NOTES for Hos 9:1-17

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.

Hosea, like his predecessor and older contemporary Amos, more than once turned to the theme of celebrating the day of Yahweh, or the day of the Lord. In their time it was one of the chief Yahwist feasts. It was celebrated both in Judea, in Jerusalem, and in the North, in the Samaritan kingdom, at Bethel, which was the religious capital of Samaria. But regardless of place, this feast was connected with the expected triumph of Yahweh and of Yahwism, awaited both in the South and in the North. There is nothing surprising here: everyone who came on the day of Yahweh to the Temple of Jerusalem or Bethel was sure that the day of Yahweh's triumph would also become the day of the triumph of Yahwism and therefore of their own triumph, since none of those who came doubted that he belonged to the people of God.

Of course, most of those who came remembered their religion only several times a year, and many had problems following the Torah and keeping the commandments. Yet, as one can see, those who came hoped that with a splendid feast and numerous abundant sacrifices they would compensate both for everyday indifference to spiritual life and for a certain neglect of morality. The prophet, meanwhile, reminds them that one cannot buy God off with sacrifices alone. Nor do sacrifices exist for the purpose of buying Him off. A sacrifice is a shared meal of God and people; that is its original meaning.

Every attempt to use sacrifice as a means to "appease" God is nothing other than the spiritual degeneration of the corresponding tradition, which of course did occur, but was never approved either by God or by His servants. This is understandable: in such a case, instead of the expected sanctification of the people by God, there was real profanation. That is why the prophet warns his listeners that the day of Yahweh may turn out for them not to be a day of triumph, but a day of Judgment. For, as the apostle will say much later, Judgment begins with the house of God.

Here is the main question, to which faith leads man. For the believer there is no question, if there will be the solemn day and the day of the feast of the Lord.

Besides, he knows that this feast has already begun (" now is the day of salvation.", 2 cor. 6:2). But where is my place in this feast, what is God's plan for me, which concrete call does He address to me? How to answer to this call, how to enter in the fulfillment of His plan? What shall He tell me, when we meet face to face on this feast: " Come, ye blessed" (Matthew 25:34), - or: "I never knew you: depart from me" (Matthew. 7:23)?

Christian life is not a quiet niche, rather an intense work, but a work which does not exhaust, which is joyful, because it is fulfilled not in the monotony of everyday life, but inside the feast - the feast of God's victory on sin and death, and not under the pressure of circumstances, but voluntarily - by love towards Christ.