"With:" Mountain or Molehill?

It's been a while.  Let's pick up where we left off, with verse 20.  As usual, we're going to quibble over the translation of specific Hebrew words.  :)

20. And I will make a covenant with them in that day,
    With the animals of the field,
        And with the birds of the skies,
        And with the creeping things of the ground,
And I will destroy bow, and sword, and battle from the earth.
    And I will make them lie down in safety.

The first problem we have is with the words "with them."  It is not clear at all who "them" is.  Pronouns need a reference.  But the most recent "they" it could be are the "Ba'als" in verse 19.  It should be pretty obvious that God is not making a covenant with the false idols of Canaan.

The second choice is the way I've translated it--to indicate that "with them" means "with the animals of the field" and so on.  This is possible, and it makes for very nice sentence structure in English.  The problem here is that the word "with" isn't the same.  The word "with" in the first phrase is, in Hebrew, simply "Le-," a word "particle" that can mean to or for, or a variety of similar things--translation isn't an exact science.  "With" is completely appropriate here.

But if this were referring to the animals and birds and creeping things about to be named, we'd expect the same "Le-."  That's not what we get.  Instead, the more formal word meaning "with" is here:  "'im."  Now, the meaning is the same, and the interpretation could still stand.  But it is odd that there's not a match.  If the author (presumably Hosea) had this in mind, it's more likely that he would have used the same word--unconsciously if for no other reason.  Feel how weird this phrase feels:

I am going to talk to them.
I'll talk with Mary, and with Bill, and with Jason.

It's comprehensible, of course.  But it would feel more "correct" if the first like were "talk with them," OR if the "with" in the next line were the word "to."  All that is to say simply that the language here is awkward.  It makes sense the way it is.  But it makes more sense if God, proclaiming that he will make a covenant with "them" means with someone else.

The only "them" left is the nation of Israel--odd because he's just been talking about Israel metaphorically, as a singular woman (Gomer).  Hans Walter Wolff pegs Israel here, saying that God is going to be an intermediary, forming a covenant between Israel and the animals of nature.  He finds some precedent for it, too, in the ancient Near East.

Wolff follows this train of thought, assuming that there must be some enmity between Israel and the animals.  He reaches back to verse 14a:

14. And I will make her vines desolate,
    And her figs...

saying that the destruction wrought upon the crops was probably carried out by wild animals, and so God here restores a proper relationship between them and Israel.

It's a nice idea, but I am unconvinced.  The simpler explanation, it seems to me, is that the covenant is indeed of God with animal life directly.  I don't know quite enough yet about Hosea to weigh the validity of this theology with the rest of the prophet's words, but there was indeed in Israel the theological idea of perfect balance, cosmic order, everything in its place.  That order broke down--particularly through human action--and part of the religious obligation of Israel was to return things to the right order.

In this case, Israel has failed in that duty, making things worse through her worship of false idols.  When God restores his relationship with Israel, "removing the name of the ba'als from her mouth," as in verse 19, God also thereby restores right relationship among the rest of nature.

In the rest of the verse, we also see the restoration of human relationships with other humans--the destruction of "the bow and the sword" the implements of war.  God receives Israel back into his favor, and all those broken relationships in our world also fall back into place.

This should remind us that our actions have far-reaching consequences that extend beyond ourselves.  The plants and animals, and other nations, suffer because of our selfishness and foolishness.  And consequently, when God restores our relationship with him in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all those other broken relationships are restored as well.

Questions for Thought:

1) When we consider human sin, does it really have such far-reaching power?  How might we restore our relationships with the nations and our world?

2) Does it really matter how we resolve such a tiny little grammatical issue?

3) Go back (maybe just to the translation page) and read what we've done so far.  What's the message you're getting from Hosea?  How does this verse fit into the larger picture.

Oh, and Mark:  I responded to your comment from last time.  You may want to peek at it.  :)

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Aaron