Scripture Sunday: The Book of Hosea

Hosea is a very painful book. Most of the Old Testament prophets have sad stories, or at the very least they endure some serious hardships because prophesying is never a fun job, but Hosea's story is even more heartbreaking than average, in my view. Hosea has to live through the pain of infidelity firsthand, and his suffering becomes a picture of the Lord's feelings over the unfaithfulness of Israel.

God tells Hosea to do a really unusual thing in this book. It's true that "unusual" really is the norm for God, both in the Bible and in life today, but still this is very, very out of the ordinary--God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. Normally, I would think this would be a great idea, because I can't imagine that many women in ancient Israel were in the sex trade because they thought it was a wise and profitable career choice. I would guess that most of them were forced into it at an early age and had no other options, and that they would really be getting a much better life by marrying an honest man. But when Hosea marries his wife Gomer, it's not like Pretty Woman or something; there's no happy ending right around the corner.

Because as it turns out, Gomer really enjoys prostitution. Hosea takes care of her and provides her with everything she needs, but she cheats on him with her old lovers. Gomer has three children after their marriage, but only the first child is explicitly said to be Hosea's, and Hosea actually has to buy her back again out of prostitution. It's implied that from then on, she is faithful to him because the whole setup of Hosea's life is a living example of how the Lord feels about Israel being unfaithful to him by worshipping other gods. But God holds out very clear hope for the future and says that although Israel has behaved in a disgusting manner and has sinned against him, he will take them back and even though they've gone astray, "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days" (3:5).

There are a few problems that people sometimes have with the Hosea story. Some people might think that Gomer should have gotten to do whatever she wanted--after all, she didn't ask for Hosea's love and commitment, did she? Well, I can kind of see that point of view, but the truth is that her chosen lifestyle is totally destructive. If Hosea didn't take her back, that lifestyle would have killed her. Another question is why God would put Hosea through such a sickening ordeal, when God knew what was going to happen. I don't know why, but I do know that Hosea got the chance to fully exemplify God's love for humankind, and his mercy toward those who have turned their backs on him. That's one very valuable thing about the book of Hosea, the assurance that no matter how far you have run from God, he will always be ready to take you back.

It's been years since I've read it, but I seem to recall really loving Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, which is a historical Christian romance based on the story of Hosea and Gomer.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Daniel

The book of Daniel is short, but crammed with action. A lot happens in its 12 chapters. The first chapter gives us a little of Daniel's background, and it's amazing. Daniel is a teenager when the kingdom of Judah (which is what's left of the kingdom of Israel) is carted off to captivity in Babylon. Daniel and a lot of other young men are drafted into a special type of government service because they are of royal blood and are intelligent, attractive people. So Daniel had everything that would have set him up for a good life--noble birth, good looks, strong mind--and instead of getting to use those skills in his home country, he and his friends are instead becoming very high-ranking slaves in Babylon. But Daniel doesn't bemoan his fate.

As soon as Daniel and his friends are settled in their new government apprenticeship program, they run across a problem--the food they're being served is forbidden to Israelites. Daniel respectfully requests that he and his companions be allowed to eat vegetarian meals instead, and God gives him favor with the person who's making the meal decisions. This early encounter sets the pattern for a lot of things that Daniel does later. He's always wise and gracious in everything he does. You never see Daniel losing his temper like King David or bragging like Joseph. He has a special purpose in life, and God uses him to deliver many important messages.

One story that most people remember from the book of Daniel (other than, you know, Daniel in the Lion's Den) is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. King Nebuchadnezzar makes a giant gold statue and commands everyone to worship it, but these fellows worship the true God of Israel and make it clear that they aren't going to bow down before a big piece of metal. As punishment for their disobedience, the king has the guys thrown into a fiery furnace, a gigantic oven of flames that should kill them instantly. Instead, the king looks into the furnace and sees some completely unharmed men walking around--it's actually four men instead of three, "and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God". Someone holy and divine is protecting these guys from the flames. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego come out of the furnace unburned, and they are promoted to high offices in Babylon.

Except for the lion's den issue, most of the rest of Daniel deals with his prophetic dreams, some that applied directly to circumstances in Babylon, and some that were intended for the future. Many of Daniel's prophecies connect to the ones found later in the New Testament book of Revelation.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Ezekiel

Ezekiel is a rather difficult Old Testament book to talk about, mainly because Ezekiel's prophetic visions are somewhat weirder than average visions. Average prophets (if you could even apply that word to prophets) kept foreseeing doom and telling people to repent, but now the doom has already come. The worst has happened, and the nation of Israel is already being held in captivity in Babylon. Offhand, I would guess that Ezekiel's visions are weirder than anyone's have been heretofore because he's on the final frontier--his country has been decimated and removed to another place, so it seems natural that he gets his message from God kicked up a notch.

Ezekiel is by the river Chebar in Babylon when he says, "the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." And what he sees is kind of brain-frying. There's a fiery whirlwind, and inside he sees four cherubim. Far from looking like those chubby diapered cupids in Renaissance paintings, cherubim are described as having four faces; a lion, ox, eagle, and man. Something like this, perhaps:

Yes, it's kind of scary. Angels are nowhere near as tame as they've been portrayed in the media, it would seem. And beside the flying cherubim is a "wheel within a wheel", which might look something like this:

I'm just using Google Images to give a general idea of what other people think this vision might have looked like. If he hadn't been divinely inspired, Ezekiel would have had one hard time describing this stuff, and it's not even over yet. Above all this craziness is bright man seated on a throne. It's the Lord, and he tells Ezekiel that he (Ezekiel) is being sent as a prophet to the Israelites in captivity. Here's another picture that gets some major details wrong about the cherubim, but still shows a rough outline of what happens:

In Chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, God says to Ezekiel: "Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God". That's very heartbreaking, that Israel still won't listen to the Lord, even after they've been nearly destroyed.

So Ezekiel preaches repentance to the people, because God has set him up as a "watchman," meaning that he's sort of a lifeguard. It's his job to warn people when they're doing evil and risking the wrath of God, which is shown in 3:17-19--"Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." Ezekiel is being held personally responsible if he does not point out to people that they're on the slippery slope of severe consequences. That's a huge responsibility, there.

The end of Ezekiel actually looks toward a hopeful future for Israel, when God shows Ezekiel visions of a new Temple, which really had to be very comforting after all the traumatizing things Ezekiel had witnessed and lived through. This is a common theme in books of the Bible--once the judgement has passed, there is always a chance for redemption.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Lamentations

This book comes right after Jeremiah, and is written by Jeremiah the prophet. As you'd expect, it's a book full of lamenting. It's like a funeral song, written for the entire city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is given a female persona, and the speaker is mourning over everything that has happened to "her". This book is written in a poetic acrostic style in Hebrew (a bit of the poetry does come through in English), and it could almost be subtitled "Weeping Through the Alphabet", because it comes up with detailed and complex ways to mourn over everything that has gone wrong with Jerusalem.

In chapter 1, we're told that "all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies." So Judah's alliances aren't helping any. Their country has been smashed and wrecked, and everyone has turned against them. Most of Judah's citizens have been carried away into slavery in a foreign country, and the situation could scarcely be more dire. The reason for all this trouble is found in 1:8-"Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed". I think that might be the saddest thing for Jeremiah--not just seeing this beloved city after its decimation, but knowing that everyone inside was so evil that they deserved this. It's like when someone you love does something truly horrible, and then it hurts you to see them suffering the consequences, but it also hurts to know that they would do such an unthinkable thing in the first place.

The picture of Jerusalem shown in Lamentations is downright scary. 2:5 says, "The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation." That's so heartbreaking. The city that the Lord loved--and even went so far as to have his holy temple there--has become so disgusting that he turns himself against it and acts as Jerusalem's enemy.

Chapter 3 is the most personal of the chapters, with Jeremiah talking about his own individual sorrows, but then at verse 21 and onward, we see a hopeful change in the tone for a while: "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." This scripture is where we get the hymn "Great is Thy Faithfulness". Even though Jerusalem has been broken to pieces, God has not consumed the pieces. Jerusalem will be shown mercy in the future, and this utter rejection will not last forever.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Jeremiah

Jeremiah is a long, sad book. Jeremiah is God's prophet, talking to the nation of Israel and telling them to turn away from their sins, but as per usual, they want nothing to do with repentance.

God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet when he's still very young. God says to him (1:5), "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations". This verse is often partially quoted in order to support a pro-life stance, and though the message is intended specifically for Jeremiah, I definitely agree with the general idea of applying it to other situations. If we believe that God created the world and created us, it is no stretch to believe that he knew what we'd be like before we were born, or that he had a special plan for us. God has picked Jeremiah out to be his personal messenger to Judah, but this is not a position of ease and delight for Jeremiah--just the opposite, in fact.

Jeremiah had a hard job on many levels. For one thing, he's one of the few righteous men in the whole kingdom, and he's delivering a very unpopular message to the rest of the folks: Change your ways, or God will send enemies to conquer this kingdom. And as in the book of Isaiah, it's not as if the people of Judah have just broken a few religious/cultural rules, like working on the Sabbath or failing to keep kosher. They're doing things like burning their children as human sacrifices. In chapter 19:5, God says of his people, "They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind." That is a big deal for the Lord to say that such a thing didn't even occur to him, because it means that killing children as part of worship is such a disgusting, abominable thing that the divine omniscience didn't even consider it. Humans are capable of great perversity, and the people of Judah have certainly twisted the gifts God has given them.

So Jeremiah's message is unpopular, and besides that, he has to do some really odd things, like acting out particular parables. It's hard to mention the parables out of context and not have them sound silly, but things like wearing an ox yoke to show how the Lord's people will become slave laborers in Babylon might have come close to actually reaching his audience at the time. Unfortunately, no one ever really listens to Jeremiah. Even after their nation is conquered and most of their population is either slain or carried away to Babylon, God's people are bent on doing their own thing. So was Jeremiah's life completely futile? If God picked him out for this job even before he was born, does it prove that God made a mistake in his choice or that God was sadistic in making Jeremiah go through all the pain of fruitless preaching? I don't think Jeremiah's ministry was a mistake. God doesn't promise that if we do what he says, the world will suddenly fall into line. Just because Jeremiah preached, it didn't mean that the people were going to change their ways, but by preaching, Jeremiah gave them an opportunity to hear the truth. That makes him a hero in my view, regardless of his "success" or the lack thereof, in convincing his people to love the Lord.

Trivia: Jeremiah is originally from the city of Anathoth in the tribe of Benjamin, but he's not a Benjamite. Anathoth is one of the special priest-cities that belonged to the Levites. The descendants of Levi didn't get an actual parcel of land to settle down on, so instead they were given several cities throughout Israel. This makes Jeremiah a Levite.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Isaiah

Isaiah's a book of prophecy to Israel, and it's about 2/3rds stern warnings and 1/3rd hopeful looking toward the far future. Prophets didn't just tell the future--they spoke the words that God gave to them, plenty of which were about then-current events. Isaiah preached to Israel for about 40 years, so he had a lot to say, and his book is one of the longer ones in the Old Testament.

Chapter 1 starts off with Isaiah delivering God's message to the Israelites about their constant disobedience. They absolutely refuse to listen to God's commands, and yet they have the audacity to keep sacrificing animals to him, as if they were perfectly pious. The old sacrifices were intended to help take away the sins of the people. But since they were actively pursuing a lifestyle of sin while offering sacrifices on the side... Well, in my mind, what the Israelites were doing could be compared to having a son who goes off to college, blows his scholarship, spends all his allowance money on beer, racks up a large gambling debt, then comes home for the weekend and helps you mow the lawn. It's not that helpful. God outright says in chapter 1 verse 11--"I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs". All these sacrifices mean nothing because God doesn't want the Israelites' stuff--he wants their hearts. And their hearts are bent on doing evil at the moment: "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood" (1:15).

And it's not as if God's main requests are all that difficult to follow. He says, "relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (1:17), in other words, stand up for the rights and the needs of those who are weaker than you. Don't let another person hurt or rob from the innocent. But the Israelites weren't interested in showing mercy to their fellow man.

In chapter 6, Isaiah has a vision of the Lord sitting on a throne in the temple. Isaiah is overcome with his own failings and inadequacies, and God purges him of his uncleanness. Then the Lord asks who will become his messenger to Israel, and Isaiah replies with the famous line: "Here am I; send me". Isaiah definitely takes his calling to heart and he says everything that the Lord gives him to say.

The next chapters up through 39 deal with judgement and future troubles. But then there's a big shift in tone at the start of chapter 40 which continues through the end of the book: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God" (40:1). Comfort? I thought the Israelites were getting punishment and judgement for their evil deeds? Well, yes, they are and they did. But the comfort comes afterward, because God still loves his people. And a lot of these verses are messianic in nature, meaning that they deal with the future Messiah who will come and save his people from their sins. In Judaism, these passages are often called the Songs of the Suffering Servant and are thought to be about the sufferings of Israel as a nation, but in Christianity, the servant is seen as Jesus, particularly in chapter 53, which reads like this:

53:3: He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This perfectly describes Jesus' suffering, taking all of humanity's sins upon himself so that we could be reconciled with the Lord. Isaiah is a difficult book to read in many ways, because it's not always easy to sort out the historical context from the future prophecy, but it's very dear to my heart, particularly the messianic parts.




You can read the King James Version of the first chapter of Isaiah HERE

Scripture Sunday: The Song of Solomon

Solomon, King of Israel, is known for his wisdom--most people have heard the story about him suggesting that a baby be cut in half so that he could determine who the baby's mother was. Solomon is also known for his endless riches, for building the glorious temple in Jerusalem, and for being the son of David. What he's less known for is his association with the book that bears his own name--the Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, depending on your Bible. It's generally agreed that the book is about Solomon courting and marrying a shepherdess (referred to as "the Shulamite," relating to her town of origin). It's an 8-chapter poem focused on romantic and erotic love, and it's often seen as being an allegory of God's love for his people.

The Song of Solomon has multiple speakers, almost like it's a stage play. The man, the woman, and the chorus take turns talking. Some Bibles try to separate the speakers and mark their lines as "Lover," "Beloved," and "Friends," but many versions don't bother with the distinctions, which can make it difficult to figure out who is speaking to whom at times. The pronouns help with discerning the man and woman, but sometimes there's a quick sentence where the POV changes to some 3rd party, and you have to watch carefully to note when the change occurs.

The many lovers' compliments that the couple exchanges may make some readers scratch their heads in confusion. This is supposed to be super-appealing love talk, but sometimes the metaphors and comparisons do not sound remotely delightful. The woman compares her beloved to "a roe or a young hart," (2:9) with roe and hart both meaning "deer". There is a culture gap at work here because these days, we don't often compare our favorite guy to a deer, even though the deer is a strong and graceful animal. Then the man has a series of even stranger compliments for the woman, one of which is "thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead" (4:1). You lost me at "goats", Solomon. But the important thing to understand about these phrases is that in the context of the culture and time period, they were very high compliments indeed. The man and woman are praising each other in very infatuated, descriptive terms and we can still understand the intent of their dialogue even when we can't quite relate to the specifics.

There's a lot of Ships-Passing in-the-Night going on in the Song of Solomon, where the man and woman are frequently separated and looking for each other, or dreaming of separation, or taking precautions against being parted. These people adore each other, and it's evident in every chapter. The final chapter concludes, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it" (8:7) The love between two people is a powerful thing, and even the Bible notes its vehemence.

The Song of Solomon isn't often preached or taught in churches (at least the ones I've been to), partly because it contains an uncomfortable amount of references to physical love. The couple in this book are very blatant about praising each other's bodies and a bunch of their allusions and references can't be viewed as anything other than sexual. The "church" attitude toward sex tends to be very uneasy, and the general mindset seems to be "Don't have sex. Don't talk about. Don't think about it. YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT IT, AREN'T YOU?" But the reserved, proper church attitude and God's own attitude don't exactly line up. The Song of Solomon shows erotic love the way God meant it to be--something immensely enjoyable which benefits both people and strengthens their relationship, and which also occurs within the context of marriage. Reading the Song of Solomon is a real joy and relief if you happen to have met a lot of dried-up, miserable married people. It doesn't have to be like that! God's word shows us an excellent example of a married love that is very physical and is "as strong as death" (8:6).