Hosea Chapter Ten

Written By: Timothy Fish Published: 10/13/2008

Hosea continues to speak against Israel in Hosea 10. Here, Israel is an empty vine. The fruit they are producing is being wasted. They are building altars and making images. Because of what they had done, the Lord would break their altars and ruin their images.

A pronouncement has already been made that the enemy is coming, but here in chapter ten they are told that they will be without a king because they didn’t fear the Lord.

The people were worshiping images of calves. The people of Samaria would fear because the calves of Bethaven would be taken away. The people and the priests would mourn because of the loss. The image would be carried to King Jareb of Assyria.

We may not worship a calf today, but it is easy to let other things stand between us and God. We may mourn when our car, our money, our boat or whatever is taken away and someone else gets it.

The places where they had been offering sacrifice would be destroyed. Thorns and thistles would grow up and cover them. The people of Israel would seek to end their lives by calling for the mountains and hills to fall on them.

Hosea tells them that it is time to seek the Lord. He tells them to sow righteousness so they can reap mercy. He tells then that they have plowed wickedness and reaped iniquity. We will always reap what we sow. We can’t expect to do our own thing without respect to what God wants and then expect him to give us mercy and righteousness. If we are doing evil things then we can expect others to do evil to us.

For the Love
of a
Devil

Please consider purchasing For the Love of a Devil. This novel is a modern retelling of Hosea in which a beleaguered English teacher, Geoff Mywell, longs for the love he thought his wife once had for him, but when she leaves him for another man on their fifth anniversary, he is forced into the life of a single parent. He isn't sure whether to give in to the relief of having her out of the house or be sorry that the marriage seems broken beyond repair. He goes after her as she moves from one man to the next. He wants her to come home, but he knows that the best he can do is try to provide for he in some small way. He keeps asking her to come home and just when he thinks she is nearly persuaded her grandmother forces her into a dark world beyond Geoff's reach. Geoff must enter the darkness and pull her back or lose the woman he loves forever.
It is available at Amazon.com for $15.99.