Not Upward, Not Yet

Minor Musings | Hosea 7

Sometimes we miss the obvious.  Sometimes we can scan the horizon, looking squinty-eyed, for what we’re looking for, and still miss it.

“Is that it?”

“Nope…”

We peer long and hard and far off…when all along what we’re looking for is right here at hand. 

Marriage breakups can work like this.  A choice is made to overlook the right-here-at-hand; to forget or not consider the reality of what’s right next to us, and instead pursue what’s right next door! 

Overlook the obvious long enough and it becomes the new reality.  We don’t distinguish the truth of what is real from the wisp of falsehood of what is ideal.  Or put it this way, by Hosea in chapter 7:

“(We) do not consider

that (the LORD) remembers

all (our) evil…” (vs. 2a)

We don’t pause on that right-here-at-hand reality – that YHWH does not forget – before we go right on ahead and choose to chase the horizon of personal pleasure or gain or deceit.  And the fallout is our sin remains unconfessed before the face of God (vs. 2b).  We become adulterers; that is to say, we become forsakers of what it means to be adults.  Hosea likens this to a heated oven which the baker ceases to stir from “the kneading of the dough until its leavening” (vs. 4)

I have loved making bread.  It used to be a more regular practice of mine.  From start to finish it was a form of therapy for me.  I used an electric oven.  But I can see how cool it would be to use a wood-fire over.  I imagine, however, the trick would be keeping an even temperature.  There are no knobs to set for burning wood.  Either you’d have to add wood to heat it up, stir the embers to keep even heat, or spread the embers out to bring the heat down. 

Hosea’s picture of the adulterer here is one who ceases to keep an even temperature or cool it down.  Rather their hearts are like heated ovens that “smolder” all night, “blazing” in the morning into a “flaming fire.”  They become as “hot as an oven.” (vs. 6-7a) 

“They” are the people of Israel; “They” are the people of today.

“All their kings have fallen,

and none of them

calls upon [YHWH].” (7b)

Leaders have led wrongly.  People have followed suit.  Apparently never more obvious and oblivious at the same time, as right now; right-here-at-hand. 

Later in the text YHWH laments the attitude and action of the people…

“…they have strayed from me

…they have rebelled against me

…they speak lies against me.”  (vs. 13)

“…they do not cry to me

…they rebel against me.”  (vs. 14)

“…they devise evil against me.”  (vs. 15)

Read them again. 

Where do you fit in?  Where do I fit in?  And the blindness of it all.  The will to side-step confession and conviction.  

Hosea says:

“They return…”

Here they come back?  Nope. 

“…not upward.” (vs. 16)

Not up the hill of YHWH.  Not plodding toward the temple mount with heavy hearts laden with conviction and longing to confess.  Nope.  Not upward.  Not yet.