DAILY BIBLE READING
Jul 19: 2King 18:1-8; 2Chron 29-31; Ps 48
Jul 20: Hos 1-7
Jul 21: Hos 8-14
Jul 22: Is 28-30
Jul 23: Is 31-34
Jul 24: Is 35-36
Jul 25: Is 37-39; Ps 76
Jul 26: Is 40-43
NOTES ON THE READINGS
· Most of our readings this week are in Hosea and Isaiah, again addressing the “Assyrian crisis” of the latter half of the 8th century before Christ. (Israel, the northern kingdom, fell to Assyria in 722 B.C.) Assyria was to this period in the Middle East what Germany was to Europe in the 1930s – aggressive and ruthless – no, Assyria was worse.
· The Assyrian kingdom has a reputation in history for being the cruelest empire in the history of the world. Over a period of several hundred years, its kings bragged of taking cutting off the noses and lips of their vanquished foes, of piling up heaps of severed ears, of skinning alive enemy soldiers and stretching out their skins on the city wall, of dragging opposing kings behind their chariots through the city streets, of tearing limbs and tongues out of their enemies.
· Hosea addressed both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. His focus was not on the terror of the enemy, but Assyria as the instrument of God’s punishment on his people. His metaphor to describe the sins of Israel and Judah is primarily infidelity. For anyone who has lived through the betrayal and tumult that is adultery, this is a particularly emotional metaphor. God is presented as pained by his philandering lover, the people he had called to be his own. Hosea’s own story (see devotions below) becomes an acted parable to illustrate both God’s pain and love.
· Isaiah is a long and complex prophetic book. When I read it last year I had just started my discipline of recording “great quotes.” In parts of Isaiah it’s hard to be selective! It’s like I wanted to cut and paste whole chapters or long verses. But not quite as much in the beginning as the end.
· Isaiah is so long and complex, and speaks to such varying parts of Israel’s history (before and during the Assyrian crisis, then after the Babylonian captivity) that many scholars are quite convinced there were two or three Isaiahs whose works were compiled into one. Others say, “Not so fast.” Just because Isaiah speaks to different time periods (and maybe even in different language) doesn’t mean it was a different person. The Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah to look toward the future and give a word of hope in advance. When you read Isaiah 40-66, that is exactly what his message is – “God knew in advance you’d be in captivity, and he gave me a message of comfort generations before it was needed.”
· Bottom line, though, just bask in Isaiah’s amazing ability to articulate powerful and relevant theology to the everyday world.
DEVOTIONS
Everyone loves a love story. The best love stories have an unexpected twist and an open ending. By that standard, the book of Hosea is one of the best every written.
God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. In his day even more than ours, that would be virtually unthinkable. Hosea does so – he takes “Gomer” into his home and loves her as his wife. She bears his children.
But philandering is deeply imbedded into her psyche. Before too long she returns to her former life. Hosea will not give up. He will not let go. He finds her again. He brings her home. He tells her he still wants to love her – but she’s going to have to give up the other men. And she’s going to have to wait.
We never find out in the book of Hosea what happens. I’d like to believe Gomer’s heart was changed – that when she finally understood what it meant to be loved without condition, love won her over.
When I preached on Hosea last year, this story gripped me. It brought to mind Linda’s and my love story, since Hosea 6:3 is our shared life verse. I recalled a moving moment with my brother and his adopted son from Russia. I shared the story of the song, “The Love of God,” that has its origin 900 years ago in a poem written by a Jewish man. (Click here to read my sermon on Hosea.)
Hosea’s love story is God’s love story. Heartbroken but relentless, God chooses to love those who are unworthy, knowing full well their rejection will be repetitive and painful. But his arms are always open and he never gives up.