The Lord gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.” (Hosea 1:1-2)Two things occur to me today. One is that it is not always a blessing to be called by God to preach his message. And two, sometimes the actions of God do not match his nature.
There are odd things that God does in the Bible, things that seem to go against his nature. In theology, these are called opus alienum, Latin for works alien to God. In other words, they are things that God does that seem absolutely contrary to his nature.
One of these things is when God called Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. God hated human sacrifice, yet calls one of his faithful to do it.
The book of Hosea is another example. God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute and have three children. They will be named Jezreel (Hebrew for God will sow), Lo-ruhamah (not loved) and Lo-ammi (not my people). Hosea’s wife (Gomer – a weird name anyway) goes back into prostitution and he ends up buying her as a slave and taking her again as a wife.
The point of wrecking Hosea’s life? To show how Israel had turned from God and debased themselves.
But to do it, he wrecked a man’s life and the lives of his children.
And how did he use this? I am not sure, but surely he didn’t parade his wife and children around the city shouting all the circumstances of their lives and both and meaning of their name. That sounds bizarre. I am sure that everybody around knew who she was and, since they all spoke Hebrew, knew what the names meant. But I wonder exactly how he used these lives.
Some of the same thing happened to Job. Job was a holy, righteous man that God respected. Yet God let the devil rip his life apart just as part of a cosmic bet. The devil said Job would curse God if everything was taken from him and God said he wouldn’t. God won, but he never tells Job any reason for killing his children and ruining his life. Instead, he says, live with it.
It bothers me. I know that God is good and that he is love. Yet these things are disconnects, conundrums of sorts. How can a God of love actively hurt his people like this?
I do not know and I cannot reconcile it. And I will have to admit that on a day when I feel so physically lousy – a cold that will not go away – this is my Bible reading. Deuteronomy 29:29 says: The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. And that is absolutely true.
A God that is predictable is not a real God. Any God we can second-guess will not be that powerful. And God is all-powerful.
But still, that with Hosea was just not fair. And odd thing, this opus alienum. And an odd being, God.
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