Explore the Bible: October 23

The Hollow Promises • Hosea 6:1-7:2

By Don Hicks

Hosea opens our focal text for today’s lesson with a joyful song: “Come, let’s return to the LORD” (Hosea 6:1a CSB). The song is not just joyful in a light, superficial way. Hosea is brutally honest about the reason we need to return to the LORD.

Hosea is speaking on God’s behalf as God’s called prophet. The first three verses of the sixth chapter are in poetic form with deep spiritual meaning presented in the words of the song.

Verse one tells us, “Come, and let us return unto Jehovah, for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1 ASV). The greatest promise in this prophetic poem says, “After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him” (Hosea 6:2 ASV).

This is most likely the Scripture to which the Apostle Paul was referring in his letter to encourage the Corinthians, “For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures’’ (I Corinthians 15:3-4 CSB).

Jesus underscores the importance Hosea’s prophecy about His resurrection, teaching the Twelve: “From then on Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day” (Matthew 16:21 CSB).

The prophet Hosea in the end of the third verse tells us the reason for the resurrection: “on the third day he (the LORD) will raise us up so we can live in his presence” (Hosea 1:2b CSB). Hosea says, “Let’s strive to know the LORD” (Hosea 1:3a CSB) and he assures us of our success: “His appearance is as sure as the dawn.”

Furthermore, the prophet tells us how enjoyable it will be to get to know Him. “He will come to us like the rain” (Hosea 6:3b CSB). Sitting in a safe, dry place like the inside of your garage, under the roof of your patio, or in a comfortable, tin-roofed deer stand, there is nothing more soothing and relaxing than watching and listening to rain.

Just to be certain we understand what the prophet was saying and emphasizing for us, he uses an even more emotionally expressive way to explain his point: “like the spring showers that water the land” (Hosea 6:3c CSB). This brings to mind the end of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:45 as stated in the KJV: “for he maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Even more important to understand is the all-inclusiveness of, “Come, let’s return to the LORD,” (Hosea 6:1a CSB). We need to remember Jesus’ last command to us in Matthew’s Gospel “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.   Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:18-20 KJV).

The title of this lesson, The Hollow Promises, at least in part comes from Hosea 6:4, “What do I make of you, Judah? Your declarations of love last no longer than the morning mist and predawn dew… I am after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know GOD… You broke the covenant — just like Adam! You broke faith with me…” (Hosea 6:4-7 MSG).

Hosea elaborates more on the evils in the last two verses of our focal passage. He reports that “they practice fraud; a thief breaks in; a raiding party pillages outside” (Hosea 7:1 CSB).

A little earlier in the last part of chapter six, Hosea told us, “Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone, a band of priests murder on the road to Shechem. They commit atrocities. I have seen something horrible in the house of Israel” (Hosea 6:9-10 CSB).

The prophet says God reported, “But they never consider that I remember all their evil. Now their actions are all around them; they are right in front of my face” (Hosea 7:2 CSB).

God is fully aware of everything we do, and everything done to us.

Hicks is missions director for Jasper Association in Bay Springs. He may be contacted at donaldwhicks@gmail.com.