“Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.”
~ Hosea 3:5
Hi James and Ellen,
An analogy is a similarity or parallel between one thing and something different. Analogies can be found in allegories. Allegories are fables or parables. Fables and parables are made up stories or illustrations. An analogy is normally a comparison that just uses words. God one time used one of His prophet spokesmen to be for Him a living analogy. Hosea was the prophet spokesman who God chose to be for Him a living analogy. God planted Hosea on planet Earth to be a type of Him to His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals. God chose Hosea to show off to His specially chosen guys and gals – in spite of the unfaithful, prostituting lifestyles that they were living, His unconditional love. God’s specially chosen guys and gals at this time were living lifestyles that were contrary to His expectations of how He expected them to live their lives. While Moses was with God about 300 years earlier on the top of Mount Sinai, God gave Moses laws and worship expectations that He expected His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals, to faithfully obey. God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to worship only Him with animal appeasement sacrifices versus giving raisin cakes as appeasement offerings to dumb manmade idol gods that were handmade out of wood, rock, clay and/or metal. God told Hosea to find a promiscuous, immoral slut to marry. Gomer – who was the cheating, depraved gal who Hosea married, would image the disloyalties and infidelities of an adulterous people group of guys and gals – God’s specially chosen guys and gals. The Hosea Book is a living analogy of Hosea simulating or depicting God while Gomer is simulating or depicting God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals. Because Hosea really was a faithful, God-fearing guy, Hosea could simulate or depict God while Gomer because she really was an unfaithful, disloyal gal, could simulate or depict God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals.
Hosea 3 is all about God’s unfailing love for His specially chosen guys and gals and how He would one day put behind Him all their failing unloving ways towards Him. Even though Gomer married Hosea and they would have three kids – two boys and a girl, Gomer still wanted to have physicals relationship with other guys. Instead of staying home and being a faithful wife and a caring ma, Gomer left her husband to do what she wanted to do. Your grandpaa does not know what happened that would have Gomer becoming a slave but God told Hosea to buy Gomer back from her owner. In order for Hosea to buy back his wife from whoever the guy was who had bought Gomer to be one of his slaves, Hosea had to fork up fifteen shekels of silver plus a homer and a lethek of barley. A shekel in Hosea’s day weighed about two-fifths of an ounce and it was the equivalent when Hosea was living on planet Earth to what a guy would earn over a month’s period of time. The homer and the lethek of barley that Hosea also had to fork up to buy back his wife was worth about fifteen shekels. Thirty shekels was the price of a slave when Hosea was living on planet Earth. When Hosea bought back the adulteress who he had married and who had left him to possibly live with another guy who . . . Gomer did not have a choice but to end up back in Hosea’s home.
The Hosea Book is more than just about the lives of a really good guy and a really bad gal, a very caring and loving God and an extremely ungracious and rebellious people group of guys and gals – the Israelite people group of guys and gals – God’s specially chosen guys and gals; the Hosea Book has still another analogy in it. This analogy has Hosea simulating or depicting God – as God the Son – Jesus, and it has Gomer simulating or depicting God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids – such as you, your dad, ma, grandmaa, grandpaa, Aunt Lynn, Uncle Chris and every other guy, gal and kid who God – as God the Father, chose for His beloved Son – Jesus, before He created and put into orbit planet Earth. Except for Adam and Eve, every guy, gal and kid who has been and will be born on planet Earth was and will be born having an innate urge to sin. Gomer exhibited her innate urge to sin through the same kind of depravedness and debauchery that God’s specially chosen guys and gals exhibited. God’s specially chosen guys and gals chose to live lives that were filled with depravity and decadence. God’s specially elected kids are all born totally depraved which means that that they all have an inner urging to live lives such as the kind of life that Gomer wanted to live. God had His specially chosen guys and gals become slaves. After a time of being slaves because of having opted to worship dumb manmade idol gods that were handmade from wood, stone, clay and metal instead of worshipping only Him, God had His specially chosen guys and gals return to the land that He told them that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . Hosea in verse 5 passes on from God a promise to His specially chosen guys and gals that there is hope, “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.” Just as Gomer was given the opportunity – whether she wanted to or not, to return to her husband and kids, God would have His specially chosen guys and gals return one day to their very own land because God really cared for them. Just as Gomer did not have a choice but to return to her husband and kids after her husband paid money and products for her, you do not have a choice but to let God’s loving, caring arms embrace you because of Jesus’s death on a crude cross which paid the full price for ransoming or freeing you from living a life without hope to living a life with hope.
Hosea 3 (524)