles, who were before not referred to God. But now, having spiritually become children of Abraham, they are truly called “Israel”. That is why he goes on saying: “The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint for themselves one head” (Hosea 1: 11) 1”. Third: The exalted mercies of God are proclaimed in the Messianic era through our unity together in Jesus Christ, the “single head” (Hosea 1: 11). By accepting faith in Jesus Christ and the enjoying our childhood to God through baptism, we would all have the “single head”. He does not say, “they will be gathered together under one king”, but he demonstrates the perfection of unity in having the Savior as a “Head” from which the body cannot separate! It is an exalted love and an inexpressible bond between the Creator and His beloved creation! Fourth: Through that heavenly bond, we shall bear His high nature, and rise above our earthly nature: “They shall become masters of the earth” (Hosea 1: 11). The apostle says: “Were you not raised to life with Christ? Then aspire to the realm above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and let your thoughts dwell on that higher realm, not on this earthly life” (Colossians 3: 1, 2). We “do not belong to the world” (John 15: 19), but “are citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3: 20). By Jesus Christ, we ascend above our old earthly nature to enjoy the new heavenly one, which resembles the image of our Creator, and truly sing: “Let us go and ascend to the mountain of God”. It is an exodus, not from the land of Egypt to the land of promise, but it is a new exodus from the earth, that enslaved the soul and received Pharaoh (the devil) as king to enslave the people. It is ascension under the leadership of the Lord Christ Himself, not to bring us forth to the Mount of Sinai where lightening, thunder, and a mountain up in smoke are, but to be united with the Lord Christ, the Holy Mountain, and to bring us over by His Holy Spirit to the bosom of his Father. Fifth: He ends the promise by saying: “For great shall be the day of Jezreel” (Hosea 1: 11). After representing threat and bitterness, as God chastises us through the fruit of our sins, Jezreel came to represent a promise, as the word “Jezreel” means “God plants”. He would sow us with His hands a new plant, a “sacred pole” (Isaiah 6: 13). He would sow us members in the body of His only-begotten Son to be watered by the waters of the Holy Spirit and carry the holiness of Christ in us. He would place us in His stabbed side to feed upon life itself, instead of the death that we had. That is what God confirms by saying: “Israel shall be my new sowing in the land, and I will show love to Loruhamah and say to Lo-ammi, ‘You are my people’, and he will say, ‘Thou art my God’.” (Hosea 2: 23). 1 City of God 18: 28.
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