Old Testament Core Seminar

Class 17“Hosea and Joel”

Old Testament Overview

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Introduction

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• Does history have meaning? If yes, how do we learn its lessons? • 1-2 Kings covers almost 400 years of history.• Not all of the OT books are historical narrative. Isaiah is one.• Some books of prophecy essentially provide God’s commentary

on that narrative. • To know something about how God was working in and through

history to achieve his purposes – and what that history means for us – then we must listen to the prophets that God inspired.

• Turn to the Bible’s table of contents – find Isaiah.• From Isaiah on, are what are called The Prophets - two sections.:

Major Prophets and Minor Prophets. • Major P’s consist of Isaiah through Daniel• Minor P’s are Hosea through Malachi (“The Book of the 12”) • It’s the size of their message/book that locates them.

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• The Book of Twelve is striking unified in its message, despite the diversity of its human authors.

• Their general thrust is sin, judgment, mercy, and hope. – These prophets decry the sin and hypocrisy that we saw in

both the Northern and Southern kingdoms in the book of Kings

– They pronounce present-day and future judgment– They declare mercy to God’s people through the promises of a

coming King like David; – They proclaim hope for a future restoration where the

redeemed will dwell forever in God’s presence.

Introduction to Hosea

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Context • Hosea 1:1 “The word of the LORD that came to Hosea the son of

Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

• Written by Hosea during from the reign of Uzziah up to the time of Hezekiah, kings in the South.

• Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah. • Isaiah ministered in the southern kingdom of Judah.• Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel. • It was a time of great economic prosperity, and in their comfort

the people had slipped into worshipping foreign gods instead of Yahweh.

• Sounds like America today!

Introduction to Hosea

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Outline• Hosea treats that central problem of idolatry in two sections. 1. Chapters 1-3 are a parable based on the life of Hosea, using his

marriage to an unfaithful wife to depict Israel’s relationship with Yahweh.

The image of a broken marriage serves as the introduction to the entire Book of Twelve.– It provides the basic framework that runs throughout them:

Israel has abandoned her covenant with the Lord, – like a faithful husband, God pursues his true people and

restore them.

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2. Chapters 4-14 are a tapestry of statements from God directed to the people.

• With all the poetry and apocalyptic language, it’s very easy to get lost in these chapters. Apocalyptic: Of, relating to, or involving terrible violence and destruction. Of or relating to the end of the world

• There’s a basic threefold cycle which is repeated three times.– Accusation in which God recites and condemns the sin of the

people– Judgment threatened if they do not repent– Mercy as God redeems his covenant people.

• To summarize the themes of Hosea – see Hosea as a prophecy about love.

• Love – even God’s love – is greatly misunderstood today, often even among Christians.

• Hosea teaches us about what God’s love is really like.

Hosea 1-3 - Love’s Strange Story

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1. Love’s Strange Story. • Hosea begins with two pictures that capture the message of the

entire book and that of all the minor prophets. • First picture: Hosea’s marriage to an unfaithful woman Gomer.

When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the LORD.” So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Hos. 1:2-3

• Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh was akin to a marriage who have abandoned their covenant commitment.

• This rebellion is so awful, and so personal, that Hosea describes it with the gut-wrenching image of adultery.

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• Even though Gomer committed adultery, Hosea took her back. • This symbolizes what has been going on for generations on a

greater scale: – Israel has been playing the harlot by worshipping other gods– Yahweh has always been a faithful and forgiving husband.

• Things are about to change: – It’s time for Israel to endure the curses Deuteronomy promises. – The fact that God is loving does not mean he fails to judge.

• Will this punishment last forever? God would be just if it did. • The message of Hosea is that God shows mercy to his people.

" I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD. (2:19-20)

• God’s love is not earned! Not because we are lovely or virtuous.• Whether idolatry or adultery or lust or lying – we play the part of

Gomer.

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• Second picture to portrays God’s love is in the names that God gives to Hosea’s children.

• In 1:4, Hosea’s first child is named Jezreel - the name as the site of a terrible massacre that aroused God’s anger against Israel.

• In 1:6, Gomer’s daughter is named Lo-Ruhamah, which means “not loved.”

• In 1:9, Gomer’s second son is named “Lo-Ammi,” which means “not my people.”

• The names get progressively more ominous indicative of God casting Israel off as his people! Judgment is coming. But …

• Hos. 2:23 tells us “I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”

• Now the names are reversed! God shows mercy! • Who will receive this mercy? Hos. 3:5 tells us who.

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Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days. Hos 3:5• Hosea prophesied during the reigns of kings who lived two

hundred years after David! • So who is he talking about?• He’s talking about the king who would rule God’s people in the

last days – a son of David – the Messiah. • Rom 9:25 Paul explains that Gentiles as well as Jews would know

salvation through Christ, he quotes that verse from Hosea 2:23!• Not only Israel but all of us are estranged from God because of

our sins!• But Jesus Christ has endured that wrath of God and brings us

back into fellowship with him.• And that’s love’s strange story – a story about a faithful God who

calls his people back to him in spite of their unfaithfulness.

Hosea 4-14 Love’s Challenge

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• In the rest of Hosea, we’ll see how God’s love would be displayed to such a wayward bride.

Love’s Challenge: Sin• Here see love’s challenge–the sin of God’s people that challenged

his love. Hosea 4:1-2Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: " There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed.

• Why such evil in the people’s hearts? • Hosea’s diagnosis: false worship – idolatry. The reason for the

image of adultery because idolatry is in fact spiritual adultery.• We must see sin the way God does. Disobeying the LORD is not

the minor, inconsequential thing we often pretend it is. It’s adultery that results in God’s judgment!

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Love’s Recovery: Repentance• If sin is the problem that brings judgment, what’s the way back?• Repentance! This is where we find mercy amidst judgment. 6:1-2

Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.

• Sin looks good in the dark; but repentance means bringing sin into the light.

• We should seek to expose our sin, through reflection, prayer, confession, and meditating on God’s Word.

• Hosea 14:1-2 tells us: “O Israel, return to the LORD your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity; Take words with you, And return to the LORD. Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity; Receive us graciously, For we will offer the sacrifices of our lips.” ‘

• Israel ignores the call to repent and the Assyrian Empire destroys destroy the kingdom of Israel a few years after his ministry.

• But the promises and hope offered in this book continues

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Love’s Recovery: Restoration• Sin challenges love and repentance offers the way of recovery. • Then the hope of those who are loved by God becomes

restoration – restoration of perfect fellowship with God. • Hosea redeemed his wife – buying her back from her

prostitution.• God would do the same thing.

– He would judge all of Israel’s sin, – He would purchase life for his true people and – bring them into his wonderful presence.

• Hos. 13:14: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where O grave, is your destruction?”

• Paul quotes this exact verse in 1 Corinthians 15 where he explains the resurrection of Jesus!

• God pays the ransom that his own justice requires by sacrificing his Son – and we who believe go free.

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• Hosea tell us of the new life that God grants to those he loves and how those they are restored to God’s loving presence.

• God banished sinful Israel from the land, but God proclaimed hope for all who would listen, in 11:8-11:

• “My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God and not man – the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. They will follow the Lord; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes, declares the Lord.”

• Hosea’s role as a prophet was to announce judgment and hope.• The Old Covenant kingdom of Israel was destroyed – but God’s

true people were not.

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• Paul quotes from Hosea in Romans was showing that Hosea’s prophecy would not be fulfilled a Middle-Eastern nation but in the church.

• It is Jesus that secures the restoration this book foretells. • Consider Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and

out of Egypt I called my son.” • God rescued Israel from slavery, even calling the nation his son

because their relationship was that close. • In Hosea God’s covenant with Israel was like the covenant of

marriage. • Israel challenged God’s love with their sin and would not recover

God’s love through repentance like Hosea said. • Where was their hope? It would come from a better Son – Jesus.• Jesus perfectly kept God’s covenant like Israel never did. • Through the death and resurrection of Jesus that we are

reconciled to God.

Introduction to Joel

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Context • The author is the prophet Joel. • Hosea introduced the notion of restoration at the last days – now

Joel spells out more of what the end of history will look like. • His term, the coming “Day of the Lord.” • Unlike Hosea, Joel prophesies to the Southern Kingdom, Judah.• We don’t know when Joel prophesized (no kings named).• Joel’s prophecy was motivated by a historical occurrence – a

plague of locusts. • Hosea used marriage to point to something greater, Joel points to

this locust invasion as a symbolic foretaste of judgment.• If the people do not surrender to God, the “Day of the Lord” will

be a day of horror; if they return to the Lord, it will be a day of celebration and blessing.

Introduction to Joel

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Joel 1:1-2:11 – 2:11 - the Call to Lament• Joel 1:1-4 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of

Pethuel. Hear this, you elders, And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

• What a plague! Utter destruction! How to prepare?• Joel 1:14-15 Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather

the elders And all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of the LORD your God, And cry out to the LORD. Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

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• This plague isn’t a meaningless natural disaster. It’s a divinely-ordained foretaste of a coming day – a day that will be much worse.

• It is the first of many references to the Day of the Lord in the Minor Prophets.

• They worry that the people will experience disasters like locust attacks but that they still won’t turn in repentance.

• Warning: if they continue to ignore God, they will experience his even fuller wrath.

• Us too! Romans 14:12, Each of us will give an account of himself.• Compare the plague of locusts to God’s army 2:11, “The Lord

thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty are those who obey his command. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?”

Introduction to Joel

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Joel 2:12-17 – The Call to Repent• Is there any hope? Joel 2:12-13• " Now, therefore," says the LORD, " Turn to Me with all your

heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.“ So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

• Like in Hosea, the way of escape is repentance. • The people must turn back to Yahweh. • Yahweh is the One bringing the destruction, yet He is also their

only hope for safety! • Who could protect us from God? Only God!• Only Jesus Christ, who is fully man and fully God, can possibly

save sinners from God’s own wrath.

Introduction to Joel

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Joel 2:18-32 – The Promise of Salvation• A promise of salvation for God’s people follows next.• God’s motive: v17 “Spare your people, O LORD. Do not make

your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

• Joel is concerned that the nations will mock the LORD if His people are destroyed.

• V18 “Then the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people.”

• Out of concern for His name, fame, and global recognition, Yahweh saves His people, so everyone will know that he is their God. Read 2:27.

• For those who rebel against Yahweh, the Day of the Lord is a time of reckoning and justice. But for those who repent and gladly submit to Him, it is a day of mercy and joy.

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• More than a description of the Day of the Lord , this passage is a good example of how many prophecies in the Old Testament are often fulfilled in multiple stages.

• Two things are described together with no mention is made of the time interval between them.

• Like looking at a mountain range from a great distance, where all the mountains appear to stand next to one another. But drive into the mountains and you find that great distances separate them.

• The first “mountain” here is the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit. That would be the day of Pentecost, when Peter quoted these verses to explain what was happening.

• The second mountain is one that we haven’t reached yet – it won’t be fulfilled until Jesus returns. Describing the re-creation of the cosmos: wonders in the heavens, the darkening of the sun, the turning of the moon to blood.

• The Day of the Lord is both already and not yet but the dawn is!

Introduction to Joel

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Joel 3:1-16 – The Promise of Justice• Joel continues to look ahead to that final fulfillment of the Day of

the Lord. • First, God promises to show justice to the nations that had

sinfully tormented his people. Look at 3:1-2• "For behold, in those days and at that time, When I bring back

the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there On account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land.

Introduction to Joel

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Joel 3:17-21 – The Promise of Restoration• The closing verses of the book promise how Judah will be

restored in its relationship with Yahweh• New heavens and earth in 3:17-18• " So you shall know that I am the LORD your God, Dwelling in

Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, And no aliens shall ever pass through her again.“ And it will come to pass in that day That the mountains shall drip with new wine, The hills shall flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; A fountain shall flow from the house of the LORD And water the Valley of Acacias.

• The language shows us that the whole universe will be renewed. • This is not all negative but it primarily describes positively as God

restores his people to himself and his own presence.