Covenant Drama: God's Strange Command and His Terrible Mercy Text: Hosea 1:2-9
Introduction: A Prophetic Life as Street Theater
The prophets of the Old Testament were not simply men who delivered stirring addresses on a Sunday morning. They did not just write op-eds for the Jerusalem Times. God often commanded them to live out their message in the most dramatic, visceral, and sometimes scandalous ways possible. Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt. Jeremiah wore a yoke on his neck to symbolize the coming Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel was commanded to lie on his side for over a year. God’s truth was not an abstract concept; it was street theater. It was a living, breathing object lesson for a hard-hearted and stiff-necked people.
But nowhere is this prophetic embodiment more startling, more personally costly, than in the life of the prophet Hosea. God does not just tell Hosea to speak a message of covenant unfaithfulness. He commands him to marry it. He commands him to take a prostitute for a wife, to build a home with infidelity, and to raise children born out of that treachery. Hosea's life and marriage were to become a living parable of God's relationship with Israel. God was the faithful husband, and Israel, His covenant bride, had become a common whore, chasing after every pagan deity that winked at her from across the valley.
This is a hard word. It is offensive to our modern, therapeutic sensibilities. We want a God who is affirming, not a God who calls His chosen people a harlot. We want a gospel of unconditional acceptance, not a story of flagrant adultery and impending judgment. But if we soften the diagnosis, we cannot appreciate the cure. If we downplay the heinousness of Israel's sin, which is a picture of our own, then the astonishing grace that follows becomes cheap and commonplace. The book of Hosea is designed to shock us. It is designed to grab us by the lapels and show us the raw ugliness of our sin and the even more shocking, rugged, and relentless love of God.
In these opening verses, God sets the stage for this covenant drama. He commands the marriage, and then He names the children. And in the names of these children, we find a three-fold pronouncement of judgment that is as stark and terrifying as anything in Scripture. This is not a sentimental story. This is God playing hardball with His people, because He loves them too much to let them get away with their spiritual adultery.
The Text
When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking Yahweh." So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and gave birth to a son for him. And Yahweh said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will visit the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. And it will be in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And Yahweh said to him, "Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and save them by Yahweh their God, and I will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen."
Then she weaned Lo-ruhamah. And she conceived and gave birth to a son. And Yahweh said, "Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God."
(Hosea 1:2-9 LSB)
The Scandalous Marriage (v. 2-3)
The prophecy begins with a command from God that is nothing short of breathtaking.
"When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, 'Go, take for yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking Yahweh.' So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and gave birth to a son for him." (Hosea 1:2-3)
God tells his prophet to marry a prostitute. Let that sink in. This is not an allegory. The text is plain: "So he went and took Gomer." This was a real marriage to a real woman with a sordid reputation. Why? God gives the reason immediately: "for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking Yahweh." Hosea's marriage was to be a mirror held up to Israel. Just as Gomer would be unfaithful to her husband, Israel was unfaithful to her God.
The central sin of the Northern Kingdom was idolatry. They had forsaken Yahweh, their covenant husband who brought them out of Egypt, and were chasing after the Baals, the Canaanite fertility gods. They believed Baal brought the rain and made the crops grow. They were committing spiritual adultery, giving the credit for God's blessings to their pagan lovers. And this spiritual adultery always, always leads to literal sexual immorality. The worship of Baal was shot through with cult prostitution and ritual debauchery. When you abandon the true God, you abandon His law, and society begins to rot from the inside out.
So God says, "Hosea, I want you to feel what I feel. I want your life to preach this sermon. I want your broken heart to be the text." This is the cost of being a prophet. It is not a respectable career path. It is a radical identification with the heart of God. Hosea's obedience here is staggering. He doesn't argue. He doesn't question. He simply obeys. He goes and takes Gomer as his wife. This is a profound act of faith, trusting that God's purpose in this painful command is righteous and good.
The First Child: A Name of Bloody Judgment (v. 4-5)
The first child is born, and God Himself provides the name, a name dripping with historical judgment.
"And Yahweh said to him, 'Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will visit the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. And it will be in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.'" (Hosea 1:4-5 LSB)
Jezreel. To us, it's just a strange-sounding name. To an Israelite, it was a name loaded with meaning. The Valley of Jezreel was a fertile plain, but it was also a place of bloody history. It was where King Jehu, a century earlier, had carried out a bloody purge of the house of Ahab at God's command (2 Kings 9-10). He wiped out Ahab's family and the prophets of Baal. So far, so good. He was commanded to do it.
But the problem was Jehu's motive. He did the right thing for the wrong reason. He obeyed God externally, but his heart was not right. He was securing his own political power, not promoting true worship. How do we know? Because after he wiped out Baal worship, he continued in the idolatrous calf-worship that Jeroboam had established at Dan and Bethel (2 Kings 10:29). He traded one form of idolatry for another. He was a political opportunist, not a true reformer.
And God says here, "Time's up." The bill for Jehu's bloody, self-serving coup is coming due. The judgment for that massacre, which was righteous in its substance but corrupt in its motive, will now fall upon Jehu's dynasty. The name "Jezreel" means "God sows," and God is about to sow judgment. This judgment has two parts: the end of Jehu's dynasty, which happened shortly after this, and the end of the entire kingdom of Israel. Their military power, their "bow," will be broken in that very same valley. History has a long memory, and God is a righteous judge.
The Second Child: A Name of Withdrawn Mercy (v. 6-7)
The second child is a daughter, and her name signifies a terrifying withdrawal of God's grace.
"Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and save them by Yahweh their God, and I will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen." (Hosea 1:6-7 LSB)
Lo-ruhamah. It means "No Mercy" or "Not Pitied." This is one of the most frightening statements in the Bible. God, whose very nature is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, declares that for the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the mercy has run out. The spigot is being turned off. He will no longer have compassion on them. This is the prelude to the Assyrian invasion, which would utterly destroy the kingdom and scatter its people.
But notice the sharp contrast. "But I will have compassion on the house of Judah." Why the distinction? Was Judah morally superior? Not by a long shot. The prophets Isaiah and Micah tell us Judah was rife with its own sin. The difference was the covenant. God had made an unconditional promise to David that his throne would endure (2 Samuel 7). The line of the Messiah was to come through Judah. So while God would discipline Judah severely through the Babylonians, He would preserve them. He would show them mercy for the sake of His covenant promise.
And notice how He will save them. Not by military might, "not by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen." This was fulfilled spectacularly in the days of Hezekiah, when the Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem, and God sent the angel of the Lord to strike down 185,000 soldiers in one night (2 Kings 19). God saves Judah "by Yahweh their God." He saves them by His own direct intervention, demonstrating that salvation belongs to the Lord, and not to the arm of the flesh.
The Third Child: A Name of Covenant Divorce (v. 8-9)
The third child is a son, and his name is the final, devastating blow. It is the pronouncement of covenant divorce.
"And Yahweh said, 'Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.'" (Hosea 1:8-9 LSB)
Lo-ammi. "Not My People." This is the reversal of the central promise of the entire covenant. At Sinai, God had declared, "I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God" (Exodus 6:7). This was the marriage vow of the covenant. Now, God is issuing a decree of divorce. Because Israel has broken the covenant through her flagrant harlotry, God is formally setting her aside. The objective, corporate relationship is being severed.
This is terrifying. It shows us that covenant membership has obligations. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. To be in covenant with God and to then trample that covenant underfoot is to invite a far greater judgment than if you had never known Him at all. To whom much is given, much is required. Israel had been given everything, the law, the prophets, the temple, the promises. And they had prostituted it all. So God says, "You are Lo-ammi. We are through."
The Gospel Reversal
Now, if the story ended here, it would be a story of unmitigated tragedy. Judgment, no mercy, and divorce. This is what we deserve. This is the end of the line for our sin. But praise be to God, the story does not end here. Just a few verses later, in the very next breath, Hosea prophesies a stunning reversal. The names of judgment will become names of grace. Jezreel, the place of sowing judgment, will become a place where God sows blessing. And then we get this: "And I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they will say, 'You are my God!'" (Hosea 2:23).
Who is this talking about? The Apostle Paul picks up this very prophecy in Romans 9 and applies it directly to the inclusion of the Gentiles into the church. He quotes Hosea, saying, "I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved" (Romans 9:25). The judgment that fell on apostate Israel became the very mechanism by which God opened the doors of the covenant to the nations.
This is the gospel. In Jesus Christ, we who were Lo-ammi, not His people, strangers and aliens to the covenant of promise, have been made His people. We who were Lo-ruhamah, shown no mercy and deserving none, have now "received mercy" (1 Peter 2:10). How? Because the true Jezreel, the true "God sows," was Jesus Christ. He was sown into the earth in His death, and He rose again to bring forth a great harvest. The judgment that we deserved fell upon Him. He was forsaken on the cross, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" so that we might be called the children of God.
The story of Hosea and Gomer is our story. We are Gomer, the unfaithful wife. But Christ is the true and better Hosea, the faithful husband who, at an infinite cost to Himself, comes to the slave market of sin, buys back His adulterous bride, cleans her up, and loves her with an everlasting love. He does not just have compassion on us; He becomes our compassion. He does not just make us His people; He becomes one of us to make us one with Him. That is the terrible, beautiful, scandalous mercy of God.