Bird's-eye view
Hosea 12 is a chapter of covenantal confrontation. The prophet, speaking for God, calls Israel (here represented by its leading tribe, Ephraim) to account. The charge is one of fundamental dishonesty and spiritual adultery, a theme that runs through the entire book. The prophet contrasts Ephraim's current state of deceit and idolatrous foreign policy with the tenacious faith of their father Jacob. Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed, securing a blessing through desperation and dependence. Ephraim, his descendant, wrestles against God, seeking blessing and security through their own cleverness and by making deals with pagan empires. The result is not blessing but emptiness, a chasing after the wind. This chapter is a stark reminder that all attempts at self-salvation, whether personal or political, are a form of idolatry that God will expose and judge. The only path to stability is the one Jacob found: clinging to God alone.
The central thrust of this opening verse is to diagnose the utter futility of Israel's national strategy. They have abandoned their covenant Lord, Yahweh, who is the source of all life, substance, and stability, and have instead committed themselves to policies and alliances that are inherently insubstantial, destructive, and deceitful. Their sin is not just a private religious matter; it has infected their entire culture, from their economic practices to their international relations. They have become a people who believe their own lies, and the result is a national life characterized by emptiness and impending doom.
Outline
- 1. The Futility of Infidelity (Hosea 12:1)
- a. The Empty Diet of Idolatry (Hosea 12:1a)
- b. The Destructive Pursuit of Nothing (Hosea 12:1b)
- c. The Treason of Foreign Covenants (Hosea 12:1c)
Context In Hosea
This chapter follows Hosea's sustained critique of Israel's spiritual harlotry. The nation has abandoned Yahweh, their covenant husband, and has pursued other lovers, namely, idols like Baal and the military might of foreign superpowers. In chapter 11, God spoke of His tender, fatherly love for Israel, recalling how He led them out of Egypt. That chapter ended with a lament over Ephraim's deceitfulness (Hos 11:12). Chapter 12 picks up this theme of deceit and contrasts it sharply with the founding patriarch, Jacob, who, for all his trickery, ultimately learned to cling to God in raw faith. This verse, 12:1, serves as the thesis statement for the chapter's indictment. It summarizes the spiritual, political, and moral condition of the Northern Kingdom on the brink of its destruction by Assyria, the very nation they are trying to court.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Idolatry as Emptiness
- The Folly of Political Salvation
- Covenant Infidelity
- The Relationship Between Sin and Judgment
- The Character of the East Wind
The Politics of Emptiness
When a people forsake the living God, they do not simply become non-religious. They become idolaters. And idolatry is not just a matter of bowing to a statue in a shrine; it is a fundamental orientation of the heart that works its way out into every area of life, including statecraft. Ephraim's problem was not that they had a foreign policy, but that their foreign policy had become their theology. They looked to Assyria and Egypt for the security, stability, and prosperity that only God can provide. They were trying to solve a covenantal heart problem with a political treaty.
The result is what the prophet describes here: a profound and all-encompassing emptiness. They are feeding on wind. Their efforts are not just wrong; they are stupid. They are counter-productive. They are trying to fill their bellies with something that has no substance, and they are trying to anchor their nation to a hurricane. This is what happens when we trade the Creator for some aspect of the creation. We are exchanging the Rock of Ages for a handful of smoke. The verse is a masterful summary of the vanity at the heart of all human attempts to build a world without God.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1a Ephraim feeds on wind And pursues the east wind continually;
The verse opens with a devastating metaphor. To feed on wind is to seek sustenance from nothing. It is to go through all the motions of eating, opening your mouth, chewing, swallowing, but to take in no nourishment whatever. This is the nature of idolatry. It promises everything and delivers nothing. Whether the idol is a block of wood, a political ideology, or the approval of man, the end result is the same: a gnawing emptiness in the soul. Ephraim had forsaken the Bread of Heaven and was trying to live on air. This is a picture of profound spiritual malnutrition.
The prophet then intensifies the image. They are not just passively breathing; they are actively pursuing the east wind. In the ancient near east, the east wind, or Sirocco, was a scorching, destructive force that blew in from the desert. It dried up vegetation, withered crops, and made life miserable. So Ephraim is not just chasing after something empty; they are chasing after something actively hostile to life. Their foreign policy, their trust in pagan alliances, was not a neutral mistake. It was a suicidal pursuit of the very thing that would destroy them. They were running headlong into the blast furnace, thinking it was a refuge.
1b He abounds in falsehood and destruction.
This clause gives the practical, ethical result of their wind-chasing. A life based on nothing will be characterized by lies and violence. When you abandon the God who is Truth, you are left with nothing but falsehood. Ephraim's entire public life, their treaties, their commercial dealings, their worship, was a web of lies. They lied to God, pretending to worship Him while their hearts were far from Him. They lied to each other, as the prophet details elsewhere concerning their corrupt business practices. And they lied to themselves, believing that their political maneuvering could save them.
And where there are lies, destruction is sure to follow. The Hebrew word for destruction here can also mean violence or devastation. A society built on lies will inevitably tear itself apart. Truth is the foundation of justice, trust, and community. Without it, all you have is a power-grab, a war of all against all. Ephraim's pursuit of the east wind was not just futile; it was bringing the destructive power of that wind into the very fabric of their nation.
1c Moreover, he cuts a covenant with Assyria, And oil is carried to Egypt.
Here the prophet gives the specific, concrete examples of what it means to feed on the wind. They are making a covenant, a solemn, binding agreement, with Assyria. In the biblical worldview, covenant is a sacred category. Israel's entire existence was defined by their covenant with Yahweh. To "cut a covenant" with a pagan, predatory empire like Assyria was therefore an act of profound spiritual treason. It was seeking protection from a wolf, and it was an implicit rejection of their true covenant Lord and Protector.
At the same time, they are sending tribute, represented by oil, a valuable commodity, to Egypt. This reveals the utter folly and duplicity of their strategy. They are trying to play two rival superpowers against each other. They make a deal with Assyria while simultaneously trying to buy the friendship of Assyria's main competitor, Egypt. This is the kind of clever, cynical realpolitik that worldly men applaud. But God calls it what it is: chasing the wind. It is a policy of falsehood, doomed to fail. You cannot serve two masters, and you certainly cannot find security by pledging your allegiance to two different dragons. Both Assyria and Egypt would, in their own time, prove to be faithless partners and instruments of God's judgment upon His unfaithful people.
Application
It is tempting for us to read a passage like this and thank God that we are not eighth-century Israelites trying to bribe the Assyrian empire. But the principle here is timeless, because the temptation to feed on wind is a permanent feature of the fallen human heart. We all have our own versions of Assyria and Egypt. We are all tempted to look for security, meaning, and life in things other than the living God revealed in Jesus Christ.
We might feed on the wind of political activism, believing that if we can just get the right people elected, then the kingdom will come. We might feed on the wind of financial security, piling up assets as a hedge against a world we cannot control. We might feed on the wind of human approval, constantly trimming our convictions to match the prevailing cultural breeze. We might feed on the wind of religious performance, thinking that our meticulous observance of spiritual disciplines can obligate God to bless us. All of these are attempts to find life in the creature rather than the Creator. They are all forms of chasing the east wind.
The gospel is the only true food. Christ did not offer us a political treaty or a self-help program. He offered us Himself. He is the Bread of Life, and those who come to Him will never hunger. The Christian life is a process of learning to renounce our taste for wind and cultivating an appetite for the solid food of Christ and His Word. It means repenting of our treacherous covenants with the world's sources of power and renewing our allegiance to our one true King. It means recognizing that all our clever strategies for self-preservation are falsehoods that lead to destruction, and that true safety is found only in the covenant faithfulness of God.