Hosea 12 - Bible Study, Explanation, and Application

Hosea 12 Bible Study

HOSEA CHAPTER REVIEW:

• Hosea 1 – God told Hosea to marry a wife of whoredom as a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to Him. Hosea married Gomer, and together they had 3 children together. Their names were “Jezreel,” “No Mercy,” and “Not My People.” Though Israel had acted very wickedly, God promised them hope for a positive future, but judgement was coming first.

• Hosea 2 – Hosea’s wife returned to her sins and committed adultery, just as Israel had turned its back on God repeatedly. God warned Israel to repent or suffer severe consequences. Israel didn’t realize all of its blessings came from God and God could take them all away. God would punish Israel, but Hosea foretold a day when God would restore His wife (Israel) to Himself by grace.  

• Hosea 3 – God told Hosea to buy his wife back after she was unfaithful to him. This was a picture of God’s grace to Israel after their unfaithfulness. Israel’s immediate future was going to be spend enduring the consequences of their sins, but God promised He would show them grace in the “latter days” when they were reunited under “David their king.”

• Hosea 4 – Hosea described the sorry sinful state of the people of Israel. They were decaying as a nation because they lacked knowledge of the law of God. The priests were piranhas that fed on the sins of the people. Hosea described their unfaithfulness to God as whoredom and adultery.

• Hosea 5 – This chapter continues listing the sins of the people of Israel and includes the unfortunate prophecy that Judah would fall into the same sins. God was tearing down the power of Israel and Judah little by little. He would eventually pour out His wrath on them and withdraw from them for a time, leading them to repentance.

• Hosea 6 – God was frustrated with the sacrifices of the people. Though they made sacrifices, they made them without truly loving God in their hearts. It was just an empty ritual, and God informed them of its meaninglessness. Judah and Israel’s love for God was like the morning dew. It would reappear for a short time only to quickly vanish away.  

• Hosea 7 – Israel looked to Egypt and Assyria for help, but no ally, no matter how strong, could save them because God was their enemy. God compared them to “silly doves” that He would catch in His net and destroy. God didn’t want that to be Israel’s fate, He wanted to redeem them, but they refused to repent of their rebellion against Him.

• Hosea 8 – Israel forgot the God the Maker and put their trust in things they made (kingdoms, fortifications, idols, etc.). God was going to give them over to the consequences of their choices. He described Assyria as a vulture, flying overhead and waiting for its prey.

• Hosea 9 – God had a bad taste in His mouth when it came to the nation of Israel. It hadn’t always been that way, in fact God had once looked at Israel the way a wanderer in the wilderness looks at a ripe cluster of grapes. But because of their sins, God was going to strip the people and their children of their national identity.

• Hosea 10 – Israel was a flourishing vine that God cultivated, but the more God blessed them, the more they multiplied their idols. They sowed sin into their fields and would harvest poison. Hosea encouraged them to break up their fallow ground and sow works of righteousness.

• Hosea 11 – God pictured Israel as a child He raised. He taught them to walk, cared for them when they were sick, and helped them grow strong. But Israel turned their back on God. In the second half of the chapter, God described His affection for Israel and pointed towards a day when some of His people would return to Him.

TIMELINE:

• The first verse of the book informs the reader that Hosea lived during the reigns of Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah, and the reign of Jeroboam II in Israel.

• Uzziah’s (Azariah’s) reign began around 815 B.C.

• Hezekiah’s reign ended sometimes around 695 B.C.

• Jeroboam II reigned ended in the mid-700s B.C.

• This puts Hosea’s prophetic work squarely in the 700s B.C. The text indicates he did most of his teaching prior to 721 B.C. That was the year God punished Israel by bringing the Assyrians against them and exiling them from the Promised Land.

OUTLINE:

• THE PATRIARCH JACOB AND THE FATE OF HIS DESCENDANTS (12:1-14):

  • Though the southern kingdom of Judah was godlier than the northern kingdom of Israel, God still had some things against them.

  • Hosea reminded Judah of their forefather, Jacob, who met God at Bethel and was blessed by Him.

  • Jacob was loved by God and God made his family flourish.

  • Hosea encouraged the people of Judah to follow their forefather’s example and seek God’s help to restore their nation. He told them to “hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God” (12:6).

  • Israel’s (Ephraim’s) future was more hopeless.

  • They thought their sins were hidden and they trusted in their wealth.

  • But God told them He would throw them out of their nice houses and make them dwell in tents like they did in the days of their wilderness wanderings.

  • God sent them prophets, visions, and parables, but Israel refused every message. Even though God’s prophet (Moses) had led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, the people of Hosea’s day were unwilling to give the prophets the time of day.

  • They filled their land with idols and false religion.

  • God promised them they would be exiled, just as Jacob their forefather had been exiled from the land of promise when he fled from the anger of his brother Esau.

  • God was going to punish Israel for their “bloodguilt” and their “disgraceful deeds” (12:14).

APPLICATION:

• I know it’s very popular for younger generations to look at their elders and critique their decisions and speak about them in a critical way.

• Today, the younger generations have coined a derogatory term, “boomer,” to refer to the older Baby Boomer Generation.

• It’s tempting to cast all of your frustration on those who came before you and the decisions they made, both in the world-at-large and in the Church.

• But I want to encourage you to do more appreciating of the virtues of the older generations rather than critiquing of their failures.

• In this chapter, God holds up Jacob as an example of a man whose faith was worth imitating. His descendants (Israel and Judah) would have been better off if their faith had been like his.

• God presents Jacob this way even though Jacob had some serious faults according to the history of his life in the Book of Genesis. He was far from being a perfect man (as we all are).

• I’ve noticed that God often emphasizes a person’s virtues over their faults.

• Read Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Fame of Faith,” and recall how many of those men and women had serious moral failings in their lives, yet God presents them as individuals of great faith.

• In the modern Church, we are often super quick to write someone off as soon as we see a moral failure in their life. We say, “Brother so-and-so was a great minister and he did great work, BUT… there was that one thing he did…”

• We can be quick to define people, de-platform people, and dismiss people after one publicly known sin, even when that person exhibits a repentant heart.

• If God treated men that way, Hebrews 11 wouldn’t exist. If God summarized people’s lives by their mistakes, Jacob wouldn’t be in Hosea 12.

• If God doesn’t think that way, neither should we!

• So, when you look at those who came before you, try to appreciate their virtues and their efforts to serve God, even when you think that some of their decisions were foolish.

• We all want God to look at us with a gracious eye, so let’s do that for others.