The prophetic speech continues; the terrible words predicting for people the harshest consequences of what they have done do not fall silent. And among the many warnings, the prophecy of Ephraim's return to Egypt sounds striking and even strange at first. The One who brought His people out of Egypt warns that after many centuries the unfaithful people can return to the starting point. To imagine this is like supposing that whole centuries could be erased and everything that had taken place between the Lord and His people could vanish without a trace. And what remains now? To begin everything again, or not even to begin? But then what will remain for those who have turned away from their only Hope, except meaningless wanderings among more fortunate nations?

No, the Lord remains faithful to His children even when they are unfaithful to Him. But sometimes, when we very much want to get along without Him, He as it were (a fashionable filler phrase, "as it were," but it fits here) withdraws and gives us the chance to see what it is like to live without Him. Or, as in this case, through His prophet He draws the consequences of such attempts. And now we are free to act as we wish, but we lose one thing - the ability to claim that "we did not want this." We were warned!

At first glance, today's reading contains reproaches against the people for ingratitude, for turning away from God after receiving everything from Him and forgetting Him in the end (v. 10). But a more attentive reading makes it clear that everything is not so simple. It is no accident that Israel is contrasted here with other nations (v. 1). It would seem that these others also do not know God and do not worship Him, just as Israel, having forgotten its God, does not worship Him. But those other nations had never known Him.

With Israel the situation is different: the very existence of the Jewish people is connected with God's direct intervention in history. Indeed, the Jewish nation was formed in the process of the Exodus, which would not have happened if God had not arranged it. With other nations everything was different; their existence was conditioned by natural causes, to the extent that social processes can be called natural. Of course, God does not abandon them either, but in general the history of these nations proceeds naturally. The history of the people of God, however, was conceived by God from the very beginning as a supernatural history, one conditioned not by social causes but by spiritual ones.

Of course, this would be possible only if the people agreed to it and allowed God to direct their life. Unlike natural processes, which proceed without asking for human consent, spiritual action always presupposes human participation, and, when we are speaking of God's action, voluntary participation. Therefore the people of God always have the possibility of refusing the path offered by God. But in that case their historical future disappears as well. The people of God were not meant to exist according to natural laws; in God's plans they were never one nation among many existing by such laws. They can exist only in the way God offers them to exist. The people of God are not adapted to any other existence; they cannot and must not exist otherwise, and there is no place for them in natural history. Every attempt to live "like everyone else" leads them only to spiritual degeneration, moral decay, and national catastrophe.

But, alas, in every age there have been people among the Jewish people who did not understand this. In Hosea's day they were the majority in the North. And God does not simply reproach His people for ingratitude: He warns them that they have only one possibility for surviving spiritually and physically: to turn to their God and remain faithful to Him. The same is true for everyone who has set out on God's path. It is a path one cannot leave without losing both God and oneself.

Israel has sinned, and everything dearest is taken away from it: vineyards, "the fruit of the womb," the Promised Land, and God's mercy. Is the Lord really taking revenge on His people? After all, He Himself promised to have mercy on "No Mercy." But are the gifts so important if people have forgotten the One who gives them? What God wants from us first of all is faithfulness to Him, "the knowledge of God" (Hos. 6:6); then the day of the Lord can become a day of salvation.