More Children

Running a little late this week! But here's our next lesson, starting with a reminder of verse 3.

3. And she [Gomer] conceived and she gave birth to a son for him [Hosea].
And YHWH said to him, call his name, "Jezreel..."

6. She conceived again, and she gave birth to a daughter.
And he said to him, call her name "Lo-Ruchamah,"
For I will not continue to love the house of Israel anymore, and I surely will not forgive... 

8. And she weaned Lo-Ruchamah,
And she conceived again, and she gave birth to a son.
And he said, call his name "Lo-Ammi,"
For you are not my people, and I am not your God.

We're jumping a bit in this first chapter of Hosea, but the reason is that we want to compare the naming of all three children of Hosea. Their conception and naming is the first of the prophetic work of the prophet Hosea.

The first, Jezreel, we've already talked about in some detail, though I expect the discussion of just what the blood of Jezreel was all about may have been a little confusing.

The second child is named "Lo-Ruchamah." This is often translated as "I will not pity" or "I will not have mercy." But a better translation has to do with love. A quick word about how Hebrew is constructed will be needed: Words in Hebrew are built on three consonants, which carry the base meaning of the word. In order to make it be the part of speech you want, you change the vowels, and add prefixes or suffixes. For example, a "yeled" is a boy, a "yaldah" is a girl, and "yalad" is a verb meaning to give birth to a child. You can see in each of these words the three consonants "YLD." This is how all Hebrew words are formed.

The little "lo" on the front of the second and third children's name simply means "no". "Ruchamah" comes from the three consonants "R-CH-M." (That CH is not like the CH in cheese, but is like the CH in Bach.) A "rechem" is a womb. Changing that word into a verb, "racham," from which "ruchamah" comes simply means to love with the kind of love a mother has for her child.

There's something particularly beautiful in this, as well as something quite distressing. In the first place, we remember that each of these children represents God's attitude toward Israel. The use of the verb "ruchamah" means that God has loved his people with the same kind of love that a mother would have for her own child. The verb even has the feminine ending on it (the -ah on the end), and so God is cast into the role of Israel's mother. This is the kind of relationship that exists between God and Israel. On the heels of Mother's day, this is a particularly wonderful way to picture our relationship with God. We'll see that throughout the text of Hosea, the image used to describe that relationship shifts back and forth between mother-child and husband-wife.

But it's that little "lo" on the front of the name that should cause discomfort. Calling the child "Lo-Ruchamah" is saying, "God has loved Israel in the past, like a mother loves her children, but God won't love them anymore." Or better yet, not "them," but "us." God will not love us anymore. Remember that Hosea, speaking prophecy against Israel, is himself an Israelite.

This is an intensification of the first prophetic word, Jezreel. Remember that at the end of the last lesson, I noted that the prophecy was directed only at the royal family. Now, God is speaking out against the whole people of Israel. The whole nation falls under this prophetic judgment.

The third child, a boy, is named "Lo-Ammi," which means, "Not my people." We're used to hearing God speak through the prophets, "They will be my people, and I will be their God." Here we get the reversal of that promise. "You are not my people, and I will not be your God."

In fact, the Hebrew even more blunt.  Although the translation above puts it in the more classical form of the statement, but literally, it says, "I am not, for you." 'Ehyeh is the word used in Exodus 3:14, where God proclaims to Moses for the first time, "'I AM that which I AM,' and he said, 'this is what you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.'" Here, God instead says through Hosea, "as far as you are concerned, I AM NOT."

This time, instead of speaking about Israel in the third person, God gets personal. He is speaking directly to the listener. YOU are not my people. The room has gotten colder as we've read on in chapter one. There's even a tiny little feature of the language that adds to this. Look at the way the naming is introduced:

3. And YHWH said to him
6. And he said to him
8. And he said

It gets shorter each time. God is terse, and God is angry. In the course of just a few short verses, God moves from condemning the royal house, to giving the cold shoulder to Israel, to becoming all but nonexistent as far as YOU are concerned. Hosea's prophecy should make us very uncomfortable. It won't stay uncomfortable, of course, but for the next week, we'll have to dwell in that discomfort, because that's all for this time!

Questions for Thought:

1) As Christians, the idea that God is absent, the God called "I AM NOT," should seem very difficult to swallow. After all, our God is the God who comes to us as Immanuel, God with us. What are your thoughts as you hear about a God who completely removes himself from his people?

2) This isn't the only place in scripture that God's love is described with the word meaning "womb." How does that language make you think differently about God's relationship with us?

3) Let's be honest. These are unfair names for children to be forced to carry. What do you think about a God who would use a family, a broken relationship between husband and wife, and children with horrible names whose parentage is uncertain, as a means of embodying prophetic words?