Hosea Chapter Three

Written By: Timothy Fish Published: 10/15/2008

At the end of Hosea 2, the Lord has just said that he is going to get Israel back. As we look at chapter three, it is almost as if the Lord was thinking on that and turned to Hosea and said, “Now it’s time for you to do the same.” Chapter three is only five verses long, but it is here that we see how closely Hosea’s life with Gomer resembled what would happen between the Lord and Israel.

The Lord tells Hosea, “Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine.” (Hosea 3:1) The Lord asked Hosea to do a hard thing when he told him to marry a woman like Gomer. I’m sure that he wanted to love her, but she spurned his love. It must have hurt when he heard of her escapades with other men. It is only natural that he would try to shield himself from the hurt she caused, but here we see the Lord telling Hosea to love her. I think the Lord was telling Hosea that the ordeal was over and he could tear down the walls that separated them. Gomer was coming home.

Hosea found her in a slave market. We don’t know how she got there. She may have run up a large debt and had to go into slavery to pay it off. Verse two tells us that Hosea bought her for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. That wasn’t all that much. There must not have been many people who wanted her, but Hosea did. She was his wife and with the Lord’s blessing, he redeemed her.

Verse 3 shows us what Hosea wanted. He could have wanted revenge. Instead he says, “Thou shalt abide for me many days, Thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man. So will I also be for thee.” After all Gomer put Hosea through, all Hosea wanted was that husband and wife relationship with mutual love and respect for each other. Hosea wanted that happily ever after ending that we all long for. At this point, I think Gomer wanted the same thing. She had seen where her sin could take her and it wasn’t what she expected. Is was a hard lesson to learn, but she learned it.

Israel will also learn this lesson, as we see in the verses 4 and 5. First, they will suffer the loss of the things that give them a national identity. They will go without a king, a prince and a sacrifice. However, the day will come when they will return to the Lord and walk in the example of King David. They will once more fear the Lord.

Hosea must have wanted to go get Gomer many times, but the Lord would not let him. Hosea had to wait until Gomer had truly repented. Then the Lord gave him permission to go buy her. Sometimes we wonder why God allows bad things to happen. There isn’t just one reason, but one of the reasons is so we will see the error of our way and return to him. Gomer had many bad things happen to her because she was on the wrong path.

For the Love
of a
Devil

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