The Deceitful Bow of the Heart Text: Hosea 7:13-16
Introduction: The Anatomy of a False Turn
We live in an age that is desperate for solutions, but allergic to repentance. Our culture wants the blessings of God without the God of the blessings. They want peace without the Prince of Peace, and they want healing without submitting to the Great Physician. We see this all around us, in the political sphere, in the therapeutic culture, and sadly, even in the church. There is a great deal of wailing, a great deal of activity, a great deal of turning. But the question Hosea forces upon us is this: in which direction are you turning?
The prophet Hosea was sent to a people who were experts in the art of the false turn. Israel was caught in a death spiral of idolatry and political intrigue, and when the consequences of their sin began to bite, they would thrash about, looking for relief. They would wail on their beds. They would make alliances. They would perform religious gestures. They were doing many things, but they were not doing the one thing necessary. They were turning, but not upward.
This passage is a divine diagnosis of a sick soul. It is God pulling back the curtain on the motivations of a rebellious people. And what He reveals is a heart that is not just mistaken, but actively deceitful. It is a heart that wants relief from the pain of sin, but not from the pleasure of sin. It is a heart that cries out for grain and new wine, but not for God Himself. This is the essence of worldly sorrow, which Paul tells us produces death. It is a sorrow over consequences, not a sorrow over the offense against a holy and loving God.
As we dissect these verses, we must allow the Word to dissect us. It is easy to look back at ancient Israel and cluck our tongues. It is much harder, and much more necessary, to see our own faces in this crooked mirror. How often do we cry out to God, not because we want Him, but because we want something from Him? How often is our "repentance" simply a foxhole prayer, a desperate plea to get out of a jam, with every intention of returning to our own ways once the pressure is off? God is not fooled by this. He describes such a people as a "deceitful bow," a weapon that looks right but cannot hit the target. It is useless for its intended purpose. And a useless weapon in the hands of God is destined for judgment.
The Text
Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!
Destruction is theirs, for they have transgressed against Me!
And I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me.
And they do not cry out to Me in their heart
When they wail on their beds;
For the sake of grain and new wine they gather together as sojourners;
They depart from Me.
Although I disciplined and strengthened their arms,
Yet they devise evil against Me.
They turn, but not upward;
They are like a deceitful bow;
Their princes will fall by the sword
Because of the indignation of their tongue.
This will be their scoffing in the land of Egypt.
(Hosea 7:13-16 LSB)
Redemption Rejected (v. 13)
The passage opens with a declaration of woe and a heartbreaking statement from God.
"Woe to them, for they have fled from Me! Destruction is theirs, for they have transgressed against Me! And I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me." (Hosea 7:13)
God pronounces a "woe," which is a funeral lament. He is grieving over the spiritual death of His people. The reason is twofold: they have "fled" from Him and "transgressed" against Him. To flee from God is the essence of the fall. Adam and Eve hid in the garden. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. To flee from God is to flee from the source of life, light, and goodness. It is to run from the open arms of the Father into the outer darkness.
To "transgress" means to rebel, to cross a line that God has drawn. It is not a simple mistake; it is a willful violation of the covenant. They have broken faith with their Divine Husband. The result is not arbitrary; it is definitional. "Destruction is theirs." When you flee the fountain of living water, you sentence yourself to die of thirst in the desert. This is not God being vindictive; it is Him allowing His creatures to experience the reality they have chosen.
But then we come to one of the most tragic phrases in all of Scripture: "And I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me." God's heart, His disposition, is bent toward redemption. He is the God of the Exodus, the God who rescues. His desire is to save. This is the constant testimony of Scripture. "As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11). The door to redemption is wide open. The price is ready to be paid. God's posture is one of willingness. "I would," He says.
What prevents it? "They speak lies against Me." What are these lies? They are lies about His character. They lie when they say that Baal provides the grain and wine. They lie when they say that an alliance with Egypt or Assyria can save them. They lie when they say that God is a harsh taskmaster whose laws are burdensome. Ultimately, they lie when their actions declare that sin is more satisfying than God. Every act of disobedience is a slander against the character of God. It is a declaration that we know better than Him what will make us happy. And these lies, spoken against the God who longs to redeem, are what bolt the door of salvation from the inside.
Superficial Sorrow (v. 14)
God now exposes the fraudulent nature of their "repentance."
"And they do not cry out to Me in their heart When they wail on their beds; For the sake of grain and new wine they gather together as sojourners; They depart from Me." (Hosea 7:14)
Here we see the crucial distinction between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. There is no shortage of noise. They "wail on their beds." This is the picture of someone in anguish, tossing and turning at night, perhaps because the Assyrian army is on the horizon, or the crops have failed. There is real pain, real fear, real distress. But God says this wailing is not a cry "to Me in their heart." It is all external. It is the cry of an animal caught in a trap, not the cry of a child who has offended his father.
The proof of the superficiality is in the motive. Why do they cry out? "For the sake of grain and new wine." Their prayers are entirely materialistic. They are not crying, "Against You, You only, have I sinned." They are crying, "My portfolio is down! My comfort is threatened! My lifestyle is at risk!" They want the benefits of the covenant without the Lord of the covenant. They want the stuff, not the Savior. This is the essence of idolatry. It is using God, or the idea of God, to get what you really love.
Notice the result: "They depart from Me." Even in their religious activity, in their gathering together, they are moving away from Him. Any religious act that is not centered on the glory of God and genuine love for Him is, in fact, an act of departure. It is possible to be in a church building, singing the hymns, and with every note be moving further and further from the living God, because your heart is set on what you can get, not on who He is.
Ingratitude and Rebellion (v. 15)
God recounts His goodness to them, which makes their rebellion all the more heinous.
"Although I disciplined and strengthened their arms, Yet they devise evil against Me." (Hosea 7:15)
God's relationship with Israel was one of constant, fatherly care. He "disciplined" them. The word here is one of instruction and training, not just punishment. Like a good father, He corrected them when they went astray, intending to bring them to maturity. And He "strengthened their arms." He gave them victory over their enemies. He gave them the skill and power to prosper. Every ounce of their strength, every military victory, every successful harvest, was a direct gift from His hand.
And what is their response to this fatherly care and provision? "Yet they devise evil against Me." They take the very strength He gave them and use it as a weapon against Him. This is the ultimate perversion. It is like a son taking the inheritance his father gave him and using it to hire a hitman to kill his father. They plot and scheme, making their alliances with pagan nations, setting up their idols in the high places, all of it a direct assault on the God who strengthened them. This is a profound picture of human sin. Every faculty we have, our intellect, our strength, our creativity, is a gift from God. And the essence of sin is to take those good gifts and leverage them in rebellion against the Giver.
The Deceitful Bow (v. 16)
This final verse provides the summary diagnosis and the inevitable prognosis.
"They turn, but not upward; They are like a deceitful bow; Their princes will fall by the sword Because of the indignation of their tongue. This will be their scoffing in the land of Egypt." (Hosea 7:16)
Here is the central problem in a nutshell: "They turn, but not upward." The Hebrew is literally "not to the Most High." They are in motion. They are religious. They are active. When trouble comes, they turn. But they turn horizontally. They turn to Egypt for military aid. They turn to Assyria for a treaty. They turn to a different idol. They turn to a new political strategy. They will turn anywhere and everywhere except upward, to the transcendent, holy God who is their only hope.
This makes them "like a deceitful bow." A deceitful, or slack, bow is a worthless weapon. It has the appearance of a bow. It has a string, it has a frame. But when you pull back the string and aim at the target, the arrow flies off in some useless direction. It fails at its one purpose. Israel's purpose was to be a kingdom of priests, to aim the arrow of God's truth at the world. But because of their internal corruption, their lack of true repentance, they were warped. All their religious motion, all their prayers for grain and wine, were arrows shot at the ground. They were fundamentally unreliable and treacherous.
The consequences are laid bare. "Their princes will fall by the sword." The leaders who led them in this horizontal turning will be the first to face the judgment. Why? "Because of the indignation of their tongue." Their words, their treaties with foreign powers, their arrogant boasts, their lies against God, have sealed their fate. Words are not just vibrations in the air. They create realities. And their reality will be judgment.
The final humiliation is this: "This will be their scoffing in the land of Egypt." The very nation they turned to for salvation will become the audience for their humiliation. Egypt will look at the defeated, exiled Israelites and mock them. "Look at the people whose God was supposed to be so great. They trusted in us, and now look at them." This is the end result of all horizontal turning. When we trust in the creature rather than the Creator, that very creature will eventually become the source of our shame and derision.
The Gospel Bow
This passage is a grim diagnosis, but it is not without hope. Because in diagnosing the disease so precisely, it points us to the only cure. If the problem is a deceitful bow that cannot aim upward, then the solution must be a true and reliable weapon that hits the mark.
The problem of Israel is the problem of every human heart. Left to ourselves, we are all deceitful bows. We turn, but not upward. We cry, but for grain and wine. We take God's strength and use it to rebel against Him. Our hearts are warped, and we cannot straighten ourselves.
But God, in His mercy, did not leave us with our useless weapons. He provided a true bow, a perfect arrow. That arrow is the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the true Israel who never turned to the right or to the left, but always aimed upward, to the glory of His Father. He was tempted in every way, yet without sin. He took the strength the Father gave Him and used it in perfect, loving obedience, even to the point of death.
On the cross, Jesus took the judgment that our deceitful tongues deserved. He was scoffed at and mocked so that we might be welcomed and embraced. He became the target of God's righteous wrath so that we, the warped and useless bows, might be remade. Through faith in Him, God gives us a new heart. He takes out the warped wood and replaces it with a heart that desires to aim upward. The Holy Spirit comes and gives us the strength to pull the string, to aim our lives, our prayers, and our worship toward the Most High.
The call of the gospel is a call to stop our horizontal turning. Stop turning to politics, to therapy, to self-help, to materialism for your salvation. Those are all deceitful bows. The call is to turn upward, and upward only, to the finished work of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can redeem. He is the only one who can forgive the lies we have spoken against God. He is the only one who can teach us to cry out to God in our hearts, not for grain and wine, but for God Himself, who is our exceeding joy.