“When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD’” (Hos 1:2).
Have you ever wondered why a little child doesn’t get a joke even though he understands every word and all the grammar and syntax you used to tell it? It’s because deciphering a joke requires a thorough knowledge of the culture outside the joke, as well as awareness of which parts of the joke allude to it. A joke is not an island of words, but a humorous weaving together of unexpected connections.
Reading the Bible well, and learning to discern its “jokes,” requires us to grow in our knowledge of the “outside culture” of the prophets and apostles. This outside culture is called “Moses,” and the rest of the Bible is filled with allusions to it. In this case, the opening words of Hosea’s prophecy contain a cluster of Hebrew words that rarely occur in the Hebrew Bible: “to commit harlotry after” (see Exod 34:15; Deut 31:16; Jer 3:1; Hos 1:2; 1 Chr 5:25). Only one other passage uses this phrase in the context of prophecy: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them’” (Deut 31:16).
For we too are people prone to wander, trying to live with and love others who are just as prone to wander as we are. And the same love that conquered Hosea’s wife and God’s can also conquer us.
By noticing this allusion to such a crucial prophecy for the Torah’s eschatology at the very beginning of the book, we are well prepared to get Hosea’s “joke.” Yes, we know that Israel will forsake the LORD and break the Sinai Covenant because Moses already told us so. But by alluding to Moses’ prophecy of doom, we understand that the goal of the book of Hosea is not condemnation but hope. How do we know this from one small allusion? Because we know that the culmination of Moses’ eschatology is Israel’s return to the God of Israel and His Messiah in the last days (Gen 49:1, 8–12; Num 24:14, 17–19; Deut 4:29–30; 31:28–29), we fully expect this to be the culmination of Hosea’s eschatology as well (see Hos 3:5).
We therefore expect the punchline of Hosea’s impossibly broken marriage to be its restoration through divine love that refuses to call it quits. Hosea’s joke, then, is not on us but for us. For we too are people prone to wander, trying to live with and love others who are just as prone to wander as we are. And the same love that conquered Hosea’s wife and God’s can also conquer us.
“For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).
