Thy Strong Word — Hosea 6-7: Superficial Repentance

The Rev. Luke Brown, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Ellsworth, Kansas, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Hosea 6-7.

A beautiful confession by the Israelites is exposed by God as merely superficial. They think the judgment will be minor. They believe that by mere outward confession and rote sacrifice they will be spared. However, through his prophet Hosea, God explains what he is looking for is steadfast love, not sacrifice; true faithfulness not lip service.

The book of Hosea is a love story with a twist. It tells how God commanded Hosea, a prophet, to marry Gomer, a wife who would be unfaithful to him. God wanted Hosea to feel firsthand the pain of betrayal as he sent him out to prophesy to the people of Israel how they had been unfaithful to God. Hosea still loved Gomer and pursued her and restored her as his wife. This was a picture of how God pursued Israel despite their sin and rebellion and offered them grace and mercy if they would return to Him.

Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations.

Thy Strong Word is graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. Through the mission gifts of people like you, LHF translates, publishes, distributes and introduces books that are Bible-based, Christ-centered and Reformation-driven. Learn more at lhfmissions.org.

Hosea 6-7

Israel and Judah Are Unrepentant

6 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
    for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
    he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
²After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will raise us up,
    that we may live before him.
³Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
    his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
    as the spring rains that water the earth.”

⁴What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
    What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
    like the dew that goes early away.
⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
    I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
    and my judgment goes forth as the light.
⁶For I desire steadfast love^[a] and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
    there they dealt faithlessly with me.
⁸Gilead is a city of evildoers,
    tracked with blood.
⁹As robbers lie in wait for a man,
    so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
    they commit villainy.
¹⁰In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
    Ephraim’s whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.

¹¹For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.

When I restore the fortunes of my people,
7 when I would heal Israel,
    the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
    and the evil deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
    the thief breaks in,
    and the bandits raid outside.
²But they do not consider
    that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
    they are before my face.
³By their evil they make the king glad,
    and the princes by their treachery.
⁴They are all adulterers;
    they are like a heated oven
whose baker ceases to stir the fire,
    from the kneading of the dough
    until it is leavened.
⁵On the day of our king, the princes
    became sick with the heat of wine;
    he stretched out his hand with mockers.
⁶For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;
    all night their anger smolders;
    in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
⁷All of them are hot as an oven,
    and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen,
    and none of them calls upon me.

⁸Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
    Ephraim is a cake not turned.
⁹Strangers devour his strength,
    and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
    and he knows it not.
¹⁰The pride of Israel testifies to his face;^[b]
    yet they do not return to the Lord their God,
    nor seek him, for all this.

¹¹Ephraim is like a dove,
    silly and without sense,
    calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
¹²As they go, I will spread over them my net;
    I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
    I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
¹³Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
    Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
    but they speak lies against me.

¹⁴They do not cry to me from the heart,
    but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
    they rebel against me.
¹⁵Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
    yet they devise evil against me.
¹⁶They return, but not upward;^[c]
    they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
    because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Footnotes

Hosea 6:6 Septuagint mercy
Hosea 7:10 Or in his presence
Hosea 7:16 Or to the Most High

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe

Native North Carolinian Rev. Dr. Phil Booe serves pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and host of Thy Strong Word on KFUO Radio. His parishioners probably think he can’t teach Bible study without a mug of coffee in his hand, and he’ll always be happy to eat a plate of sushi. When he’s not shepherding his flock or teaching on the radio, you might find him watching bad movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and especially binging RiffTrax and MST3K episodes. Some day he’d love to travel to the Lutheran homeland in Germany, but for now he spends time in Minnesota with his wife, son, daughter, and cat, and looks forward to Holy Week every year.