For the true story, see Hosea 1-2. Much of the story is guesswork. The guesses have been based on the idea that the relationship between Hosea and Gomer is a picture of the relationship between God and
Israel.
[continuing...]
After a while, Gomer weaned Lo-ruhamah and began to demand that she be able to leave the child at home while she wandered abroad looking fruitlessly for love and happiness.
Naturally, this made life very difficult for me, since I had to care for the two children while still providing food for us all – including their mother. The money Gomer earned from her activities
never made it into the family coffers. It was always spent on her or her customers: clothes, jewellery, wine, cosmetics, and anything else that suited her.
After a short while, however, Gomer was pregnant again, and that time I had no doubt: her child was not mine.[1] Gomer made no effort to hide the fact, discussing it openly with me, our neighbours and even Jezreel, who was four years old by that time. Can words ever fully describe this sort of betrayal and
callous abuse?
Gomer was still living in my home when her second son was born, and God told me to name him “Lo-ammi”, which means “Not My People”. Gomer was deeply offended by this name, telling me indignantly that it announced to everyone that she was an unfaithful wife! Yes, she really was upset, and she really did say that. I had seen a lot of hypocrisy from Gomer before, but this was beyond belief. I was so utterly shocked and speechless that my
mouth dropped open as she told me, and this further infuriated her. As usual, her anger was expressed in sneering, contemptuous disdain and savagely disparaging comparisons of me with her favourites.
Nothing got better after that, and the first year or two of Lo-ammi’s life were very similar to the same period in Lo-ruhamah’s life. My dilemma was just as painful. After knowing Gomer for seven years, I was still in love with her, despite the constant advice of
my parents, relatives and friends to divorce her and separate my family from her contemptible behaviour. Should I follow their advice? Should I send her away?
Then Gomer took the matter out of my hands. She left me.
It was not that I was being cruel or unreasonable. I asked nothing of her that she had not already promised to
give, and for my part, I tried to give her everything that I had promised: faithfulness, love and oneness. All that I had was hers. Whatever I could give, I gave. Her children I treated as my children, even the two I was sure were the results of her prostitution.
Nevertheless, she left me. She took all that I had given her: the goods, the money, and her three children – yes, even Jezreel, my son – and moved out of our home. I was left completely
alone.
It sounds utterly stupid, but even then, I still loved her. I knew where to find her and visited frequently to beg her to return. At times she would almost agree, only to break her word at the last minute. I threatened and cajoled by turns, but nothing worked. She didn’t know it, but I even continued to pay her living expenses so that she could have food to eat instead of only the soul-destroying wines and perfumes she befuddled her brain
with.
Nothing worked.
But the break was not complete, because she still announced herself to others as “the wife of Hosea”, and even called me her “lord”. She made me look foolish as a man who was promised faithfulness but was willing to accept flagrant betrayal instead.
Whenever I stopped to think, I couldn’t believe what I was doing. But when I thought a bit more, I saw how God had treated my people, my ancestors, and how he
treats me.
In those times of despair, God spoke to me with messages for his people, and I felt a strong empathy with the helpless litany of God’s suffering due to our unfaithfulness, deception and treachery as a nation.
The nights were the worst, because I knew what she would be doing and worried about what would be happening to her children. Whenever there was a feast day for one of the terrible idols that so many in Israel worshipped, I knew that Gomer
would be there, mixing with the worshippers and seeking money in any way that she could get it. And I was always terrified that one day I would find that her children had joined the queue of panic-stricken and helpless boys and girls who were taken by their parents to be sacrificed in the bloodthirsty cults of Baal and Molech. Thankfully she never did that, limiting herself to sacrificing her own humanity in those debauched celebrations.
This heartbreak went on for years. From time to time I met Gomer or her children in the market. The children were growing up and Gomer herself was looking much older. A life of prostitution is never a happy life, but she could not see what it was doing to her. She would not listen.
Then one day I met Jezreel in the market. By that time he was about twelve or
thirteen years old and looked more like a young man than a boy.
“Jezreel!” I said eagerly, and he looked at me doubtfully. He knew that I was his father, but Gomer had always told him that I was unfair and demanding, so it was hard for him to welcome conversation with me. Undaunted, I continued, “Peace to you, Jezreel. May God bless you.”
“Hello, father,” he replied carefully. “What do you want?”
“I want to get to know
you again, Jezreel,” I answered. “You are my son and I love you.”
He shook his head to dismiss my mention of love and said, “I don’t think that I will be able to see you very often. Mother is arranging for me to enter service in the worship of Baal, and that will keep me very busy.”
It was an unbearable shock to hear my son speaking so casually about such a loathsome future, and I wondered whether he really knew what was planned for him. I
had no doubt that he would be made into one of the cult prostitutes that God had condemned at every opportunity. My own son! How could this be happening?
He saw my shocked reaction and asked, “What’s wrong, father? I know that you don’t like Baal, but surely being dedicated to worship is not a bad thing?”
“The worship of Baal is always a bad thing, and becoming a cult prostitute is almost infinitely worse! It is utterly evil, there is
nothing good in it at all. Please come and live with me and learn to love Yahweh our God.”
“Mother didn’t mention anything about becoming a cult prostitute,” he answered. “I don’t like the sound of that. I’ll have to ask her.”
“I will come with you,” I said.
“Oh, no,” he answered, waving his hand in refusal. “Mother has always said that we must not bring you home if we ever meet you. She says that she will not
see you unless you wish to see her as part of her work.”
I cannot describe the pain that I felt hearing these words from the mouth of my son. It was a calculated and brutal insult from the woman I still loved, innocently delivered by the son I also loved. I shook my head to try to get rid of the pain, but it didn’t help.
“Very well,” I agreed finally, “I will not see her now. But please give her a message from me. I am begging her to
stop her prostitution. Stop her unfaithfulness. While she behaves like this, she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. I want her to come back to me.”
“I will tell her,” said Jezreel in a wooden voice that was devoid of any emotion.
“And you, Jezreel, please, come and live with me. You are my son and you will receive mercy from me.”
We parted and I went home to weep and pray. My son! Could I save him
from the terrible fate his mother was condemning him to?
Jezreel did speak to his mother and she admitted that the “service to Baal” that she had planned for him was indeed for him to become a cult prostitute. Although he did not consider the job to be wrong as such – he had no real ideas of right and wrong – he really wanted to become a shepherd or a herdsman,
something working with animals.
Despite bitter resistance from Gomer, Jezreel eventually came to live with me. A few months later, I was able to find a shepherd living near Jerusalem who was willing to take Jezreel on and teach him his skills. When he was not needed in the fields, Jezreel stayed with me, and I gradually taught him more about Yahweh and convinced him that he really was one of God’s children.
One small victory had been won after
fourteen years of struggle, and I still didn’t know where it might lead.
Gomer had rejected my request that she return to me, and had kept the other two children with her. Probably she found them useful for the housework. However, after her treatment of Jezreel, I was terrified that she would use them for much worse things than housework. Still, there was nothing I could do.
The years passed slowly, and I gradually began to win other small
victories. Gomer’s situation got steadily worse. She was ageing quickly, and in her job that was disastrous. Over the next few years, first Lo-ruhamah and then Lo-ammi came to live with me, and I did my best to care for them and introduce them to the wonders of worshipping a living God. Over the years, I also made countless offers to Gomer, but she would never return to me – being willing even to lose access to her children rather than do so.
Finally,
Gomer slipped even lower, if that was possible, and lived with a man who said that he loved her, but hired her out as a prostitute whenever he wanted more money.
I was almost heartbroken when I heard the details. Then, as I prayed to God about it, he spoke to me with an instruction that was just what I wanted in some ways, but very worrying in others. God told me to buy Gomer from the man who “loved” her. I did so, paying a high price for her in silver and
barley, but specified to her the conditions of the purchase: “You must dwell as mine for a long time. You shall not be a prostitute, or belong to another man, and I will also belong to you.”
Gomer’s position by then was so dire that she agreed to my conditions, and we all lived together once again as a family – except for Jezreel, who now worked in the fields as a shepherd.
Over time, Gomer’s bitterness against me slowly wore off. She came to see the
benefits of faithfulness, and finally there was a day when, suddenly, she recognised her own faults and no longer blamed them on either God or me. For the first time ever, she admitted her guilt to herself, and to me, and I was very thankful that I was there to console and encourage her. It took some time for her to really accept that both God and I could forgive her, but from that time on she was a completely changed person. All of the characteristics that I had seen as tiny
beautiful shoots within her when she was young – and loved on sight – now grew and matured into a varied character of great loveliness.
Gomer became a tireless worker for good, helping, advising, teaching and guiding people towards godliness. Her children forgave her, and were glad to follow her new example. She began to look younger and younger, and her entrancing smile gradually re-emerged as she recovered from many years of abusing the body God had given
her. Healing came with her new faith. Together, we have found a happiness that grows greater with each passing year.
For me, the journey through despair and the valley of darkness took more than twenty years. For God, the suffering continues, as his nation still despises him and treats him with the contempt Gomer showed me for so many years. Our marriage has been a parable, and our happiness now is a prophecy of the time when God will welcome Israel back
as a nation that loves him from a pure and obedient heart.
It will come, just as it has come for us.
Notes
[1] Hosea 2:4 says that Gomer’s children were children of prostitution, but there is no specific comment about Lo-ammi’s paternity.
