Listen Up

Minor Musings | Hosea 5

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!”

Three times to get attention.

“Hey.  Kids.  Stop that!”

First time…          Did you hear something?

Second time…     Yeah, over there!

Third time…         We’re listening.

Hosea starts chapter 5 like this; three exclamations to startle an inattentive spirit. 

“Hear this, O priests!

Pay attention, O house of Israel!

Give ear, O house of the king!

For the judgement is for you…” (vs. 1)

Everyone within earshot, LISTEN UP!  

Discipline is here. 

Consequences have arrived. 

Just reward is presenting. 

Ephraim and Israel are used as synonyms here.  They have given themselves over to sin.  These admonishments do not land softly on the perked ears. 

Then again with whore talk (see and earlier post).  Verse 4 exposes it has gotten really bad.  Deeds so vile and perpetual that they haven’t the permission even to return to God. 

Repentance requires a certain heart posture.  They don’t have it.  No return yet.  They don’t know God.  They wouldn’t even know who to return to. 

               “…and they know not YHWH.” (vs. 4b)

Repentance is spinning around and heading back to where you started; finding the One who set you on your way, whose map is buried at the bottom of your bundle.  They don’t even know who they’d be looking for. 

I wonder if we – and by “we” I mean you and me and so many more folks we live among – would we know who we’re looking for?  Do we recall from season past enough time spent with Him who calls us His own that we would recognize Him on our return journey?  Would we know His voice correcting our missteps and guiding us into port? 

“Blow the horn in Gibeah,

the trumpet in Ramah.

Sound the alarm at Beth-aven…” (vs. 8)

Which again, three times, is to say:  “Listen…UP!”  (See what I did there…Up!)  YHWH indicates everything is present and pervasive.  Lying.  Stealing.  Cheating…

“…like those who move the landmark…” (vs. 10a)

Just imagine the creeping cheat who sullies in under the cover of darkest night to steal away from his neighbor some extra square feet of real estate.  Really?  It was a thing.  I suppose it still is.  I suppose we can fall a good distance behind in an effort to get ahead. 

Wrath is on the way.  Ephraim takes notice; is made aware, then goes off to foreign kings for help.  Further off the straight and narrow.  Further away from the source of life. 

Yet, even still…  EVEN STILL their God will wait.  YHWH has come and surveyed the deplorable scene His dearest people have cast.  He’s called out the guilt and pitied their distress, and He’ll be back on His throne…waiting.

“I will return again to my place,

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,

and in their distress earnestly seek me.” (vs. 15)

For me, Oh Lord, may the wait be brief. 

May the moments of guilt and shame pass with a quickened pace? 

May conviction overwhelm me in short ordered time?

May I respond suddenly and swiftly with humble heart?

That I would earnestly seek the face of YHWH.