NOTES for Hos 2:1-23

In the Yahwistic, and later in the Jewish, tradition, the relationship between God and the people of God was often likened to family and marital relations. At first glance such an approach may seem too free, almost overly familiar: God appears to be brought down to the human, almost everyday level. But if we think about it, this is the only way to preserve the covenant-union concluded at Sinai.

Indeed, the relationship between God and an individual person, just like the relationship between God and the people of God, can be full only if it is informal and unconditional. Of course, in marital relations there is also a place for legal formalities, marriage contracts, which were known in ancient Israel as well. But as we know, a marriage contract is still drawn up mainly for the settlement of property and other legal formalities in the event of divorce.

When relations between spouses in marriage are normal, it does not occur to anyone to demand from the other the fulfillment of any contracts: everything is resolved by love and mutual consent. The same applies to the union between God and His people, which extends to everyone who enters this people. The Decalogue, of course, is a condition of the union; the conscious violation of any one of the ten commandments means its rupture.

The Decalogue is not simply a moral code. It is a description of the path that leads to God or, if the commandments contained in it are violated, leads away from God. And it becomes relevant, as does the Torah in general, precisely when a person sins, turns away from God, and breaks relationship with Him, as the apostle Paul says. Through the Torah, according to the apostle, sin is known. Thus it turns out that in the relationship between God and a person, too, law becomes relevant when the relationship is moving toward rupture. But when the relationship is normal, the Torah becomes inwardly organic to the person and is not perceived as something limiting him from outside.

Hosea speaks of such relations between God and His people, relations that resemble those within a strong family and do not need formal regulation. This, among other things, was the people's only chance for salvation, for God to receive them: the covenant-union, speaking of Hosea's time, had already been broken more than once, and now all that remained was to hope that God would forgive His people as a loving husband forgives an unfaithful wife, not divorcing her even though he has every right and every ground for divorce.

But forgiveness is possible only if the people's relationship with God is renewed and receives a new spiritual quality. Simply going back to what existed before is just as impossible as gluing together the shards of broken pottery. And in this hope there is already a foretaste of the Kingdom: when a person enters the Kingdom, he does not return to the state that was proper to him before the fall, but receives something new and greater. He receives fullness of life, surpassing any sin committed before.