The Disease of Infidelity
The main characters of the book of Hosea are the pairs of God/Hosea and Israel/Gomer. By Israel, it’s clear from the geopolitical situation of the 8th century that Hosea means the 10 northern tribes that broke away from Judah after Solomon’s time. The divided political arrangement between Israel in the north and Judah in the south was aptly described by one scholar as “Two Nations Under God.” As we discussed previously, Hosea stands last in the line of prophets from Samuel through Elijah and Elisha as one who ministered in the northern kingdom of Israel.
Hosea’s names for the northern nation vary. Israel is the most recognizable to modern readers. Thus, the book opens by identifying the prophet’s monarch as “Jeroboam, the king of Israel” (Hosea 1:1) and God’s people as “the Israelites.” Yet the prophet also calls the same group Ephraim after the largest of the northern tribes and the center of government. He also inveighs against the north under the name Jacob and not infrequently refers to the northern tribes by their capital of Samaria in the same way that modern journalists use, for example, Moscow as shorthand for Russia as a whole. Thus, the terms Ephraim, Jacob, and Samaria all mean Israel.
However, Hosea reserves the name Judah for the southern kingdom whose capital was Jerusalem. Judah was the leading tribe of the south from early times and a longstanding rival to Ephraim in the north. During Hosea’s day – indeed, for nearly two centuries already before his time – Judah was a distinct kingdom with its own monarchy and religious infrastructure, namely the Davidic line of kings and Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem.
The animosity between Israel and Judah is on full display throughout the Book of Kings as wars and broken treaties between the two kingdoms attest. According to the Book of Kings, Judah remained closer to the Mosaic laws and the covenant with David. The same books record notable exceptions and periods of religious decline, but the overall trend in Judah was much more positive than the rampant idolatry that Kings reports held sway in Israel with few exceptions.
The relative faithfulness of Judah to Yahweh finds further witness in Hosea’s writings. Just after the prophet expresses the divine intention to “no longer show love to Israel” so as to forgive them for their iniquity, he continues on by pointing out that God will, on the contrary, “show love Judah … and save them” (Hosea 1:6-7). The parenthetical remark about Judah outlines the stark differences between the behavior and fate of Judah and Israel.
Hosea 11:12 highlights the reasons why the two nations would receive differening treatment. It was because, as God says, “Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit,” while “Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.”
But other statements emerge in the prophetic scroll that give rise to the suspicion that Judah’s privileged status could be put at risk should the Judeans depart from Yahweh’s path. Such is the case in Hosea 4:15, where the prophet – speaking to Israel in the hearing of Judah – pleads with the southern kingdom to remain faithful and avoid their northern neighbors’ apostasy: “Though you, Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty.” In other words, Israel had committed spiritual adultery against Yahweh. This much was certain. But though Israel had done so, it was no excuse for Judah to follow suit.
Unfortunately, the prophet’s angst was not a baseless worry. The temptation of idolatry would eventually prove too much for Judah’s resolve. As Hosea 5:5, reveals, “The Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin; Judah also stumbles with them.” The same action – stumbling – shows that Judah had followed Israel in their apostate actions. Indeed, not only would Judah stumble in the same way as Israel, but they would stumble “with them,” as if the two would fall together.
The same chapter likewise diagnoses Israel and Judah with one and the same illness: “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores” (Hosea 5:13). And the two would suffer the same violent end by the hand of God: “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah” (Hosea 5:14). Just as God came out against sinful Israel like an attacking lion, so would he mount an assault on Judah and destroy them. What Hosea has done is to show that though Judah and Israel had split apart after the death of Solomon, they were for all practical purposes united once again, only now in a dreadful way.
The prophet Ezekiel, sitting in exile a century and half after Hosea’s pronouncements, picks up this theme of Judah emulating Israel in their idolatry. But Ezekiel adds much to the plot by describing Israel and Judah as sisters, with Judah being the younger sister who chose to follow the ways of her older sibling. Indeed, Ezekiel fills out the sparse details of Hosea’s “Israel as God’s wife” metaphor by developing an allegory that expands the details on Israel and also incorporates a place for Judah – something that Hosea’s depictions never quite get around to doing.
Ezekiel names Samaria Oholah and Jerusalem Oholiba: “Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem” (Ezekiel 23:4). Ezekiel tells how Oholah (Israel) was unfaithful while she belonged to God (23:5), and so the Lord sent her away into exile: “Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted” (Ezekiel 23:9). But the prophet Ezekiel moves on to the next stage by outlining how “her sister Oholibah [that is, Judah] saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister [that is, Israel] in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister” (Ezekiel 23:11). Judah’s sin was worse and “she carried her whoring further” than her sister (23:14) because she not only committed adultery with the Assyrians but with the Babylonians as well, thereby proving herself to be more corrupt than her older sister Israel.
Ezekel’s allegory follows a more delibarte and specific pattern than Hosea’s less organized pronouncements on the matter and Ezekiel’s plot lines reveal one important detail that Hosea’s preaching hints at: Judah would follow the prior example of Israel only after the older sister had blazed her trail into apostasy and judgment.
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