NOTES for Hos 6:3

"Let us know the Lord," says Hosea, and immediately corrects himself: let us strive to know Him. Can we truly know Him here, in earthly life? But if we drop our hands and say that this knowledge is inaccessible to us and unnecessary, then we leave Him not a single chance to tell us something about Himself, to reveal Himself to us... And His revelation is like the morning dawn: around us is night, but now we turn to Him, open our heart to Him, and say, "Yes, I am in darkness, but I know that You are light"... and gradually the sky grows bright, and now in the east a flame is kindled: His dawn.

Wrath is poured out on all who have fallen into sin, but especially on those placed at the head of the people: kings and priests. Everyone will be called to account for his deeds, but the leaders of the people, called to preserve the Higher Truth, will be called to account especially, because more has been given to them. The description of the consequences of sins and lawlessness is severe.

But precisely here, after all the warnings, we again hear words of hope, a prophecy of the Lord's mercy and a promise of the coming Resurrection. The fact that the prophecy speaks of resurrection on the third day makes it possible for us to see in these words one of the first prophecies of the coming Resurrection of Christ, although here it is speaking about people, about the raising of the people from sin and darkness. But there is no contradiction here, because the Son of God became incarnate precisely in order to share our earthly path with us and give us hope of being raised together with Him.

And it is precisely here that what are perhaps the central words of the book of Hosea sound: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. These words, long familiar and well memorized, still continue to surprise us today if we look at them with fresh eyes. How can this be? Are all our efforts, our labors, everything we have sacrificed, really all in vain?

Yes, all our efforts can turn out to be empty and futile if we sacrificed with a hard heart, remaining merciless toward those around us, and all the more if we turn our relationship with the Lord into a transaction.

God reveals His heart: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." This may be the summit of the revelation given through the prophet Hosea. Sacrifices, good works, keeping the commandments - all of this has meaning only if behind it stands our love not for ourselves, but for another: for God, for another person... Not a "striving for great achievements," not "doing one's duty," but love that "does not seek its own" (1 Cor. 13:5) and that leaves no room for lawlessness.

Today's reading continues the theme of God's judgment. It begins by mentioning the turning to God of those who had not thought of Him before and were ready to rely on anything at all except Him (vv. 1-3). But on closer inspection, this turning, as we see, proved rather superficial (vv. 3-5). In principle the situation described can be considered typical: many remember God only when it becomes clear to them that no one and nothing else is able to help. And when help is received, they just as easily forget God, hoping that they will never again have to find themselves in such a position, that what happened to them was something exceptional, the kind of thing that happens to a person once in a lifetime, and even then not to everyone, but only to those especially unlucky.

But such an attitude toward God is usually characteristic of unbelieving people, or of people who do not think about God, those who in days of prosperity hardly remember Him. In Hosea's preaching, however, the matter concerns believers, or at any rate those who considered themselves such. They, at least, should in no way have forgotten God; they should not have waited for a critical situation in order to remember Him.

Why, then, do these religious people in practice behave the same way as unbelievers? The prophet's reminder of the priorities of spiritual life can serve as an answer to the question (v. 6). Hosea, of course, is not speaking here against sacrifice as such. He only reminds them that if there is no mercy in that capacious sense in which the prophet uses the corresponding Hebrew word, sacrifice loses its spiritual meaning. For originally sacrifice was nothing other than a form of communion with God, a shared meal of God and people, which is impossible without mercy, and therefore without the fullness of trust in the Most High. Spiritual life presupposes relationship above all, whether a person's relationship with God or with neighbor. If there is no trust in God, sacrifice ceases to be a spiritual event and becomes only a religious obligation, which, like any religious obligation, can be performed purely mechanically.

Moreover, sacrifice understood in this way easily turned into a kind of tribute that the people paid to God, expecting in return something which, as it seemed to them, they now had the right to demand according to the covenant they had made, and above all, of course, earthly prosperity. And when it disappeared, interest in God disappeared with it, in the God who could not or would not provide such prosperity. Then began the search for something or someone that could guarantee this prosperity independently of God, on whom, as it seemed to the seekers, one could not rely. Thus distrust of God destroys relationship with Him and leads a person first to religious formalism, and then to open paganism.

When the prophet speaks on God's behalf, saying that knowing God matters more than sacrifice and mercy more than a sacrificial meal, one might think he is rejecting the whole of traditional Yahwist worship. Yet Hosea has something quite different in mind here. What was sacrifice originally? What is its meaning? Above all, it is a meal shared by God and human beings, a meal at which God sits at the same table with a person, not figuratively or allegorically, but in all reality. For the presence of God that accompanied the Jewish people throughout their history, beginning in the time of Moses, sanctified both the altar and the place of sacrifice, the sacrificial meal and everyone taking part in it.

By Hosea's time, however, and perhaps even earlier, sacrifice had come to be seen as a kind of tribute the people paid to God, much as taxes are paid to an earthly king. Instead of communion with God, the result was separation from Him, an attempt to buy Him off with lavish and abundant offerings. It is no wonder that against this background the prophet recalls the knowledge of God and mercy—the corresponding Hebrew word can be translated both as ‘kindness’ and as ‘mercy’—for knowing God, drawing close to Him, was precisely the original meaning of sacrifice.

And mercy is an essential element of such knowledge of God: it presupposes, above all, a willingness to do more for the one to whom one shows mercy than is required, for example, by the law or a signed contract. Of course, a person can give God nothing, but can give Him their heart. Here mercy is absolutely necessary: full communion with God is possible only when, in building a relationship with Him, we do not try to keep accounts and calculate how much He owes us and how much we owe Him.

We can give ourselves to God only wholly, without looking back and without holding anything back. He is always ready to enter our lives, but only as their master with full rights. A corner in our house will not satisfy Him, even if it is the place of honour where the icons stand. He agrees only to be at the centre, with the house built around His presence. Here there can be no calculating how much we owe Him and how much He owes us. We owe Him everything, yet can give Him nothing except the opportunity to build our home for us and guide our lives. He owes us nothing, but can give us everything if we are ready to receive Him. This is communion with God and mercy.

Speaking of the people’s piety and faithfulness to God, Hosea proclaims that knowing God—knowledge of God—is more important than burnt offerings, and compassion (‘mercy’) more important than sacrifice. What does the prophet mean? What exactly does he call knowing God? And how is compassion connected with it? Hosea was among the first to speak of a relationship with God as something regular and constant. Previously, this relationship amounted to occasional—or periodic, depending on religious zeal—encounters with Him at the altar.

At other times, even sincerely believing worshippers of Yahweh lived ordinary lives, merely trying to observe the commandments God had given as one observes a moral code whose truth and inviolability one takes for granted.

The prophets were an exception, but they were a minority. Hosea, however, spoke for the first time of God’s desire for a direct and constant relationship with the human being. One does not have to be a prophet for this. Knowing God is open to everyone who seeks. But what one must seek is not outward, but inward—not ritual, but relationship. The very thing called ‘mercy.’ Originally, this word described relationships between people: relationships in which people are ready to do more for one another than the law or an agreement between them requires.

As is customary among friends or close family members, without counting who owes what to whom, or who has done more for whom and who has done less. This is also what the relationship between a person and God should be like if that person truly seeks to know God. A constant and deep relationship with God is possible only when God becomes the center and the chief meaning of a person’s life. In that case, the person no longer regards sacrifice as a religious duty.

The very notion of ‘religious duty’ disappears from their vocabulary. Everything a person does for God, they do for the sake of the relationship with Him that they seek, or that, having found it, they want to preserve. Sacrifice itself now becomes only part of that relationship—an important, necessary part, but only a part. The person no longer counts how many sacrifices they have offered to their God. For sacrifice is now, for them, a meal with a close Friend. No calculations have any place here.