When God Goes Silent Text: Hosea 5:1-7
Introduction: The Treason of the Shepherds
We live in a time when many are concerned, and rightly so, about the state of our nation and the state of the church. But we often misdiagnose the problem. We point to the blatant sin in the streets, the moral decay in our entertainment, and the corruption in our politics. But the prophet Hosea teaches us that when a nation begins to rot, the stench usually starts in the sanctuary. When the people of God go astray, you must first look to the shepherds. Judgment begins at the house of God, and it often begins with the leadership of that house.
Hosea is a book about covenantal infidelity. God, through His prophet, uses the raw and shocking language of adultery to describe Israel's relationship with Him. They are the unfaithful wife, and He is the wronged husband. But in this chapter, the Lord is not addressing the woman on the street corner. He is issuing a legal summons to the men who run the brothel. The priests, the royal house, the leaders of Israel, are not merely participants in the apostasy; they are its architects. They are the ones setting the traps.
Imagine a park ranger who, instead of warning hikers about cliffs and pitfalls, actively digs pits and covers them with leaves. Imagine a doctor who, instead of prescribing medicine, poisons the well. This is the charge God lays at the feet of Israel's leadership. The very places of worship, Mizpah and Tabor, which should have been places of refuge and communion with God, had become snares and nets. The shepherds had become wolves, and the sheep were being devoured. This is a terrifying reality, and it is one we must be willing to confront in our own day. When the pulpit is weak, the pews will wander. When the elders abdicate, the enemy advances. This passage is a divine lawsuit against corrupt leadership, and it reveals the terrifying end of such corruption: the silence of God.
The Text
Hear this, O priests! Give heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you, For you have been a snare at Mizpah And a net spread out on Tabor. And the revolters have dug deep into slaughtering, But I will chastise all of them. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot; Israel has defiled itself. Their deeds will not allow them To return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, And they do not know Yahweh. Moreover, the pride of Israel answers against him, And Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah also has stumbled with them. They will go with their flocks and herds To seek Yahweh, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt treacherously against Yahweh, For they have borne children of strangers. Now the new moon will devour them with their portions.
(Hosea 5:1-7 LSB)
The Divine Indictment (vv. 1-2)
The chapter opens like a court proceeding. God is the prosecuting attorney, and He calls the defendants to the stand.
"Hear this, O priests! Give heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you, For you have been a snare at Mizpah And a net spread out on Tabor. And the revolters have dug deep into slaughtering, But I will chastise all of them." (Hosea 5:1-2)
Notice the three groups addressed: priests, the people generally (house of Israel), and the king. This is a comprehensive summons, but the weight of the accusation falls upon the leaders. "The judgment is for you," He says, pointing directly at the men in charge. Why? Because they turned places of worship into traps. Mizpah and Tabor were high places, historically significant sites for covenant renewal and worship. But under this corrupt leadership, they had become centers for idolatry. Instead of leading people to Yahweh, the priests and rulers were using these religious sites to ensnare the people in the worship of false gods.
This is the ultimate pastoral malpractice. They were not just failing to feed the sheep; they were actively poisoning them. The "revolters," the apostates, have "dug deep into slaughtering." This speaks of a profound and premeditated rebellion. This is not a surface-level mistake. They have dug their sin down deep into the soil of the nation, likely referring to their abhorrent sacrificial systems to idols. But God sees. He says, "I will chastise all of them." There is no escape. The discipline of God is coming for everyone involved, from the king in his palace to the commoner in the field, because the corruption has spread everywhere.
The Diagnosis of the Disease (vv. 3-4)
God now moves from the indictment to the diagnosis. He lays bare the internal condition of the nation's heart.
"I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot; Israel has defiled itself. Their deeds will not allow them To return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, And they do not know Yahweh." (Hosea 5:3-4)
First, God asserts His omniscience. "I know Ephraim." Ephraim, the most prominent tribe in the northern kingdom, stands for the whole nation. They may think their sin is clever, sophisticated, or hidden under a veneer of religious activity, but nothing is hidden from God. And what does He see? He sees a harlot. Israel, the bride of Yahweh, has committed spiritual adultery. She has defiled the covenant marriage bed with idols.
And here we come to one of the most sobering verses in all of Scripture: "Their deeds will not allow them To return to their God." Sin has a binding power. A habit of sin creates a character of sin, and a character of sin makes repentance seem impossible. They have become slaves to their own choices. They have told the same lie for so long they no longer recognize the truth. Their actions have forged chains around their own necks. The problem is not that God is unwilling to receive them; the problem is that they have become unable to return.
Why? Because a "spirit of harlotry is within them." The disease is internal. It is a disposition, a deep-seated desire that governs them. This spirit has one ultimate, tragic result: "they do not know Yahweh." The Hebrew word for "know" (yada) is not about intellectual data. It is the word for deep, personal, relational intimacy, the same word used for the union of a husband and wife. They have forsaken intimate knowledge of their true Husband for cheap thrills with powerless idols. This is the root of all apostasy: a failure to know God as He truly is.
The Inevitable Stumble (vv. 5-6)
The internal corruption now manifests in external consequences. Their pride becomes their downfall, and their worship becomes worthless.
"Moreover, the pride of Israel answers against him, And Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah also has stumbled with them. They will go with their flocks and herds To seek Yahweh, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn from them." (Hosea 5:5-6)
Their pride is personified as a witness testifying against them in court. It is their arrogance, their refusal to admit they are wrong, that condemns them. This pride causes them to stumble in their sin. And the sin is contagious. The northern kingdom, Israel, is in a full-blown apostasy, and the southern kingdom, Judah, is tripping over the same roots right behind them. Sin is never contained; it is a cancer that metastasizes.
Then comes the liturgical charade. They decide to try and fix things with religion. "They will go with their flocks and herds to seek Yahweh." They bring the sacrifices, they go through the motions, they put on the solemn faces. They are trying to appease God, to buy Him off with a religious performance. But their hearts are unchanged. They want God's blessing without God's lordship. They want fire insurance, not a relationship with the fireman.
And God's response is devastating. "They will not find Him." Why? "He has withdrawn from them." This is the judgment of divine abandonment. It is not a loud thunderclap of wrath, but a deafening silence. God has simply removed His presence. They are performing their religious rituals in an empty room. They are calling on a God who is no longer there to hear. This is the great terror for a covenant people: to be left alone by their God.
The Bitter Harvest (v. 7)
The final verse of our text describes the fruit of their treacherous affair.
"They have dealt treacherously against Yahweh, For they have borne children of strangers. Now the new moon will devour them with their portions." (Hosea 5:7)
Their spiritual adultery was not sterile. It produced offspring: "children of strangers." This means they have raised a generation that is alien to the covenant. Their children do not know Yahweh. They have been catechized in the ways of Baal and Ashtoreth. The legacy of their apostasy is a nation of spiritual bastards, strangers to the promises of God.
And so, the very instruments of their worship will become the instruments of their destruction. "Now the new moon will devour them with their portions." The new moon was a sacred festival, a time of celebration and sacrifice. But now, that very festival will mark their doom. Their religion, hollowed out and corrupted, will participate in their judgment. The land they thought was their secure inheritance, their "portions," will be consumed along with them. When worship becomes a lie, it becomes a weapon that God turns back upon the worshippers.
The Forsaken Savior
This is a bleak and terrifying passage. It speaks of a people so entangled in their sin they cannot repent, and a God who has withdrawn His presence from them. Where is the good news in this? The good news is found by looking forward to another moment of divine withdrawal, another moment when God went silent.
On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us. He became the unfaithful bride. He took upon Himself the "spirit of harlotry" that was in us. And as He hung there, bearing our treachery, He experienced the ultimate fulfillment of Hosea 5:6. The Father withdrew from Him. He cried out into the darkness, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
He was abandoned so that we would never have to be. He was met with divine silence so that we could be welcomed into the divine fellowship. He sought His Father and, for a time, did not find Him, so that we, who were not seeking God, could be found by Him.
Therefore, we cannot come to God as Israel tried to come, with our flocks and herds, with our religious resume and our good intentions. Our deeds will not allow us to return. Our pride testifies against us. We can only come because Jesus endured the withdrawal we deserved. The only way back from the silence of God is through the cry of the Son.
The call of this text, then, is to abandon all pretense. It is to confess that we too have the spirit of harlotry within us, that we are proud, and that our sin has entangled us. It is to stop playing religious games and to flee to the only one who can cleanse our defilement. It is to turn from our idols and know our God, not through our own striving, but through the finished work of His forsaken Son.