Psalms 13-14

Dear RTB’ers,

Back to Psalms. How long, O LORD?… How long…? How long…? How long…? (13:1-2) Four times in two verses David cries out, “How long…?” Can you relate? When in your heart you know that something needs to happen, that good needs to overcome evil, and you know that God is all-seeing and all-knowing, but why doesn’t He act??!! You pray and you wait and you wonder, “How long, O LORD?” Yeah, been there…

…there is no one who does good, not even one. (14:3b) David contrasts this verse with his first verse, The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (14:1a) While we may laugh at “the fool” and his ridiculous claim, we are no better off. We are all in that “not even one” category. My mind also went to Romans 3:10, There is none righteous, not even one. (NASB) There Paul is doing the same thing as David, but there claiming that the Jews are no better than the Gentiles. And we today… Centuries separated Paul from David and now centuries from Paul to us. And still, There is none righteous, not even one. Except Jesus!! Thank you, Lord!

Blessings!

Hosea 13-14

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, continued – and ended. Today, again two chapters very different from each other, with chapter 13 continuing God’s judgment on Israel and chapter 14 speaking of His deliverance.

Earlier in this book we saw a lot of greed and subjugation of the poor and helpless by the wealthy and powerful. We haven’t seen that for a while; mostly the last few chapters have been about idolatry, about Israel seeking after other gods, about idol worship. Hosea likens this worship of other gods to morning dew, chaff and smoke, all of which exist for a while and then are gone. Good imagery there!

Earlier I posted about “prosperity, luxury, complacency”. Today we see something similar, but something even more hurtful – pride: As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and as they became satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me. (13:6, NASB) Complacency is bad enough, but when we get to the point where we don’t acknowledge all that we have been given from God, when we see ourselves as being successful for our successes, when we become prideful, then we have problems!

Hosea ends chapter 13 on a horrible note: Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open. (13:16) But that’s his necessary transition to his main message – return! Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the LORD… (14:1-2a) It’s easy to miss something very important, Take with you words… Hosea is telling these people that their sacrifice of bulls and goats is not enough, but what is needed is a turning of their hearts, their words!

Sadly, we never see that Israel repented. We learn that they went away into exile to Assyria in 722 BC. And we sometimes speak of “the ten lost tribes of Israel”. Judah will also have problems and will go into exile to Babylon in 586 BC, but she will come back (see Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). Hosea closes with a proverb for us all, Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. (14:9)

Blessings!

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See also: June 8 (2023) / Hosea 11-14; II Kings 15:1-7

Hosea 11-12

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, continued. I’ve often heard that the book of Hosea is basically a love story – a story of God’s love for Israel (and for us!) in spite of their many wanderings from that love (and our own wanderings!). First we saw that in the book’s first three chapters, with Hosea going back to take his wife from her life of harlotry. Now we see that today in different contexts: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. (11:1) Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk… (11:3a) How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? (11:8a) God loves His people – Israel and us!

Hosea 11 was mostly an expression of God’s love for Israel, but Hosea 12 takes us back into Israel’s history, focusing primarily on Jacob, but also with an aside to Egypt and Moses. We see Jacob’s history in Hosea 12:3-4 and Hosea 12:12, while Moses was the prophet who led the people out of Egypt. (Hosea 12:13)

It’s always nice when we see a New Testament references in these Old Testament readings. Today, right away we see Matthew citing 11:1b, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.” (Matthew 2:15b) Nice.

Blessings!

Hosea 9-10

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, continued, God’s punishment of Israel for her iniquities, both civil and spiritual: The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. (9:7a) Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house. I will love them no more… (9:15b)

Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. (10:1-2) Prosperity, luxury, complacency. An apt description of Israel thousands of years ago – and of us today…??

Blessings!

Hosea 5:15-8:14

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, continued. I quoted today’s first verse yesterday: I will return again to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face, and in their distress earnestly seek Me. (5:15) So naturally the first thing the Israelites do today is to seek Him: “Come, let’s return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.” (6:1) But God is not listening to their superficial repentance: “For your loyalty is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early.” (6:4b) And He continues like that for these three chapters! “But they do not consider that I remember all their evil.” (7:2) “I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me. They do not cry to Me from the heart…” (7:13b-14a). “I have spurned your calf, O Samaria … a craftsman made it; it is not God.” (8:5a, 6a) “As for My sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them.” (8:13a)

A bit of their then-current history… Israel was in serious trouble from their neighbors. Recall John’s comment from a few days ago, his “Tips on the Prophets”, about the hostility from their surrounding nations. So their first reaction is a political alliance, to look for help from the south (Egypt) or the north (Assyria) instead of seriously seeking the Lord: “Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.” (v. 7:11)

All this is thousands of years ago?? But it sounds so familiar…!!

Blessings!

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See also: June 7 (2028) / Hosea 5:8-9:17

Hosea 4:1-5:14

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, continued. God condemns Israel for their earthly sins (see Hosea 4:2) and for their worship of false gods (see Hosea 4:12-13).

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge… (4:6a), a well-known, oft-cited verse. Fundamentally, it’s what RTB is all about. From its beginning some 15 years ago RTB has had a mix of people – some with a great deal of Bible background and others from Episcopal and Catholic and other Protestant denominations who had very little Biblical knowledge beyond the Gospels. And while knowledge is wonderful, it’s only the beginning. I have often said to our Avanza children that I want them “to learn about Jesus, to know Him and the more they know Him the more they will love Him and begin to serve Him: Know Him, Love Him, Serve Him.”

With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn from them. (v. 5:6) In the midst of all their difficulties, Israel will finally seek “the LORD” – but in the manner that they know, seeking false gods, going with their flocks and herds to worship at false shrines. There they will not find the true God, the Lord of Israel. He has withdrawn from them. It seems reasonable to go one more verse in today’s reading, a follow-up to verse 6: I will return again to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face, and in their distress earnestly seek Me. (Hosea 5:15) Seek Him. Earnestly! Today.

Blessings!

Hosea 2

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea, the middle chapter. As I read chapter 2, especially the beginning, I don’t think I agree with the STS authors in having chapters 1 and 3 yesterday and chapter 2 today. To me chapter 2 falls nicely after chapter 1 and provides a nice lead-in for chapter 3. Yesterday I posted that Gomer “bore him a son” in verse 1:3, but that the word “him” is absent in the birth of the other two children, suggesting possibly that Hosea was not their father, but that Gomer had resumed harlotry even while married to Hosea. Today’s first two verses seem to confirm that. The two children mentioned in 2:1 today are Gomer’s second and third children (with Hosea possibly not their father). Then we have his comment in verse 2, speaking to those two children: “Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away her whoring…” We see confirmation of that in verse 5: For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. All of that follows nicely into chapter 3, where Hosea must go out and buy back his wife. So why split chapter 2 off from 1 and 3? I disagree. But who am I to doubt the STS authors?

Verses 6-13 then continue this theme of Gomer’s harlotry, even making her sound like a “temple prostitute”: Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. (vv. 2:7b-8) Keep in mind that with this story of Hosea and Gomer and harlotry and buying her back that God is actually speaking to the Northern Kingdom and charging them with their harlotry for other gods, but that He loves them nonetheless!

Finally, the rest of the chapter, verses 14-23 is a foretelling of Hosea bringing Gomer back in chapter 3. Verse 23b is the summary verse for this foretelling: “And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God’”. Those names “No Mercy” and “Not My People” refer to the names of Hosea’s second and third children – Hosea bringing them back as his own. My Study Bible notes that the apostles Paul and Peter quote this verse (in part) in Romans 9:25 and I Peter 2:10, respectively, referring to the Gentiles coming into the church.

Blessings!

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See also: June 6 (2023) / Hosea 1-5:7

Hosea 1,3

Dear RTB’ers,

Hosea. Like Amos, Hosea was prophesying to the Northern Kingdom, Israel. Unlike Amos (and unlike all the rest of the major and minor prophets), Hosea was from the north and was speaking to his kinsmen.

STS has us reading chapters 1 and 3 today, skipping chapter 2 until tomorrow, which is good since 1 and 3 are both narrative chapters. However there is some controversy as to whether these two chapters relate one incident or two, that Hosea went to the harlots and bought Gomer to be his wife (chapter 3) and the mother of his three children (chapter 1)? Or is chapter 3 a second incident between Hosea and Gomer, that after birthing three children Gomer went back to harlotry, then Hosea went back for her, bought her and brought her “home”? And, since no name is given to the harlot in chapter 3, is that harlot Gomer or another person? Finally, in verse 1:3 Gomer “bore him a son”. The word “him” is absent in the birth of the other two children, suggesting possibly that Hosea was not their father, but that Gomer had resumed harlotry even while married to Hosea. Confusions. However, I get the sense that both tradition and scholarship see two incidents and one harlot, Gomer.

Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days. (v. 3:5) Two comments here. “Return.” My Study Bible noted that “return” is a major theme for the book of Hosea. “Latter days.” (Or “last days” in the NASB and many other translations.) Together with the reference to “David their king”, many scholars see “last days” as a Messianic prophecy.

Hosea. Whatever the confusions in these two chapters, the truth that we need to embrace is God’s love for His children, Israel – in spite of their many sins. A lesson today for us also…

Blessings!

Amos 8:4-9:15

Dear RTB’ers,

Amos, the end. Judgment and redemption. The whole of today’s reading is judgment, until we get to the last three verses. Amos repeats one of his central themes in today’s first three verses – greed, dishonesty, and subjugation of the poor by the wealthy, followed by the horrible extent of God’s judgment. But the worst of God’s judgment is the people seeking Him and Him shutting Himself off from them: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.” (vv. 8:11-12) Sometimes I wonder (briefly) if God hears my prayers, but I quickly catch myself and remind myself of words that I’ve often heard from my friends at Freedom Road, “God is God and you are not.” He may be silent (from my perspective), but He hears every word and acts when and where He chooses.

A quick note: “Those who … say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.” (v. 8:14) Dan, the city, was in the far north of the Promised Land and Beersheba was in the far south. So when we read “from Dan to Beersheba” in the Old Testament, the writer is referring to the whole of Israel, all the people in both the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom.

Amos 9:8 provides a summary statement for the book of Amos: “Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the LORD. God will judge their evil deeds and their false worship; both Israel and Judah will go into captivity, in 722 and 586 BC, respectively, but God will save a remnant of the house of Jacob. He will not “utterly destroy” them. Clearly Hitler did not understand the ways of God!

Restoration, redemption in Amos 9:11-15. Amos, the end.

Blessings!

Amos 7:1-8:3

Dear RTB’ers,

In contrast to previous days’ readings about judgments against Israel and Judah and their neighbors, today chapter 7 is relatively straightforward – visions of locusts (as happened to the Egyptians), fire, and a plumb line.

(Of particular interest to me…) He was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. (v. 7:1) We are reminded that Israel and its neighbors were, basically, agricultural peoples. My father once told me that hay mowings occurred around the three holidays – Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Each successive mowing was less abundant than the earlier ones. In Israel, however, there was only the first mowing, the highest yield, the harvest of which went to the king. After that the land became pasture for animals and a lesser crop for the people. So the Lord’s locusts would be eating this lesser crop, what the common people needed to survive.

God has plans for destruction, Amos intercedes (Amos 7:3, 6) and God relents. We’ve already seen other cases where God listened to His people’s prayers (Abraham, Moses). Here He listens to Amos. Archbishop (Emeritus) Beach, on numerous occasions asked us to pray for our country. Today, the Fourth is the day that this message regularly went out from Him. So here I offer you our own prayer for the Fourth, from our Book of Common Prayer:

A Prayer for Independence Day

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessings!