434: Hosea — Who Among Us?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The BEMA Podcast – Episode 434: Hosea — Who Among Us?

Episode Details:

• Title: The BEMA Podcast
• Host/Author: BEMA Discipleship
• Episode: 434: Hosea — Who Among Us?
• Release Date: January 23, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 434 of The BEMA Podcast, hosts Marty Solomon and Brent Billings delve into the penultimate chapter of the Book of Hosea, specifically Hosea 13. This episode marks a significant point in their series, as they approach the culmination of Hosea's prophecy, which challenges listeners to evaluate their idolatrous tendencies and national integrity.

---

Series Context and Journey

The hosts reflect on their two-year journey through Hosea, which began around Brent's sabbatical period. Brent shares, “[00:48] A: This is a series that God put on your heart. What, over the last two years, basically...” highlighting the unforeseen internal confrontations and timely revelations that emerged during their study.

Marty adds, “[00:18] B: We are closing in on the end of good old Hosea...it’s been good. It’s been timely for me, for us, I don’t know.” This introspection sets the stage for the episode's focus on the severe judgments and impending doom depicted in Hosea 13.

---

Deep Dive into Hosea 13: Key Themes and Exegesis

The episode centers on Hosea 13, where God issues stark warnings about Israel's idolatry and impending judgment. Brent reads the passage, emphasizing the destruction and divine wrath:

“[05:37] A: When Ephraim spoke, people trembled...Like a lion, I will devour them. A wild animal will tear them apart.”

Marty interprets these verses, stating, “[05:37] B: Hosea believed that Assyria would be the instrument to bring about the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.” The discussion underscores the severity of Israel's disobedience and the inevitability of their downfall due to persistent idolatry and rejection of God.

---

Translation Insights: Alter vs. Net

A significant portion of the episode examines the translation nuances of Hosea 13:14. Marty introduces Robert Alter’s interpretation, suggesting that the verse may function as a rhetorical question implying denial of redemption:

“[16:04] B: And he will... But this makes no sense in light of the language and utter devastation deployed in the next verse.”

Brent contrasts this with the NIV and NET translations, which render the verse as a direct declaration of no compassion:

“[18:38] B: The net even takes his position, and they translate it even cleaner into how they've translated it.”

This analysis reveals differing scholarly interpretations, with Alter viewing the verse as a negative rhetorical device, while mainstream translations present it affirmatively.

---

Connections to the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 15

The hosts explore how Paul references Hosea in 1 Corinthians 15:54-58, traditionally seen in a positive, triumphant light concerning resurrection:

“[20:01] A: When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable...”

Brent questions whether Paul's usage aligns with Hosea’s context or if it serves a more complex theological purpose, possibly intertwining themes of sin and redemption:

“[21:24] B: On his behalf. I look at the verses that come after verse nine...”

This segment highlights the intricate relationship between Old Testament prophecies and New Testament interpretations, suggesting that Paul's references might carry layered meanings beyond straightforward triumph.

---

Application to Today: National and Corporate Repentance

Addressing listener critiques about over-personalizing biblical exegesis, the hosts emphasize the national and corporate focus of Hosea. Brent articulates, “[31:02] A: Yeah, I'm kind of like trying to think back and I'm not even sure if they're...”

They argue that Hosea's messages are directed at collective entities—nations, empires, and the broader church—rather than individual repentance. This perspective encourages listeners to consider their roles within larger communities and the societal implications of their actions.

---

Five Key Takeaways on Sheol's Plagues

Marty summarizes five critical lessons from Hosea 13 regarding judgment and national responsibility:

1. No Nation is Immune from Judgment: “[36:47] A: Number one, no nation is immune from judgment.”
2. No Nation is Invincible: “[36:47] A: Number two, no nation is invincible.”
3. Leaders Must Be Good Stewards: “[36:47] A: Number three. Leaders, both religious and political, must be good stewards of the trust of those they lead.”
4. Nations Choose Their Destiny: “[36:47] A: Number four. Nations, like individuals, choose their destiny.”
5. Live Within the Consequences of Actions: “[36:47] A: Number five. We must live within the consequences of our actions.”

These points serve as a framework for understanding national accountability and the importance of righteous leadership.

---

Reflection on National Consequences: Soviet Example

Brent shares a poignant example from his time in Estonia under Soviet rule, illustrating the long-term impacts of national decisions and the enduring process of healing post-judgment:

“[36:47] B: Well, Marty. ... It takes a long time to heal from this.”

This anecdote reinforces the episode's theme that national repentance and redemption are complex, enduring processes without immediate solutions.

---

Conclusion and Next Steps

As Episode 434 wraps up, the hosts acknowledge the depth and challenge of Hosea 13, preparing listeners for the next episode, which will explore Hosea 14's themes of hope and redemption. Brent encapsulates their journey:

“[39:31] A: ...pretend all our problems are going to be resolved one week from now. But it's a struggle.”

Marty encourages listeners to ponder the historical lessons and apply them to contemporary societal and spiritual contexts, emphasizing collective responsibility and sustained repentance.

---

Notable Quotes

• Brent Billings [05:37]:
  “When Ephraim spoke, people trembled... Like a lion, I will devour them. A wild animal will tear them apart.”

• Marty Solomon [16:04]:
  “Some interpreters construe this as a positive declaration by God... But it's best to understand this as a rhetorical question with the implied answer no.”

• Brent Billings [36:47]:
  “Leaders, both religious and political, must be good stewards of the trust of those they lead.”

---

Final Thoughts

Episode 434 of The BEMA Podcast offers a profound exploration of Hosea 13, blending historical context, scholarly translation insights, and practical applications. By emphasizing national and corporate repentance over individualism, the hosts challenge listeners to reflect on their collective responsibilities and the enduring consequences of societal actions. As they prepare to conclude the series, the promise of uncovering hope and redemption in Hosea 14 awaits, urging believers to engage deeply with Scripture and its relevance to today's world.

For more information and to connect with the hosts, visit our website and explore the contact and news pages for updates and engagement opportunities.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. This is the Bama podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today we are approaching the penultimate chapter of Hosea's prophecy. Hearing him issue a final challenge to take stock of our idolatrous condition.

[B]

We are closing in on the end of good old Hosea. It's been a good journey for us. Probably not really. I don't know what I was expecting when I pulled this series together. It's been more confrontational internally than I thought it was gonna be. Expected it to be, wanted it to be, but it's been. It's been good. It's been timely for me, for us, I don't know. So, yeah, here we are. Home stretch. Couple episodes. Couple episodes left.

[A]

This is a series that God put on your heart. What, over the last two years, basically. This was kind of like something that came out of your sabbatical.

[B]

Yeah, almost two years ago. And it wasn't really necessarily. It just happened to be what I was studying during. Wasn't one of my sabbatical projects, but I was part of what I was doing was just getting ready for future series. And this was one of those. Yeah, it's been two years ago. When I ran across some of the stuff, I just liked the way it laid out. I'm like, yeah, it'll be a good journey through a prophet. I like how Lovett had laid out an outline was inspiring to me. I pulled together my own. Yeah, yeah, it was good. It was really good.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But I digress. I've got some. Love it for us, by the way.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We're used to this source that I'm not recommending, but read every episode.

[A]

Just mining. Mining it for flakes of gold. Like painting. Painting the stream.

[B]

It's true. You know, there are definitely paragraphs. I don't care for whether that's just because of the difference between 1994 and 2024. I mean, I don't know, but there's.

[A]

Some chemicals in the water, a lot of dead fish. But, you know, every once in a while you find a fleck of gold.

[B]

There you go. That's exactly right. Well, he opens up with this paragraph in the notes for this chapter. And I thought I'd get us started before you read us some Hosea. He says this the death of a marriage. And obviously I'm thinking of Hosea. I think he's thinking of Hosea when he says this. The death of a marriage is a terrible thing. To break up a house, to sort out one's treasures, to box up one's Memories and pictures to try to explain to the children why you're doing this is a heartrending experience. Everybody loses, Nobody wins. There was something sad indeed to watch the cranes slowly hover over the statues and lift them from their established places in Russia. Remember, this is 1994. So he's thinking back to a little bit more recent history. For him, the symbols of a corrupt nation were erased one after another. Even good change is hard and difficult to endure. I thought it was an interesting paragraph. Like, change is hard. Broken relationships are terrible. Broken marriages, like these real life experiences that so many of us have even tasted. Like we've tasted of some of this stuff. Even. Stuff even changed. And then towards the end of the paragraph, he says, even change, that is good. Change. Even change, that is just change. Even change that we would say, like, no, this is good, this is right. It still has this. Like, some people obviously rejoice with that change. Some people should rejoice with those changes. Just culturally, the fact that you had to change, the fact that you had put yourself in a position where statues had to come down, where certain things need to fall, there's a grieving of going, ugh. How did we find ourselves in a spot where this was even necessary to begin with? And so this is where we find ourselves. We start to close in on the end of Hosea. A lot of condemnation, a lot of judgment, a lot of the world falling apart. A lot of Jacob and Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel having been. They have tasted the fruit of their own decisions. And we're starting to close in on a last chapter. We may find some hope there, but that's going to be next episode. We've got to truly end up dealing with the grief that sits in front of us. That's what we're going to find here in Hosea 13. Brent, you should give us a good little section here to get started.

[A]

When Ephraim spoke, people trembled. He was exalted in Israel, but he became guilty of BAAL worship and died. Now they sin more and more. They make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people. They offer human sacrifices. They kiss calf idols. Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window. But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no savior except me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of Burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied. When they were satisfied, they became proud. Then they forgot me. So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs. I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion, I will devour them. A wild animal will tear them apart.

[B]

So we've seen as God's people throughout Hosea's prophecy, have just continued to spurn his rebuke, reject his offer, his invitation to repentance. This is where everything kind of finds its culmination. And God, on no uncertain terms, lets us know. Here's what Levitt says. Lovett says this. These are terrible words of anguish and sorrow. Hosea believed that Gomer's lusting after strange lovers led to the disintegration of their marriage. The covenant was broken, the marriage contract was dissolved. That analogy now spills forth into the 13th chapter in reference to this larger covenant people, this larger. Again, this allegory, this metaphor of maybe his own lived experience with Gomer. But this metaphor, this living metaphor referenced at the beginning, this is where the people of God find themselves, I think, today. Back to an earlier episode we recorded with Josh, when God goes missing, I think is what we called it. And just we said there, towards the end of that episode, we said, God is not baal, he will not be manipulated. And we've seen that play itself out through the prophecy of Hosea. And here we see God like, this is how bad it's been. This is who you really are. Like we're seeing your true colors. You offer human sacrifices. You kiss calf idols. At least that's what's said of you. But I am God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no other God but me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat. Like, this is what's going to happen, because this is who I am. It's not negotiable. I kept begging you, I kept pleading you, I kept asking you to see the things you needed to see, to deal with the things you needed to deal with. And you just didn't want to deal with it. And so here we are. Did you see anything there in those eight verses, Brent, that you. That stand out to you?

[A]

I think some of the extra. Because I think I'm used to the coupling of things. Yes, but there's like in verse three, it's like they're going to be like the morning mist, the early dew that disappears and it's like chaff swirling from a Threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window. It's like, okay, here's your couplet to emphasize it. But then here's an extra one. And then here's another extra one.

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

It's just really emphasizing. And then same thing down. In verse seven, you have like, I'm going to be like a lion, like a leopard. And it's like, okay, and then like a bear.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm going to attack. And then like a lion and like a wild animal. Like, it's just.

[B]

Yeah, it's just. Yeah, you're right.

[A]

Extra, extra, extra. Emphasis on. On what's going on here.

[B]

Yeah, you're right there. We're used to the parallelism, like you said, the coupling in prophetic images, and yet there's almost like a doubling down of. There's this, like this, like this, like this, like, almost like this, like. Oh, no, it's. It's really, really that bad. No, it's really going to be that bad. Yeah, I didn't necessarily notice that. But you're right. It's like parallelism on top of parallelism. Couplet on top of couplet. Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. Like, Hosea knows 13 chapters in. You know, towards the end of the scroll, he's like, okay, I know some of you may have, like, started to tune out. I'm going to make sure you did not miss this part.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Well, Lovett said this in his notes. He said Hosea pointed his finger at the religious and political leaders of Israel throughout the book. What are we to say to the plagues of death and destruction that Sheol brings here? And I thought that was a good setup to the next handful of verses. So give us nine through 13.

[A]

Brent, you are destroyed Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns of whom you said, give me a king and princes? So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away. The guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sins are kept on record. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him. But he is a child without wisdom. When the time arrives, he doesn't have the sense to come out of the womb.

[B]

Love. It says this. Hosea believed that Assyria would be the instrument to bring about the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. The exile would be the logical conclusion to the misdeeds and idolatry of many years. There was a call at the beginning of that section. You read there, Brent, about where is your king. Like we talked about how they had allied with Assyria, then they had allied with Egypt, but then Egypt would ridicule them. Where is this king that you keep trying to cling to? Like, you have this wonderful logical belief that if you make the right political alliance, if you do the right thing, like, somehow you'll be saved. But none of these kings are the ones that are going to save you, whether it's Assyria, whether it's Egypt. Where is this king that's going to come save you? Where is all of this salvation that you've looked for? Oh, it's nowhere. That's right. Because I am that bear, I am that lion. I am that leopard. I am the thing that's. That has been there the whole time, that you keep ignoring, that you keep putting off. And judgment is here. It's here. It's on the doorstep. I'm looking at the section you just read there. Guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sins are kept on record. Pains as a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom. When the time arise, he doesn't have the sense to come out of the womb. Like this picture of, like, deliverance, no pun intended, with that, like this. Like there's a time for Israel to be delivered, for Ephraim to. And like a child without wisdom, like a kid ready to be born, but doesn't even know to come out of the womb, doesn't even know that deliverance is upon them, doesn't even know that it's time to acknowledge, to repent, to find a new life, to be born again. We might say with our kind of language, all of that. All of that is missing in so many ways. See anything else in there, Brent?

[A]

I'm just struck by that final image of like, he doesn't have the sense to come out of the womb. It's like, well, he doesn't have to. Like, that's not right. That's not a baby's responsibility. And yet it's like this whole thing is so messed up. Yeah, everything is out of sorts.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely. And then it's causing. Can you imagine the woman giving birth? Like there's this thing trying to give birth to new life, but the child won't come out. And it's supposed to. There's a natural flow to things. And yet how much worse is this childbirth whole birthing experience that the pains of child labor going to be in the metaphor? Like, it's just causing chaos upon chaos. But give me, give me the next stanza. Here, Brent, I want to know what you think about it. And I'll even let you cheat after you read it. And just look ahead to the next verses if you want to, but give me the next stanza. Read us the next stanza here.

[A]

I will deliver this people from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?

[B]

So we've heard this before. It gets used around resurrection, Easter time. It's used in the New Testament as you hear this in Hosea. And I don't know if you're peeking ahead at the next few verses. What strikes you about verse 14 here, Brent? Just for the sake of listeners, by the way, as you look at it, give me the next. Just give me the next phrase that shows up. It's really actually the end of verse 14 as the NIV does it.

[A]

But I will have no compassion.

[B]

What strikes you about verse 14? In the context of everything else, it's.

[A]

Like, well, yeah, everything else seems so bad. Like getting torn apart like a bear robbed of her cubs.

[B]

Yeah. And then right after verse 14, it's not good. Like, it's just more punishment.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So you get to verse 14 and you're like, what in the world? Like, what? It's like this verse we're all familiar with. Like, oh, yeah, Death, where is your sting? Death, where are your plagues? Grave, where is your destruction? Death, where is your st? Like, we love this verse. We quote it often. And yet when you see it, it's one of those prophetic verses. When you see it in context, you're like, wait, what. What is going on here? Where does this. Where is this coming from? How does this even make sense in the context? It's bad leading up to it, it's bad afterwards. What is this weird verse here? Is it purely just a setup for chapter 14? Like, chapter 14 is going to talk about, like, repentance and blessing and how God's not giving. Spoiler alert. God's not giving up on his people. There's going to be rescue and redemption when they want to turn back to him. So is this just like a random, weird, like, right in the middle of everything verse setting up chapter 14? Like, you could say that, but it definitely feels funny. It doesn't flow with chapter four. It doesn't flow with the. Like, put it at the end of the chapter. It just feels very weird right here. I had thoughts when I was wrestling with this. I was like, is this like the song of Moses? Like, we've made connections Between Hosea and the Song of Moses. Twice, at least twice in this series already. The Song of Moses, if you're familiar, Deuteronomy 32 is this. I mean, it's a song where it's like, this is the story of my people. Here's what happened. But they turned their back to me. They turned on me, and they will come back looking for my deliverance. You're like, okay. And then God says, but I will not give it to them. And you're like, whoa, like what? Like, this is the song of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. So I rescued them. It was beautiful. But then they sinned and they rebelled, and then they came back from me. But I will utterly crush them and destroy them. And the rabbinical teaching on that is like, we always come back to God for this initial deliverance, but it's not true. It's almost like pseudo repentance. Like, we don't really truly want to deal with. We just want the surface level deliverance. And the rabbinical teaching on the Song of Moses is that God says, I see it for what it really is. You don't truly want to repent. And so I will deny you your deliverance to drive you to the place where true repentance can actually take place. Is that what's going on here? Is there some sense of like, oh, I will rescue them, Death, where is your sting? Or is there something else? I dug into altar and Alter actually had. Robert Alter had some fantastic notes I'm going to read here.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

From Sheol, I shall ranso them from death. Shall I redeem them? Some interpreters construe this as a positive declaration by God. I mean, the NIV definitely makes it sound that way, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And he will. That he will ransom Ephraim from death. But this makes no sense in light of the language and utter devastation deployed in the next verse. So it is best to understand this as a rhetorical question with the implied answer no. So in other words, Alter translates this from Sheol, shall I ransom them from death? Shall I redeem them with that implied like in the Greek we've looked at before in the net. Used to love this back in the Gospel of John series. Brent, the question in the Greek with the implied no or the implied yes, the implied negative or the implied positive. The Hebrew doesn't do that, so you have to figure out whether that's what the Hebrew's doing. Alter says that this would be a rhetorical question where the answer is, of course not. I'm not going to ransom them from death. I'm not going to save them. Where are your words, O death? Some critics revocalize Devereka, your words as Deverecha, your pestilence, yielding a neater parallelism with the second verse. And then he has some thoughts here. As this translation assumes the preceding line of poetry, compare, comprises two rhetorical questions. If this is the case, then the meaning of the two questions here is, where is your scourge, Death? Bring it to bear on the. On these miscreants. So Alter would read this. His translation says, from Sheol, shall I ransom them? From death? Shall I redeem them? Where are your words, O death? Where are your scourge, O Sheol? So he reads these as negative statements of God calling out, death, I want you to do your work. Grave, I want you to do your thing. Is essentially, how am I going to save them? Of course not. That's how Alter uses that, to which, if I were just reading Alter in the Book of Hosea, I would say, sure, Alter's smart. I struggle with it because I'm not sure if that's what Paul is doing. Paul uses this phrase later. Let's look at Paul. Give me 1 Corinthians 15 and see, is Paul using this in a positive light or in a negative light? I want to see what you think, Brent. Give me 1 Corinthians 15, 54, 58.

[A]

Maybe before we do Paul, because I wonder with Paul if there's some sort of Septuagint thing going on there, where the Greek translation is some sort of interpretive thing. But here's the net's rendering of verse 14. Ooh.

[B]

Okay. Give it to me. And you're absolutely right, by the way, before you even read the net. Yes. Like, you could have something going on in the Hebrew, but then the Greek Septuagint, in the way that it translates it almost in a commentary, interpretive sense, doing something that Paul is then leveraging. That could absolutely be at work 100%. We see that a lot, actually.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, it could be, yeah, we'll look at 1 Corinthians, but here's the net for Hosea 13, 14. Will I deliver them from the power of Sheol? No, I will not. Will I redeem them from death? No, I will not. O Death, bring on your plagues. O Sheol, bring on your destruction.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

My eyes will not show any compassion.

[B]

Sure. And you can see how that flows so much better in the context. And even as it reads. So the net even takes a Stronger stance than altar does. Like in the translation. Translation, they take his position, and they translate it even cleaner into how they've translated it. That's fascinating. Okay. I'd never encountered that before, but I was totally thrown off when I got to those verses, and I was like, yes, God's rescue and redemption. And then I was like, wait, what? This is not the place for that. What is happening here? And then this is the first time I've encountered these differences in translation approaches. So. All right, give us that Corinthians passage.

[A]

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

[B]

So when I went back to Paul, I realized we always read this verse with a sense of triumphal, like, victory. I don't necessarily. I'm not even saying that's the wrong. But I realized I think maybe I'm projecting that. Like, if Paul's quoting this in context, the way that we're even reading it here from Alter and the Net, Paul could be associating that reference, that Ramez, to the fact that sin and rebellion bring destruction. But thanks be to God, like, he could be using it not in a triumphal positive. We could just have been assuming that all this time. That's one way of potentially reading that. Or maybe Paul wants you to read it triumphantly on the surface, but then catch the backhanded Ramez. That kind of adds more color and context to it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So there's that going on. Brent, what do you think is. What did you think kind of as you heard it? Did you. What do you think?

[A]

I don't know. As I was reading, I felt my mind dropping into one of those ruts.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because it's like we've used these. We've used these words so many times, and. Yeah, what am I thinking about this? Because I definitely see that the saying that is written will come true. And then he quotes Hosea, and then he says, the sting of death is sin. So he's, like, laying out the reality.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[B]

Yeah, he could be associating the rebellion of who we are and the sin of Corinth and all that stuff with the sin of Hosea. Could be the connection he's making. I just never even thought about reading it that way. But right before there was a reference, and I think you maybe even caught this at one point as you were looking at this passage.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He sets us up with another Ramez. Right, Brent?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Where does that come out of Isaiah 25, death being swallowed up?

[A]

Yeah, it's in the. It's in the footnotes in the niv. So it's not obscure there, but hiding.

[B]

But he seems to be linking up some. Linking up some passages here to make a point, as Paul so brilliantly does in his rabbinical way. Sneaky little Paul. But give me Isaiah 25, 7, 8.

[A]

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.

[B]

So it's this beautiful potential gezer shava. It's this. It's this potentially beautiful stringing of pearls here. He uses the same thing of death, death being swallowed up, weaves them together to say God is going to wipe away. And whether or not he's using the Hosea Ra in context or in a new context, or positive or negative. And I think if you go back, I'm looking at Isaiah 25 now. I think if you go back and really dig in and potentially wrestle with some of these verses, the verses that precede it, maybe verse six, on this mountain, the Lord already will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples. I mean, obviously the New Testament context for Paul, as he's weaving these. As he's stringing these pearls together, where he's trying to talk about this Gospel for the outsiders, for the Gentiles and Jews together, that's brilliant. On his behalf. I look at the verses that come after verse nine, and that day they will say, surely this is our God. We trusted in him and he saved us. This is the Lord. We trusted in Him. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. I mean, that is the antithesis of Hosea, but it's also the exact same thing that Hosea says. They're trying to, like, you keep thinking this is what you're doing, but you're not doing. So this is like the antithesis of the sin of the prophecy. Of Hosea, the deliverance. Like there's some real potential reasons why Paul would deliberately weave Isaiah 25 together with the sin of Hosea and then present this to the people of Corinth in the letter to the Corinthians. So I would just be interesting to know if I could find Paul wandering around heaven and say, Paul, what did you mean when you quoted Hosea? Did you mean it in a positive sense or a negative sense and see what he tells me? Because I don't know. I don't know what he is, what he's doing there. But I've called it into question now that I see the context of Hosea and now you bring up the net. Looking at alter, it would seem like that's probably the better way to render it and translate it. And I wonder if our, like you said, our New Testament ruts have. I didn't even check the jps. I should have checked the jps and seen how they translate it in the Jewish context without Paul's echoes in Corinthians and the New Testament. That would be clever.

[A]

Well, I was also looking at this before. I mean, you told me that I could cheat, but I was trying not to cheat. So I was thinking about this in the context of just Hosea 13, and there's all this talk beforehand of being ripped to shreds by all these animals and also being not lasting long. The morning mist, the early dew, the chaff, the smoke. Nothing's going to last very long. But also maybe he's saying captivity with the Assyrians or the Babylonians. Like that's not an easy out. Yeah, like they're not just going to slaughter you and.

[B]

Sure, yeah.

[A]

And make it end. Like, this is going to be a miserable time.

[B]

Yeah, sure. No, I could see that.

[A]

So death isn't going to. I'm going to redeem you from death. You're not going to have death, but that doesn't mean you're off scot free.

[B]

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, maybe we're just having too much fun here. Maybe we're making this too complicated. Maybe we're doing far too many gymnastics. Maybe all this is is exactly a reference to. No, Marty. In the middle of judgment, there's a sprinkling of hope. God's saying that death doesn't get the last word. Maybe it's as simple as that. Doesn't seem to flow very well. Doesn't read very clean, Seems to ignore all the context. But maybe it's as simple as that. But if it is a setup for chapter 14 we're not going to rush there yet. That's next episode. Because there's work to be done here in chapter 13. It would be a travesty to just rush ahead to the deliverance of 14 and not hear the warning of chapter 13. And so with that, we've got a few more verses, at least a couple more verses here in chapter 13. How about you give us the rest of our chapter here today? Brent?

[A]

I will have no compassion. Even though he thrives among his brothers, an east wind from the Lord will come blowing in from the desert. His spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword. Their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. And I don't know how much this plays into it, but verse 16 in Hebrew text is apparently part of chapter 14.

[B]

Wow. Interesting. Okay, well, that definitely changes the way it reads. Fascinating. Well, that is a little doozy. I wasn't prepared for that either. Another little curveball throwing at me. I like that.

[A]

You know, we're just rotating that diamond and, you know, every little face is catching and catching the light just a little different way and just a little differently.

[B]

Here's what Lovett said as I go back to some of his notes. These words call us to ponder and to remember the painful lessons of history. I think of our last episode, Brent. We called it doomed to repeat it. And I think of this calls us to remember the painful lessons of our history. We must learn, he says, the lessons from Israel. Kingdoms fall. Brokenness becomes the sad metaphor of a nation when it forgets its covenant responsibilities. And I go back to that quote I read a little bit earlier. There was a point there where Lovett says Hosea pointed his fingers at the religious and political leaders of Israel throughout the book. What are we to say to the plagues of death and destruction that Sheol brings here? And I know that this feels like I don't know, this whole series, Brent. We talk a lot about the priests. We talk a lot about the political leaders. We're trying to make application to our world today. It was a weirdly timed series. We didn't really look at our calendar. I know everybody's gonna think that we had some conspiracy. We've been really clear about when we're recording these episodes and we record them early. The election hasn't even happened for a lot of these episodes. By the time we record this one, it just did. Like, it feels like we're having a very, like, well, this is a really political, like a national level political series for Bema. And yet that's what Hosea is doing. Like, I heard a critique of the podcast the other day that I didn't necessarily agree with the details, but the overarching idea was well spoken. This tendency for us to over personalize our exegesis, especially when we're in the prophets, especially when we're in the Old Testament. And we're always trying to make the Bible about us, about me as an individual. And that, and that's well said. Like part of good exegesis. I mean, when that, when that retort was offered up, I think it was offered up from a place of like, you know, I would prefer if we just did history. Can we just do history? Can we just do the Hosea, like the people of Israel back then and just, just talk about history, Just talk in the abstract and. Because it's wrong to connect it to us, I think good biblical study, I think part of the work of us as biblical teachers or biblical students, part of good exegesis does end up in application. Like, we have to figure out what to do. What difference does this make with our lives, not just hold it as a cold exercise at arm's length. And on one hand, I've really appreciated the critique because it was like, yeah, I think the tendency is to always make every single passage personal. And when you're studying Hosea, like, we've walked through this thing verse by verse. This is really like an indictment of the nation. It's really not about individuals. There's plenty of things that an individual could take and learn and consider and wrestle with. But the general language of Hosea is pointed at the nation and the leaders of that nation and the leaders of the, of the religious body. It's a very national level. Would you agree that's what you've heard, as we've done Hosea? Brett?

[A]

Yeah, I'm kind of like trying to think back and I'm not even sure if they're, I mean, like Hosea and Gomer, but yeah, like, are there any other names that are really mentioned?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, there's really not. And I'm glad that you kind of see that too, because I was like, man, if we're really, to be honest, to turn Hosea into just a personal devotion for me or you or one single listener, one at a time would really be to betray the true exegesis of Hosea. Like Hosea is about God's people and it was about a particular nation back then in history. But if we're going to wrestle with what that means, the warning, the invitation, the repentance that Hosea is talking about is not directly a Marty repentance, a Brent repentance, a individual. I don't want to take away from that. I need to repent, Brent needs to repent, all of us need to. There's an individual work to be done. But what Hosea is dealing with is a corporate, it's that Eastern mindset, it's a national, it's an us thing. And I don't, I don't want to exegete that away. And so this, this series has been. Because I think we're trying to be true to what Hosea is doing. A very. Let us us plural consider where we plural are at together as people. And we have lots of listeners that are outside America. So this isn't just about America. But let us consider our empires that we are a part of, literal, metaphorical. Let us consider the church that we build, Capital C, the church. Let us consider the nations that we belong to, all the different citizenships that we claim. Let us consider all these things. And so Levitt says, what are we to say to the plagues of death and destruction that Sheol brings here? And he had five things to say. Levitt had a list of five things and I thought they were good. So I was going to close with these five things. Here's five things to say about the plagues of death and destruction that Sheol brings. Number one, no nation is immune from judgment. Lots of our listeners are probably American. That's definitely true of us. For all of our listeners that aren't American, also true of them. No nation, no group of people, no empire, no faith community is immune from judgment. Number two, no nation is invincible. I think that that probably feels like a no brainer, like that's not even worth being on the list. And yet I feel like sometimes I don't grapple with that truth and reality enough. In my world, no nation is immune from judgment and no nation is invincible. Any nation that would include mine. Number three. Leaders, both religious and political, must be good stewards of the trust of those they lead. Leaders, both religious and political must be good stewards of the trust of those they lead. I have a quote right now from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on my whiteboard, Brent. It says, I'm going to butcher it because I'm not looking at it right now. So I'm not going to get the quote perfect. But it says leaders. Leaders aren't people that hold their place and position and their title over the people that they lead. In Judaism, that is a moral failure, not a mark of stature. Instead, leaders are those people that give shape to the community, the thing that they're leading. They make sure that everybody is on the same page, following the same script, acting as fellow members of an ensemble, not a group of prima donnas. So Lovett says leaders, both religious and political, must be good stewards of the trust of those that they lead. Like our job as leaders, our job of our leaders is to make sure they're stewarding us, helping us move our collective energy in a positive, kingdom oriented direction, especially if they're spiritual leaders. Number four. Nations, like individuals, choose their destiny. We're not just like following some rote script. I don't mean that to be a knock on Calvinism or determinism or any of that theology. I just on a biblical level, nations, just like individuals, choose their destiny. We're not just like a remote train on a track that God turns on and we just kind of follow it blindly. No nation is immune from judgment. No nation is invincible. Leaders have to be good stewards of the trust of those that they lead. And we choose our destiny. We do together, we do as individuals. We also do together as people, as nations. And we must live. This is number five. We must live within the consequences of our actions. Lovett says there are many innocent victims that suffer from our sins. And he uses a bunch of the metaphors. There are many innocent victims to a broken marriage, to use the metaphor of Hosea. There are many innocent victims to the brokenness of society. There are many innocent victims. While we try to figure out how to learn these lessons. There are many innocent victims that suffer at the hands of our collective corporate guilt together. And we need to take stock of that because those are the cries we've heard from session one and on those are the cries that God seems to hear. Those are my notes that came out of Hosea 13. I don't know if you saw anything else there at the end that you would add to any of that, Brent.

[A]

But the only other thing I was thinking about was at the beginning of the episode when you were talking about the quote in the context just a few years after the Soviet Union dissolved. And I was in Estonia and Finland, but Estonia in particular, because it was a Soviet nation, or Soviet anyways, under Soviet rule. And while we were there, we just got to see the effects 30 plus years later that the Soviet era still had on their nation and you know, they've done all this stuff, but like one of the. We visited a couple of Bama listeners and they lived in this neighborhood that was really new, this whole part of town that was just like just now being developed because the Soviets were afraid that people were going to escape. So they wouldn't let anybody build anything within two miles of the. Of the water.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So when you have this national level situation, you go through all of the destruction and then you have the grief and then you have, like, even when the redemption comes, it takes a long time to heal from this. So, you know, we're pausing here for a moment before we move on to the next chapter that's coming in a week. But it's not like all of our problems are going to be resolved one week from now.

[B]

What? Yeah, no kidding. No kidding.

[A]

Like just trying to wrap our minds around, like we wish it was easier, we wish the solutions came faster, but it's a struggle.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, totally.

[A]

And when you're talking about an entire nation choosing their destiny and living with the consequences of that, sometimes that stuff plays out over decades, if not longer.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes we get caught up in the moment and we can either become overwhelmed or obsessed or we can trivialize and we forget how this is woven into this larger thing that we deal with. And the prophet here in Hosea calls us to remember where we came from, take stock of where we're at, realize this is not. These are not small matters, and respond appropriately. And I think we have a tendency to struggle with the responding appropriately part, so probably a good thing to wrestle with.

[A]

All right, well, we'll close it out for now. We'll be back next week to finish.

[B]

Off Hosea probably with a few good words, some words that'll help us round it off about how God doesn't give up on us because he doesn't.

[A]

So true. Well, listeners can find more details about the [e-mail] you can use the contact page to get in touch with us. Check out the news page for whatever we have going on. I think as this episode comes out, you and I will be in Florida for our all staff conference with our impact colleagues. But whenever you happen to be listening to this, check that news page and you'll see what we're doing and where we're at. And, and hopefully we have a chance to meet some of you as we go. But for now, thanks for joining us on the Babymouth podcast. We'll talk to you again soon.