BIG IDEA:
REPENTANCE IS THE PATHWAY TO ENJOYING GOD’S LOVINGKINDNESS IN RESTORATION AND FRUITFULNESS
INTRODUCTION:
Biblehub: Hosea 14 is a powerful reminder of God’s undying love and His ever-present willingness to forgive and restore. Regardless of how far we may stray, His arms remain open, and His promises of restoration and blessings are steadfast. As the chapter ends, we are reminded that the ways of the Lord are right and the righteous will walk in them.
Hosea 14 is . . . a powerful conclusion that offers a plea for repentance and a promise of divine love and forgiveness. The chapter contains God’s invitation to Israel to return to Him, a declaration of His merciful nature, and an assurance of restoration and blessing for a repentant Israel.
H. Ronald Vandermey: The sovereignty, holiness, justice, and love of God have all worked in unison to achieve the final triumph of God’s grace. Just as Hosea personally effected the redemption of his wife (3:1-3), so also the Lord in this fourteenth chapter concludes the redemption that will restore His wife, Israel.
Gary Smith: Hosea is not offering a last-minute reprieve from Assyrian defeat but hope after the fall of the nation. God still has plans for those who faithfully serve him and do not trust in the idols of other nations.
The Pulpit Commentary: The foregoing part of this book abounds with denunciations of punishment; this closing chapter superabounds with promises of pardon. Wave after wave of threatened wrath had rolled over Israel and come in unto their soul; now offer after offer of grace is made to them.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: Hosea issued one last plea to Israel—come back home. He pointed Israel in the right direction. “You have missed the way. Sin is destroying you. Turn around and come back home to God.”
MAIN IDEA: Sinners must quit stumbling along the path of sin, find the way back to God in repentance, accept God’s loving forgiveness and healing, discard their idols, find new life under God’s blessing, and act with wisdom.
H. D. Beeby: The move from ch. 13 to ch. 14 is like traveling from one age to another, or even from one world to another. We have become accustomed to Hosea juxtaposing good news with bad news. But nothing quite prepares us for the quick transference from the darkness of ch. 13 to the warm and brilliant light of ch. 14. And yet, in its own way, the book follows the common pattern of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and even Jeremiah in the Septuagint version, of putting the best news at the end. The pattern is wider even than the message of the prophets. Where we usually speak of night and day, Genesis tells of day and night, Exodus tells of bondage and liberation, and so on. It is almost as though the theme of death/resurrection is present in Scripture wherever we look and that Hosea is only echoing the dominant theme with his own extreme Galilean accent.
I. (:1-3) CALL FOR REPENTANCE AND FAITH = CONDITIONS FOR RESTORATION
A. (:1) Plea for Repentance: Sin Causes Stumbling – Admit Your Guilt
“Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God,
For you have stumbled because of your iniquity.”
Derek Kidner: The first word, ‘Return’, is an old friend, a strong feature of the book. Up to now it has brought only disappointment and reproach. Basically it means ‘turn’; and Israel has habitually turned the wrong way. They have been ‘bent on turning away from me’, as 11:7 puts it. This, incidentally, was obscured by the older translations that spoke of ‘backsliding’, which has a sound of failure rather than perversity, whereas in fact there had been a flat refusal to respond (11:5), born of pride (7:10) and of settled preference (‘their deeds do not permit them to return to their God’, 5:4). Any response to the great call, ‘Come, let us return to the Lord . . .’, had so far been as shallow as a passing impulse (6:1, 4).
But God will not give up – how could He? If their repentance has been shallow, He will deepen it. There is warmth in the emphatic form of the word ‘return’ here (la; verse 2 uses the ordinary form), and the preposition is a strong one. We could almost translate it, ‘Oh turn, Israel, right back to the Lord.’ Even the familiar words, ‘your God’, have gained a new intensity from the threat which Israel’s fickleness had seemed to pose to her marriage-bond with the Lord. Against all deserving, the marriage holds; He is still hers. Here is the costly equivalent of His word to the cuckolded Hosea: ‘Go again, love a woman who is beloved of a paramour . . .; even as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods’ (3:1).
Lloyd Ogilvie: The first step in returning to God is to accept responsibility for departing from Him. When we have stumbled and are flat on our faces, we tend to blame others and circumstances for tripping us. Hosea is very direct in confronting Israel with the undeniable truth, “You have stumbled because of your iniquity.” Persistent sin, ʿāwōn, that became habitual caused the nation to stumble, kāšal. God’s repeated overtures of love, guidance, and blessings were consistently denied.
Allen Guenther: Salvation is a sovereign act of God. The presence of sin demands repentance. The restoring work of God meets experientially with human rebellion and failure in repentance, confession, and forgiveness.
B. (:2) Process of Repentance
- Must be Verbal and Specific and Directed Personally to the Lord
“Take words with you and return to the LORD.”
Lloyd Ogilvie: They are to have an encounter with the Lord, not with sacrifice offerings, formal rites, and rituals, but with words that expose their true condition before the Lord. The people had tried to substitute sacrifices. “With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find Him” (5:6). No impersonal ritual will do—the people must “take words” that express their deepest selves.
- Must Ask for Forgiveness
“Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity,’”
- Must Cast Yourself on the Grace and Mercy of God
“And receive us graciously,”
- Must Issue in the Fruit of Thanksgiving and Obedience and Service
“That we may present the fruit of our lips”
Derek Kidner: The offering of words, which began with one kind of confession, the acknowledgment of sin, now turns into confession in its other sense, the acknowledgment of God in praise.
C. (:3) Partner of Repentance = Faith in God Alone
H. Ronald Vandermey: In this third verse, Israel repents specifically of three besetting sins: reliance upon Assyria for salvation, dependence upon Egypt for military aid, and trust in man-made idols for spiritual blessing. Each of those sins drives home the extent to which Israel had rebelled against God in searching for security and blessing (7:11; 8:6; 13:2).
James Mays: The second element of the prayer is a series of vows by which Israel is to declare her total submission to Yahweh. The series is composed of renunciations which forswear the basic sins of court and cult, politics and worship, against which Hosea had repeatedly brought indictment. . . Yahweh is a God whose compassion (1:6, 8; 2:3, 25) is especially given to those without strength to gain their own rights (Ex. 22:22f.; Deut. 27:19). Israel, now desolate as an orphan, can only appeal to the compassion of a God whose special concern is the helpless.
- No Hope in Foreign Powers — Kings
“Assyria will not save us,”
Gary Smith: In the final analysis, political alliances cannot save people, provide true independence, or bring prosperity. Foreign nations are fickle and undependable, the military strength of kings rises and wanes, and such associations require payment of heavy taxes. There is a better way. Having turned to their covenant God, the people now vow to trust in his power, not war-horses, to control political affairs. God’s power is made complete through human weakness. His name is glorified when he brings the victory.
- No Hope in Military Capabilities — Armies
“We will not ride on horses;”
H. Ronald Vandermey: By this statement Israel was finally admitting that the importation of horses from Egypt (begun in the time of Solomon, 1 Kings 10:28) was in direct rebellion to the command of Moses not to return to Egypt in search of horses (Deut. 17:16). To the Hebrews, the horse represented a weapon of war, the multiplication of which signaled a lack of trust in the Lord (cf. Psalm 20:7; 33:17; Prov. 21:31; Isa. 30:16; 31:1; Amos 4:10).
- No Hope in Idols of Any Kind or Our Own Accomplishments — Cults
“Nor will we say again, ‘Our god,’ To the work of our hands;”
H. D. Beeby: Kings, army, and cult: what do they have in common, and how have these been responsible for Israel’s death? First, they are all institutions and elements in Israel’s society, In themselves they are good and valuable, but they exist in a corrupt form and so are pernicious and actually ruinous. On the surface two of them are secular and one is religious, but to Hosea they were all profoundly theological each in its own way and thus able to mislead Israel into ways of death. Three words indicate the common nature of their danger: “security,” “adultery,” and “idolatry.”
Kings, armies, and cults have robbed Israel of their security and identity and made the people into an “orphan.” Orphans can do nothing to change their status or role. They are wholly at the mercy of others.
- Hope in God Alone Who Shows Mercy to the Helpless Sinner
“For in Thee the orphan finds mercy”
Allen Guenther: The concluding line of Hosea 14:3 is puzzling. What thread of logic ties God’s compassion toward the orphan to the promise to keep the second commandment: having no other gods? The connection may come from awareness that Israel’s sin is so great and the punishment due them so severe, that only a God of immense compassion would turn and receive them again. If so, the extent of that compassion is marked by God’s sensitivity to the voice of the lone orphan crying out for justice.
There is a reading this writer finds even more attractive. On occasions, a Hebrew relative clause may be separated from its antecedent by another element in the sentence. If we read this grammatical construction here, the text would be translated, Never again will we say to the work of our hands, “Our God, by whom the fatherless experience compassion.” The Israelites, in turning to idols which represent God, have been addressing the idols as the Lord of the dispossessed and weak. An honest confession acknowledges its absurdity. Hence, Hosea urges the penitents to admit, How ludicrous, how perverted our sinful ways have been! How could we ever have imagined that a god, created at our workbench, would possess the power and authority to repel oppressors and bring salvation to their victims?
II. (:4-8) CAUSES OF GOD’S PROMISED RESTORATION AND FRUITFULNESS
A. (:4) Based on the Steadfastness of God’s Love and Compassion
(Which Overcomes His Anger)
“I will heal their apostasy,
I will love them freely,
For My anger has turned away from them.”
H. Ronald Vandermey: For God’s part (vv. 4-5a), restoration will involve three elements:
(1) a healing of the apostasy that had separated the nation from God (cf. Exod. 15:26);
(2) a gracious gift of love that freely forgives all sin (cf. Rom. 3:24); and
(3) a renewal of the blessings on the land that will be poured out like the dew.
S. Lewis Johnson: Charles Haddon Spurgeon whom I often quote has a sentence with which he begins one of his studies on the 14th chapter of Hosea that I’d like to use as a kind of theme text. Mr. Spurgeon says, “This sentence, I will love them freely, is a body of divinity in miniature. He who understands its meaning is a theologian, and he who can dive into its fullness is a true master in divinity.” Now, after over 35 years of teaching in theological institutions, that text that Mr. Spurgeon has begun his study with, I can say is true to the facts of theological life. This sentence is a body of divinity in miniature, and in fact, if you could come to an understanding of it, if you’re not already in understanding of it, you would have a body of theology in miniature. If you would understand its meaning, you would be a theologian. And if you could dive into its fullness, you would be worthy of a master of theology degree. . .
What does it mean, to love freely? Well, it means to love with perfect spontaneity. It means to love apart from outside restraint. It means to love with no inducement whatsoever. In other words, we’re to love because he loves. To love sovereignly, the source of the love exists in God himself and not in man. There is no inducement from man. It is a sovereign love. It’s a free love. . .
You see, there are two great things that one must remember here. There is nothing in man to attract the love of God to man for the simple reason that his love existed before there was a man. The love of God is everlasting love. And man issues at a later date. His love is eternal. We are not eternal. His love is eternal, everlasting.
And there is nothing in man that can be effectual hindrance to his love. Can you think of any sin that can keep you from the experience of the love of God if God has determined to set his love upon you? There is no sin. Otherwise, God wouldn’t be sovereign. You see, man would be sovereign. Man’s sin would overcome God. We’d say, Ah, you see, there is a man who committed such a sin that he has finally overcome God and his magnificent grace. There is no such thing.
His love is a sovereign love, and his love overcomes all obstacles, and ultimately brings its objects into relationship with him. Scripture says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” But our friends would like to have us interpret that as “I will have mercy on whom I can have mercy.” There’s a theological degree’s difference between those statements. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. That’s Scripture.
B. (:5-7) Based on the Supply of God
(Which Promotes Growth, Beauty and Reputation)
H. Ronald Vandermey: In picturing the beauty of the fruit that Israel will cultivate in her new relationships to God (Isa. 62:3; Jer. 32:41; Zeph. 3:16-17; Zech. 9:16-17), Hosea employs much of the imagery that is found in the love song of the Hebrews, the Song of Solomon:
- the lily – emphasizing Israel’s newfound beauty and purity
- cedars of Lebanon – strength and stability – deeply rooted
- sprouts on the shoots – new life
- olive tree – usefulness – used not only domestically but also in foreign trade
- fresh fragrance
- blossom like the vine
- wine of Lebanon – celebrated for its aroma, flavor, and medicinal restorative properties
Derek Kidner: Without labouring the details, we can gain from this a threefold impression of Israel revived and reconciled to God.
- First, freshness (dew, flowers, fragrance, beauty, shade);
- secondly, stability (rooted like the poplar, perhaps; or like Lebanon; verse 5);
- thirdly, vigour (the spreading shoots of new growth, verse 6; the ‘corn in abundance’, verse 7, NEB).
- (:5) Providing Nourishment for Growth, Beauty and Reputation
“I will be like the dew to Israel;
He will blossom like the lily,
And he will take root like the cedars of Lebanon.”
Allen Guenther: God is the source of Israel’s life. Dew appears mysteriously frm clear skies, unlike rain, which was thought to be brought by the storm god, Baal. God can supply Israel’s needs from apparent nothingness.
- (:6) Fostering Growth, Beauty, Fragrance
a. Growth
“His shoots will sprout,”
b. Beauty
“And his beauty will be like the olive tree,”
c. Reputation
“And his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.”
- (:7) Restoring Growth, Beauty and Reputation
a. Growth
“Those who live in his shadow Will again raise grain,”
b. Beauty
“And they will blossom like the vine.”
Allen Guenther: Israel’s splendor shall be restored when the people return to the land. Three conjoined clauses depict her majesty. Each represents the beauty of a vital and magnificent plan.
- Israel is frequently depicted as a vineyard or grapevine (cf. Ps. 80:8-18; Is. 5; Jer. 2:21; 12:10; Ezek. 19:10-14). Like a vine which grows anew from the buds each year, her new growth shall shoot out. In the Hebrew plant classification, the vine was regarded as a tree (Judg. 9; Ezek. 15, 17).
- The reestablished nation may also be compared to the olive tree. It provides a staple food (vegetable oil), is highly productive, remains attractively green year-round, and is capable of surviving even in extended periods of drought.
- The third tree with which Israel may be compared is the fragrant cedar of Lebanon. Its pleasing aroma refreshes body and mind. It envelopes the bystander with its beauty.
c. Reputation
“His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon.”
C. (:8) Based on the Sufficiency of God
(Which Should Eliminate Any Inclination Towards Idols)
“O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like a luxuriant cypress;
From Me comes your fruit.”
John Goldingay: The first colon puts on Ephraim’s lips a commitment about idols that contrasts with 4:17; 8:4; 13:2. The second colon expresses Yahweh’s claim about his action that would justify that response. He had asserted that he would restore his people, and he will have done so.
J. Andrew Dearman: The book began with the charge that the land committed harlotry in disobedience to YHWH (1:2). The charge of Israel’s faithlessness continued, including the description of the land ill and in mourning (4:1–3). Now the book comes to a penultimate conclusion here in 14:4–8 with an eschatological projection of Israel healed and loved, fruitful in the land under YHWH’s shadow and secure in the provisions of his care.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: God’s description of himself surprises us. He is a pine tree in whom Israel’s fruitfulness is found. The pine tree symbolized divinity, kingship, and fertility in Israel’s world. God set himself up as the only true reality behind such symbolism. Now Israel had to decide. Did she believe the Lord? Did she want healing? Would she return and repent and seek forgiveness?
(:9) CLOSING CHARGE – UNDERSTAND AND OBEY THE WAYS OF THE LORD
A. Understand
“Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
Whoever is discerning, let him know them.”
Gary Smith: The danger is that people will read what Hosea has said and not understand it, miss the subtle nuances of his bold analogies, or be offended by his metaphors. The reader must not let the difficulty of his poetry, the theology of judgment for sins, or the hopeful passages close his or her mind to the message of this book.
Although misinterpretation is always a danger, a more common problem is to understand the words but be unmoved by their meaning. Hosea exhorts the wise person to realize and fully comprehend the implications and significance of what God has revealed. Internalizing the truth of God’s Word is one of the wisest things anyone can do. People must be open to the convicting power of the Spirit and be constantly asking how Hosea’s words apply to their lives.
B. Obey
“For the ways of the LORD are right,
And the righteous will walk in them,
But transgressors will stumble in them.”
Robin Routledge: The language reflects wisdom traditions. The contrast between those who do and those who do not follow the right path is a common theme in wisdom texts (Prov. 10:29; 16:17; 21:8). It also recalls the choice set before the people in Deuteronomy (e.g. Deut. 30:15). Walking in Yahweh’s ways is another closely related Deuteronomic theme (Deut. 30:16; cf. 10:12; 11:22; 28:9), and the verse is also similar to Deuteronomy 32:29. It draws, then, on both wisdom and covenant traditions to encourage the discerning reader to choose the path of obedience to Yahweh, which leads to life. By contrast, those who rebel against him and his words will stumble and fall.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The epilogue of verse 9 serves as a conclusion to the whole prophecy of Hosea but also provides us with the final step of returning to and remaining in fellowship with God. The wise and prudent and righteous person has discovered that “the ways of the Lord are right.” There are only two ways to live—to walk in the ways of the Lord or to stumble over them. And the only way to walk in the way of the Lord is to surrender our will to Him. When we trust Him each step of the way, He will reveal His will and give us the courage to obey.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: The last words in Hosea’s book (the rebellious stumble in them) form an artistic inclusio with the same thought in Hosea 14:1 (HCSB “You have stumbled in your sin”; NIV “Your sins have been your downfall!”), giving a frame to this concluding chapter. Foolish Israel stumbles through life sinning and following any path but God’s. They can display their wisdom only by hearing the prophetic call to repent, turning away from their path of sin, and turning to God for forgiveness. That for Hosea is righteousness.