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Hosea 2:20-23 What did you say your name is? Day 302

Good afternoon friends,

I wonder what Hosea would say to the health and wealth preachers.  Is marrying a prostitute "my best life now"?  This faithful man living in the midst of an unfaithful people who is called to give them a graphic picture of their infidelity.  God will punish but He will also restore in fulfilling the promise of Genesis 3:15.

Blessings,

Jeff

I chose this group of verses because Hosea's 3 children by Gomer (his wife of whoredom) were Jezreel (son - means God will sow ), No Mercy (daughter) and Not my people (son).  Can you imagine Hosea going around town and telling his friends and neighbors about his children.  We think of naming children after parents or grandparents or a famous person.  God tells him the names for his children.  Everybody around him would know who and what his wife was, and why the children had these names.  He could not escape the message that his family circumstances sent to the people around him.  

And then one day Hosea gets this revelation that some day in the future God was going to redeem Israel which was characterized by the names of his children.  His children would still have their names, but God was going to treat them as if they were the opposite of their names. The fact that he was the last prophet to northern kingdom before dispersal by Assyrians and that these northern tribes never came back makes me think about the Marriage of  the Lamb.  God uses betrothal as a picture of the formerly faithless wife being taken back in as if she were a virgin bride.  Jesus purifies us to be without spot or wrinkle. 

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