THE FRUITS OF MATRIMONIAL BETRAYAL In the first chapter, God proclaimed Israel’s betrayal of the covenant between them and God, which lead to their becoming a wife of harlotry who gives birth to children of harlotry. In this chapter, He reveals the fruits of this matrimonial betrayal, opening the door of return anew to Him. 1. Bringing charges against the mother 1 – 4 2. Seeking vanity 5 – 7 3. Defiling the gifts of God 8 – 13 4. A call for return 14 – 23 1. BRINGING CHARGES AGAINST THE MOTHER: “Then you will say to your brothers, ‘You are my people’, and to your sisters, ‘You are loved’. Plead my cause with your mother, for she is no longer my wife nor I her husband. Plead with her to forswear those wanton looks, to banish the lovers from her bosom.” (Hosea 2: 1, 2) Having proclaimed that this nation has committed harlotry and forsaken its true God to unite to the Baal, God could no more call it His wife, because He has divorced it for its betrayal. He calls it “their mother” to provoke it into repentance and into returning to Him, on both, a collective and an individual level of each of its members. Despite all Israel’s evils, God begins His talk through the prophet, and ends it, by proclaiming the renewal of His covenant with it. He declares that they are His people and the object of His mercy. The apostle Paul says with this spirit: “Brothers, my deepest desire and my prayer to God is for their salvation.” (Romans 10: 1). To whom does He address His talk: “say to your brothers, ‘You are my people’, and to your sisters, ‘You are loved’”? (Hosea 2: 1). If Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, gave birth to Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi, there are a few remnants among the people who are sanctified for the Lord, or at least longing to the holy life in the Lord. God addresses His talk to those, to open the door of hope before their fallen siblings, proclaiming that He longs to embrace them, to have mercy on them and to make them His people. Yet, it shall not be without sanctification or strife, as He says, “Plead”. Bringing charges against their mother who has lost her relation to God, and so has become His wife no more, because of her harlotry and adultery. It is a trial, taking place within the soul by the Holy Spirit, in which man judges himself before being exposed in the great day of the Lord. Each of us should say to himself, “Plead my cause with your mother”. We should judge ourselves before being judged. I hope we do not stay still regarding the corruption of our soul, the bride of the Lord. Or then we would hear, inside us, what St. Basil the Great wrote to a fallen virgin: “If John the Baptist daringly rebuked the king until death when he saw a wedding that should not have been, how much more would his reaction be, if he sees such a defilement of a wedding that concerns the Lord?! You have cast away from yourself the yoke of the divine unity. You have run away from the holy matrimony of the true King. You have fallen into that corrupt and defiled perdition. Who would not sadly say, “How the faithful city has played the whore” (Isaiah 1: 21) 1”. 1 Ep. 46. 27 The goal of this trial is “To forswear those wanton looks, to banish the lovers from her bosom” (Hosea 2: 2). For when we judge ourselves, we put disgrace away from our sight and feel ashamed of our weakness, and then we seek to be covered by His grace. We would then hear the voice of our heavenly groom saying to us: “Rise up, my darling; my fairest, come away. My dove, that hides in holes in the cliffs or in crannies on the high ledges, let e see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is pleasant, your face is lovely” (Songs 2: 13, 14). He would grant us the strength of His resurrection, saying “Rise up”. That is the way through which each defilement that has smeared our face would die away, and His divine features and His sight would be seen in our eyes, glorified by His resurrection and adorned with the work of His Holy Spirit. Let Him take away the adulteries from between our breasts with His Holy Spirit. Let Him take them away from inside our hearts, so we would be able to sing to Him, and say: “He lies on my breast” (Songs 1: 13). As the Holy cannot lie where corruption is “Can light consort with darkness? Can Christ agree with Belial?” (2 Corinthians 6: 14). What does it mean to put away adulteries from between the breasts? If the heavenly Groom has two breasts; namely, the Old and the New Testaments, then these would be the breasts of His bride as well, being the Holy Book of the church. It is to be befitting for the church to present its Holy Book through its holy life in the Lord, and to keep anyone from corrupting its mission by his evil life which might cause missteps to others in enjoying the Holy Book and taking it as food for their souls. In this sense, St. Jerome wrote: “Give him your breasts, to suckle from your pierced bosom, and to find comfort in his heritage1”. By this, he wanted to encourage the monk ‘Bamachius’ to study the Holy Book. If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. On the contrary, if we are slothful with ourselves concerning sin, we shall fall under this same judgment: “Or I will strip her and expose her naked as the day she was born; I will make her bare as the wilderness, parched as the desert, and leave her to die of thirst. I will show no love for her children; they are the offspring of wantonness” (Hosea 2: 3, 4). What is meant by “Or I will strip her and expose her naked as the day she was born”? If she forsakes Him by her own will, she would not be bound to Him and would thus lose Him as a shelter for her inner life. If she rejects Him, she would lose Him as a garment of righteousness by which she gets clothed. This would expose her in her corrupt nature, as she was on the day of her carnal birth, with nothing to cover her weakness. She would deprive herself of the Lord Christ by her own doing. She would deprive herself from the Lord with whom she is clothed, according to the words of the apostle (Galatians 3: 27). As to the saying: “I will make her bare as the wilderness, parched as the desert, and leave her to die of thirst.” (Hosea 2: 3), that is because she rejects God and does not accept His Holy Spirit. This which pours on our desolate land like rain to water it, and turns its barren wilderness into a fruitful paradise to make it say to its groom: “My beloved may come to his garden and enjoy its rare fruits” (Songs 4: 16). And as to saying: “I will show no love for her children; they are the offspring of wantonness” (Hosea 2: 4) refers to the fruit that grows in us by ourselves, not by our union with the heavenly Groom. The fruit about which the Lord Christ says: “Any plant .214 ، 1 حزقیال، ص 213 28 that is not of my heavenly Father’s planting will be rooted up” (Matthew 15: 13) as it is alien from the kingdom of God and is worthy of being burnt by fire! Those doings that are not from God are “the offspring of wantonness”, whereas those works planted by God are connected to him, and cannot be touched by the devil. Those ‘by God made’ works would accompany us during all our eternity according to the words of the church: “Happy are the dead who die in the faith of Christ! Henceforth, says the Spirit, they may rest from their labors; for they take with them the record of their deeds” (Revelation 14: 13). 2. SEEKING VANITY: Seeking His bride, threatening her against refusal or rather warning her that she would end up naked, barren and denied of His mercy, God reveals that what happens to her is not cruelty on His part. Actually, it is a natural fruit of her forsaking the truth, which is the secret of her life and fulfillment. It is also a consequence of seeking vanity, which would bring only death and deprivation. God says: “And their mother is a wanton. She who conceived them is shameless; she says, ‘I will go after y lovers; they give me my food and drink, my wool and flax, my oil and my perfumes” (Hosea 2: 5). He revealed to her that the secret behind her perdition is her harlotry and putting herself to shame, not in the general physical sense, but doing it first internally in the heart where her needs dwell: giving her food, drink (my food and drink), clothing (my wool and flax), medications and her pleasure (my oil and perfumes). That is the spiritual harlotry, when man leans on somebody else other than on God, the Groom of his soul, to seek his needs and find his fulfillment and pleasure. Working on our return to Him, God narrows the way before us, in order to let us realize that going after others would only bring us mirage, saying: “Therefore I will block her road with thorn-bushes and obstruct her path with a wall, so that she can no longer follow her old ways. When she pursues her lovers she will not overtake them, when she looks for them she will not find them” (Hosea 2: 6, 7). If sin brings to humans “thorns and thistles” (Genesis 3: 18) and “The crooked man’s path is set with snares and pitfalls” (Proverbs 22: 5) as said by the wise Solomon, God, in His love, would let these thorns block our way, hoping that we would realize our fault and return to Him. It is said that God “With the savage man thou showest thyself savage” (Psalm 18: 26) and that “If after all this you have not learnt discipline but still defy me, I in turn will defy you” (Leviticus 26: 23, 24). He does so, firstly as a natural fruit of our evil, which we would reap, and secondly as a sign of His divine love, for He chastises us, so that we forsake our wrong ways. If we still do not care, He would set for us a wall of afflictions and troubles to shut before us our perverted way and to let us realize that walking on it is only vain. Through this affliction, we realize the vanity of going after the others, as we would come close to our lovers and seek them, but not find them. Who are those lovers? By them, He probably meant the king of Assyria, the Pharaoh of Egypt and the like. Joining forces with one of them against the other out of fear, is a vanity, because what they all do is actually for their own interest and benefit. They exploited Israel and Judah, but never helped them at the time of affliction. They were like “a splintered cane” (2 Kings 18: 21). He might have also meant the Baal, ‘Ishtarouth’ and the magic that accompanied the pagan worship. Israel has dedicated all its life, energies, and feelings to all those, although they were incapable of helping or saving it. 29 The goal of all these troubles is to bring the bride back to her wisdom, to forsake her harlotry and return to her true man, “Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband again; I was better off with him than I am now’” (Hosea 2: 7). As though she is the prodigal son who said, “I will set off and go to my father” (Luke 15: 18). 3. DEFILING THE GIFTS OF GOD: In our study of the book of Ezekiel, we saw that God admonishes His bride, not only for betraying Him, but also for taking His treasures and sanctuaries and using them in her betrayal1. Here, God comments that His bride takes His grain, new wine, oil, gold and silver, and offers them to Baal. She uses the divine gifts to serve evil. The symbols and spiritual concepts of these gifts were previously explained in some detail2. As to the fruits of this behavior, they are: First: God takes away His gifts in due time: “Therefore I will take back my corn at the harvest and my new wine at the vintage, and I will take away the wool and the flax which I gave her to cover her naked body” (Hosea 2: 9). Despite misusing His gifts and talents, God lets His bride do what she likes with them, in the hope that she may eventually realize her fault and return to Him. Yet, this would only be temporary because, in due time, He would take back what He gave her, to leave her hungry, thirsty, and naked. That is the way she would be consequently exposed to her lovers. God is longsuffering with us, however, if we go far in misusing His gifts to us, He would take away what He had given us and would make us a cause for ridicule, even among the wicked. The prophet Jeremiah realized that when Jerusalem was captivated and said: “All those who had honored her held her cheap, for they had seen her nakedness. What could she do but sigh and turn away? Uncleanness clung to her skirts, and she gave no thought to her fate. Her fall was beyond belief and there was no one to comfort her.” (Lamentations 1: 8, 9) Second: She will not only lose the gifts and talents, but also both her temporal and eternal joy and peace: “I will put a stop to her merrymaking, her pilgrimages and new moons, her sab-baths and festivals” (Hosea 2: 11). He causes her to enter into a perpetual bitterness, depression and anguish; and to know no more joy or feasts, whereas the believer, even while bearing the cross, his heart would be drawn to the rejoicing and power of resurrection. Amid his sufferings, he would taste the inner comfort on a heavenly level, and amid his grief, he would rejoice, and no one can take his joy away from him. St. John Chrysostom confirmed in more than one occasion that man’s peace and joy evolve from his own inner depths, through his holy life in the Lord. Moreover, his harm does not result from outside sources, but from his own sin. He said, “That is why I do not fear the plots of enemies, but I fear only one thing – the sin… I want to teach you a lesson. Have no fear from the deceits of those with authority, but fear rather the authority of sin. Nobody can harm you, if you do not harm yourself by your own. If you do no wrong, even if ten thousands of swords threaten you, God will save you from them, that not even one of them would approach you. Nevertheless, if you do evil, even if you were in paradise, you would be driven out of it3”. 1 المرجع السابق. .37 ، 2 الكنیسة تحبك طبعة 1968 ، ص 36 . 3 للمؤلف: القدیس یوحنا الذهبي الفم، ص 237 30 Third: “I will ravage the vines and the fig-trees” (Hosea 2: 12). In the introduction of this interpretation, we saw that the vine and the fig tree are two symbols of the suffering church, yet featured by the unity of the Spirit. It is as though whoever forsakes the Groom of his soul would lose the features of the church and his fellowship in it. It would even: “turn them into jungle where wild beasts shall feed” (Hosea 2: 12), namely, become a prey to the devil and a banquet to the sin. Fourth: The end of all that would be getting her divine punishment: “I will punish her for the holy days when she burnt sacrifices to the Baalim, when she decked herself with earrings and necklaces, ran after her lovers and forgot me. This is the very word of the Lord.” (Hosea 2: 13) God would elaborately punish her for burning incense to the idols of Baal, for adorning herself for them with earrings and jewelry, and for going after her lovers to commit adultery, leaving God, the source of holiness. She Burnt incense as a symbol of praying and resorting to Baal, adorned herself as a sign of her wish to bring him pleasure and unite with him, and went after her lovers as a sign of having her heart attached to them… By offering all her possibilities to Baal instead of her groom, whom she completely forgot, she became worthy of falling under the eternal punishment. 4. A CALL FOR RETURN: After proclaiming the evil committed by the betraying bride, who scattered the gifts of her groom to the account of His enemy, and after revealing the fruits of her vain behavior, He proclaimed His desire for her return to Him in compassion and gentleness. This can be read in his saying: “But now listen, I will woo her, I will go with her into the wilderness and comfort her” (Hosea 2: 14). Is it possible to find a groom who so treats his bride after her betrayal, and after scattering His gifts to the account of another?! That is the extent, to which God longs for man. He shows the human compassion hoping that he/she would return and unite with Him. Sanctifying human freedom, God does not commit man to return to Him, but He allures him to the wilderness. There he would not find a helper but God treating him with such compassion, love and care, like what He did to the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. How does God allure His bride to return to him? First: “There I will restore her vineyards” (Hosea 2: 15). Even though He takes her to the wilderness, yet, He would give her, her vineyards there. These vineyards would give her food (grapes), drink (grape juice), and joyful wine in return. Those vineyards that the Lord gives are Himself: “I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener” (John 15: 1). It is as if He gives her His life for fulfillment and joy and for enjoying Him, for he is the bread coming down from heaven (John 6: 50). He offers Himself, so that she drinks from Him, being the living fountain (Jeremiah 2: 13), and gets even drunk by His love and sings: “Your love is more fragrant than wine” (Songs 1: 2). Even if the world has become a barren wilderness with nothing to offer us, yet in it, we can find the true vine that came down to us. We can acquire it and even be attached to it as branches and so it produces more fruits (John 15: 5). This is the secret of our joy, and our hearts’ rejoice in the midst of the wilderness of this world. Second: “Turning Emeck-achor (the Vale of Trouble) to Pethah-tikvah (the Gate of Hope), and there she will answer as in her youth, when she came up out of Egypt” (Hosea 2: 15). The word ‘Achor’ means “trouble” or “anguish”. It is the valley 31 where Achan, the son of Zerah was stoned (Joshua 7: 26), ten miles south of Jericho. This means that God takes His bride into the wilderness and offers her Himself as “vineyards” there. At the same time, she accepts sufferings together with the vineyards (according to the meaning of the word “Achor”). Whoever receives the Lord Christ in the wilderness of this world, would receive him to fulfill his soul, but not without anguish. As St. John Chrysostom says, “Where is Christ, there is also the anti-Christ”. “Achor” is God’s grant. The apostle Paul said about the gift of suffering: “For you have been granted the privilege not only of believing in Christ but also of suffering for him” (Philippians 1: 29). St. John Chrysostom also said, “He exalts our souls, counting our sufferings as His own. So, what joy would cover us, to become fellows of Christ, and to suffer for His sake?”, and “As He suffered from others, we suffer together with Him… Therefore, it would be befitting for you, not to be disturbed by these sufferings, but rather to rejoice1”. Which is strange is that God grants us “Achor as a door of hope”. In the midst of suffering, the door of hope opens to us. We taste the strength and joy of resurrection through the cross together with the Lord Christ, which takes us back to the days of our renewing youth, opens our mouth with praise and turns our life into a praise of inner joy. “There she will answer as in her youth, when she came up out of Egypt” (Hosea 2: 15). Third: The bride would enjoy the unity with her heavenly Groom “On that day she shall call me ‘My husband’ and shall no more call me ‘My Baal’” (Hosea 2: 16). This means that she will accept the unity with God, without using the pagan vocabulary (Such as “Baal” or “Master”). He would sanctify her completely, even the terms she uses: “And I will wipe from her lips the very names of the Baalim; never again shall their names be heard” (Hosea 2: 17). She would enter with Him into a matrimonial covenant that sanctifies her body and mind, and grants her an exalted peace, even at the time of her departure from this world. “Then I will make a covenant on behalf of Israel with the wild beasts, the birds of the air, and the things that creep on the earth, and I will break bow and sword and weapon of war and sweep them off the earth, so that all living creatures may lie down without fear” (Hosea 2: 18). It is “That day” when the Lord Christ came to this world, and was hanged on the cross for our salvation, offering His blood as a new covenant, through which our sanctification would be realized that even the beasts of the wilderness in us would become domesticated. The birds of the air, namely, the thoughts of our minds would become holy, and even the creeping things of the ground, namely the lowest carnal energies, would become blessed. He would destroy the bow of the sin, and the devil’s sword using His cross and would snatch the war from the body (the ground), as both body and soul would be sanctified in Him. He would bring peace even when we lie down in the grave, so neither can Hades take us by force, nor can death destroy our peace! The secret of this divine work in our life is His saying three times: “I will betroth you to myself forever” (Hosea 2: 19, 20), confirming “to myself”, because God grants us Himself. As said by St. John Chrysostom to the church on the tongue of the Lord Christ, . 1 الكنیسة تحبك، ص 57 32 “I promise you the Kingdom… Yes, I have granted you the greatest portion, I have given you even the Lord of the Kingdom1”. The features of this heavenly betrothal are: a. “I will betroth you to myself forever” (Hosea 2: 19). It is an eternal betrothal, which cannot be dissolved by time or death. A betrothal founded upon love, that “many waters cannot quench” (Songs 8: 7). b. “betroth you in lawful wedlock with unfailing devotion and love” (Hosea 2: 19). What is lawful wedlock, devotion, love and mercy but the person of the Lord Christ who came down to us, so that humanity can enjoy the wedding in Him. God, the Father, approached us by the Lord Christ to bear us in His bosom, and in Him we, in turn, approach the Father as a bride for the only-begotten Son, with the right of childhood to Him and the unity with Him. By uniting with the heavenly groom, we carry His features, which are “lawful wedlock with unfailing devotion and love” to become heavenly, too. St. John Chrysostom says, “Contemplate: What did the Spirit do? Finding the earth full of demons, He turned it into heaven”. c. “I will betroth you to myself to have and to hold, and you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2: 20). The foundation of this betrothal is faith, by which we are united with the groom who brings us forth to his Father to recognize Him. It is the type of knowledge, which is not by dry thought, but rather by life and unity. The Lord Christ Himself proclaimed previously about this knowledge: “No one know the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son may choose to reveal him” (Matthew 11: 27). If not knowing God is the fruit of uniting with the Baal, then the aim of uniting with the Son is to enter into the bosom of the Father, recognize Him and be attached to Him! Fourth: “At that time I will give answer, says the Lord, I will answer for the heavens and they will answer for the earth” (Hosea 2: 21). The heavens symbolize the soul, which carries the Lord Christ inside it as its groom. The Father responds to the soul that unites to the heavenly groom, as He can smell the fragrance of pleasure in it. The soul would become the subject of His gladness. As to the earth, namely the body, it will become holy together with the soul, and will no more oppose the work of God, but will rather become a tool working on His account. Hence, the Lord will respond to this holy earth, in which the righteousness dwells. Neither will earth oppose heaven, nor will the body wrestle against the holy soul. On the contrary, it will respond to it and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, which God Himself plants: “The earth will answer for the corn, the new wine, and the oil, and they will answer for Jezreel” (Hosea 2: 22). Finally, God ends the blessings of this Messianic era, in which man returns to His groom, by confirming the favor of God’s grace upon us. He says, “Israel shall be my new sowing in the land, and I will show love to Lo-ruhamah and say to Lo-ammi, ‘You are my people’, and he will say, ‘Thou art my God’” (Hosea 2: 23). The hand of God Himself will stretch to plant us, so we will no more be with no mercy, and no more rejected to be His people. On the contrary, we will enjoy His mercy and our relationship with Him. “Jezreel” turned into a promise after it had been a threat. It became a sign of the God’s work, who plants His church by Himself, instead of being a sign of the vineyard that was taken by force by the wicked Jezebel. As to His promise: “I will show love to Lo-ruhamah and say to Lo-ammi, ‘You are my people’”, the apostle Paul quoted it in his . 1 الكنیسة تحبك، ص 66 33 epistle to the Romans. He saw it as a prophecy about the call to the Gentiles who had not obtained mercy and were not the people of God: “As it says in the Book of Hosea: ‘Those who were not my people I will call My People, and the unloved nation I will call My Beloved” (Romans 9: 25).
Welcome