NOTES for Hos 4:19

In the Bible, the wicked is rather often compared with the husk taken by the wind. Certain commentators saw in the Hebrew corresponding word the indication not on the wind, but on the spirit of God (the wind and the spirit in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are really indicated by the same word). But it does not change the heart of the problem: whether it is the wind sent by God, whether it is His own breath, - the wicked will be carried away in the same way far. The godlessness, the rejection of God is associated for the prophet, and for the hymnographers with the ease, the weightlessness of the outcast, with its emptiness. Sometimes this emptiness is discovered in the day of the last Judgment, sometimes - in the days of disaster, which the prophets rather often see as the prior day of judgment, not yet final, but already significant: because every of such judgment becomes the indication of God on human sinfulness and godlessness.

What is behind the emptiness of the godless? One can, of course see in it only a literary image, understanding it in this sense, in which in English one can speak of an empty person, as a person, presenting nothing of himself. But the problem is not all the same, we think, only in the literary image. Indeed, in the biblical books rather often is spoken about death, as about the devastation of the one who dies, who loses the life force and is transformed more and more into shadow, into empty envelope of the old oneself. And death, as it is spoken about it in the prophetic books and in the Book of Psalms, begins often not when somebody dies physically (a man can leave this world, being on the contrary "filled with life", as says for example the Torah about the demise of the patriarchs), but when he loses God, turning away from Him.

And it is not surprising: because the fullness of life is to God, and the one who ignores God or resists Him, naturally, stops gradually having relationship with life, at first spiritual, and then physical also. And the first thing that gets lost in the process of the loss of God's life is stability, at first spiritual, then psychological, and finally sometimes and physical. And then man already begins not to rejoice during the sacrifice, but to be ashamed of his state: because to discover weakness at a solemn and responsible moment is not the most joyful event in life. Therefore, the loss of the spiritual core destroys man, making him an easy prey for any wind blowing on him.

A joyless picture appears before our eyes. Israel, the people of God, has forgotten His law and turned away from the knowledge of God. Prostitution and wine have taken possession of their heart. In the Bible, prostitution often means falling away into paganism, betrayal of the covenant made with God. It is much easier to deal with pagan gods: they require of a person neither moral purity nor faithfulness of heart, only sacrifices. The Lord expected a very different life from them. He calls them, and us, to trust and hope in Him alone.

The most important theme of the prophet Hosea is faithfulness. Israel's unfaithfulness to its God is likened to human fornication and adultery. Moreover, these two forms of unfaithfulness are interconnected (see Hos. 4:13). In denouncing the people and calling them to repentance, to a change of life, Hosea at the same time prophetically shows, through his own faithfulness in marriage, the path by which God wants to restore Israel after the coming catastrophe. God's love and faithfulness will warm Israel's heart (Hos. 3:5).

At the Lord's instruction, the prophet buys back a prostitute who is betraying her husband. He pays little for her, only half the price that would later be given for the Savior, and he does this in order that she may stop her former way of life and be freed from it. Here before us is another foreshadowing of Christ's action, by which He redeemed us from slavery to sin. It would seem that paying a ransom means turning a person into the property of the one who paid it, but in this case it makes us free: the Redeemer, having delivered us from the power of evil, wants to see in us not slaves, but friends.

The bitter prophecy that the people would remain without a king and without worship, as we know, soon came true literally. Like many other prophetic warnings, it has been justified more than once over the course of millennia. Alas, a people often brings heavy troubles upon itself. But the warning that as a result of human wickedness "even the fish of the sea will perish" makes it clear: retribution for sin can prove more terrible than the flood, which did not harm the fish.

Such a warning sounds very relevant in our day, when people know how to destroy on an enormous scale and are not very eager to renounce sin. No less important is the call not to accuse one's neighbor, an occupation beloved by many, many people in every age. But especially serious is the warning that the people will be destroyed for lack of knowledge, that is, for conscious refusal of it. It appears that this means it is not enough to accept the Lord's Revelation at a minimal and formal level: His wisdom requires constant and deepening attention to it. And this in turn entails the need to change not only familiar ideas, but also one's habitual way of life, and that is so troublesome... As a result, small transgressions, accumulating, lead to monstrous heaps of sin.