הוֹשֵׁעַ

Hosea’s Love

The sun was starting to set as I walked home from the market. There was a breeze starting to blow, it felt nice. I wanted to stay outside, more than that I didn’t really want to return home yet to start on evening chores and listen to my dad talk about his day in the fields.

As I walked through the crowd I almost ran into an older woman in front of me. As I apologized, I realized she was carrying far more weight than she should bear alone and so I offered to help her carry it home. She nodded gratefully and as she lifted her head I finally realized who it was. It was Hosea’s wife. I had grown up hearing stories about her, but no one really gave any details. All I really knew was that she must’ve done some terrible things because of how often people called her a whore. When I was little I used to play with her youngest son. We all called him Ammi, but we knew it wasn’t his full name. No one called him by his full name.

“I recognize you.” She spoke to me as took bag of flour and vegetables from her.

“Yes ma’am.” I said, “I used to play with Ammi, I mean Lo-Ammi.” For perhaps the first time in my life I said his full name.

She nodded and even seemed to chuckle to herself. “Did he ever tell you how he got his name?” She asked me.

“No ma’am.” I responded quickly.

“My husband named him.” I nodded. “And neither of us were quite sure if Hosea was Lo-Ammi’s father or not, the same was true of Lo-Ruhamah his older sister.”

“So he named them ‘no mercy and not my people’?” She nodded this time.

“We agreed those names made sense for our family.” She could read the curiosity on my face as we neared her home.

“Would you like to come in before dinner? Perhaps I can tell you some of my story.”

I quickly agreed and was soon sitting on a wooden stool in her kitchen as she prepared the evening meal.

“I was younger than you are now, much younger. My parents were poor. They were worshipers of the god they call Baal, they were going to sacrifice me because they could not afford to keep me alive, and sacrifices of children made Baal happy they said. Instead, they sold me to any man who wanted me. I brought them much more money that way.”

She spoke in a casual voice, but she was speaking of years of abuse that would leave anyone traumatized. “I didn’t know love existed by the time I was old enough to marry. But when I met Hosea, that changed.”

“You fell in love with him?”

“No, we didn’t fall in love.” She said quickly. “He simply loved me and we got married. That’s when I had my first born Jezreel.”

Whenever I heard his full name I thought of the place where many people had been killed, but I also knew that the name had an agricultural meaning, that had to do with planting seeds and sowing.

“Did you like being a mother then?” I asked her.

“It was difficult.” She said to me as she started to boil water. “Hosea was kind to me, he provided for us as a family. Food, water, a place to live, but I, I…” She trailed off.

I didn’t want to push her, but I knew she must be thinking about what others said about her. They had always said she felt trapped, so she had run away from Hosea. She went back to the life her parents had given her. She slept with other men, she looked to provide for herself instead of depending on her husband.

“Obviously, I was not as faithful to my husband as he was to me.” She finally said in humility, it was hard to hear her say it. To acknowledge that she had been given everything she ever needed or wanted, but that she ran away from it. She sat down beside me, she looked tired and sad.

“There were promises. They made promises to me. Telling me that they would make me a wealthy woman. They told me how beautiful I was. They looked at me like I was something they wanted. So I went after other lovers who would give me food and water, clothes, drinks. I chased after them, I chased after anyone who make me feel better about myself. Some men gave me jewelry and rings, I felt special and rich with them. But they all abandoned me. None of them ever really loved me.”

She was being so vulnerable with me, I didn’t want to even interrupt her with the sound of my own breathing.

“I had forgotten about Hosea. I had forgotten about his God. I was going to parties, just like my parents had taken me to: where people were free with themselves and others, where they drank until they couldn’t move, where they cut themselves open so that the gods would taste their blood and send blessings. But in all of that I did not find blessing.”

The water was boiling so she stood to take it away from the fire, but I wanted to know what happened.

“What did you find? Didn’t you miss your husband or your son?” I asked. She put the pot down on the table.

“I didn’t find what I was hoping I would.” She sat down again. “I slept in a pig’s sty after one of those party nights. Poor, alone, bleeding, naked. It was terrible. But Hosea had been looking for me. He had heard all of the stories that people were telling. He knew what I had been doing. But he came for me.”

I would’ve been surprised to hear this, but I knew she and Hosea were still married after all these years.

“When he found me,” she said, “he renewed his vows to me. He said ‘Forget about those other men. I will betroth you to me forever. With love and compassion’.”

“How could he say that to you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She shrugged. “YHWH” she answered. It was the name of the God of Israel, the God my parents worshiped.

Then she said, “YHWH is righteous and just, loving and compassionate. Hosea simply responded to me the way he said God saved him.”

I was surprised while I listened to her story, that it wasn’t her who had come crawling back to Hosea, but that it was him who had gone after her. I didn’t know what all she was guilty of and what all she had done, but I had heard enough to know I wouldn’t have gone after her.

“I can’t believe he came for you.” I meant to say it to myself, but I said it out loud and she heard it.

“Yes, and it wasn’t the only time.”

I was going to ask her what she meant, but Hosea walked in the room.

“OH!” He said as he saw me. “We have a guest!”

“I’m sorry,” I said as I stood to leave.

“She helped me bring the food from the market, and I was telling her some of our stories.” She smiled.

Hosea smiled back at her, “The good ones?” He asked and they both laughed together. They invited me to stay for dinner, but I didn’t want to intrude so I went home.

My mother asked where I had been, why I hadn’t helped with dinner, I just rolled my eyes as I explained where I had been.

“Oh, you’ve spoken with Gomer.” My mother said.

“Yes, but I want to know more! Do you know what happened after Hosea brought her back the first time?”

“I only know rumors.” She said.

“Will you tell me anyway?” I asked, so she explained.

“Gomer had been living with another man.” I shrugged, I guessed that already. “Like she was his wife, but she was indebted to him. And he was a terrible man. He was supposed to be a priest of YHWH, a man of God like Hosea. But he wasn’t.”

“Who was he?” I asked.

“I don’t know his name, but I know that he no longer acknowledged our God. He was like so many of the priests these days.”

“What do you mean by that mom?”

“You know that many of our prophets lie, saying ‘O the Lord spoke to me,’ but they really just are trying to tricks us. And our priests tell us to do things that our God commanded us not to do, just so that they can steal from us. You have heard the stories of our neighbors being murdered for their land and making as sacrifices to Baals because our prophets and our priests have turned away from our God. He was like that, he was the kind of priest who liked when people sinned. Because when people sin, they have to make sacrifices.”

“Why would a priest like sacrifices being made?” I asked as we sat down to eat our evening meal.

“So that they have more food.” She said as she put her bowl on the table. Our priests were the ones who should be teaching us what is good and right, what was lawful so I was disturbed to hear my mother so casually say that they were leading people away from what was good.

“What are we going to do?” I asked her.

“About what?” She asked.

“About the priests?”

“Hmm,” She sat down and seemed to deeply consider what I was saying. “We will have to know what God says instead of only listening to their voices.”

“So Gomer was led astray because he was a priest.” I thought aloud.

“No,” my mother answered. “Gomer was led astray because she loved her shameful ways.”

What my mom had said made me sad, how could anyone love sin? It made me wonder what kind of things I loved. It made me want to know more of Gomer’s story.

The next time I saw Gomer, she waved at me and invited me to sit with her.

“Do you know now?” She asked after we greeted one another and I sat beside her in the sand.

I tried to look innocent, but she knew I had learned more about her shameful past.

“Someone told you about the other man?” She asked. I nodded embarrassed. She nodded too.

“I left Hosea too many times and I felt punished for all of them. He knew everything I had done. I knew he was not angry with me, but I knew that I had broken his heart. Somehow he knew that I wouldn’t come back to him again. He knew I couldn’t free myself. That’s why he bought me back.”

“Brought you mean?”

“No, bought. I was enslaved. He had to pay for my freedom. He never let me run away for too long, so there was part of me that always knew he would come for me. As sure as the sun rises, I knew he would come for me.”

“So you loved him then?” I asked her shifting my weight as I sat.

“Sometimes.” Her answer confused me so she explained, “My love for him was like a morning mist. It would come and then disappear again as fast as it had arrived. I would try to be a good wife to him. Take care of our children, keep the house clean, listen to him, but he would always tell me: `I don't care about the things you do, I just want us to know each other!’”

Our conversation ended quickly as my mother found me and called me to come home, so I thanked Gomer for the conversation and asked if we could talk again. She invited me to her home the next day to help her bake her bread.

“I was passionate, like this fire.” She said to me as we prepared the oven for the bread. “Sometimes I would burn so hot and so bright and my passion would consume me. Then, I would die out. I would be depressed and sad. I wouldn’t realize that the very things I was chasing after were the things that were killing me. I was arrogant, I thought I could be strong and independent. When I would go away, Hosea would write to me. He would send me poetry. But I would lie about him to myself. I would say that he didn’t mean those things, that he couldn’t love me after all I had done. But he kept writing to me. Sometimes I would write love letters back.”

“Would you?” I asked as she kneaded the dough.

“Yes, but they were words only. I didn’t mean it with my heart.” I was sad to hear her honesty. I wished that she had been more faithful. I knew that I would be a better wife than she ever was. How could she not love him? What was wrong with her? I wondered.

“Maybe you think you’re better than me.” She said almost as if she had heard my thoughts. “Just as I thought I was better than all of the men I slept with. They came to me with stories of drunken fights, stories of stealing from helpless people, even stories of murder! It was as if it was a contest of wickedness. I thought I was better. Until I realized that even they did not want me. I knew I didn’t deserve to be in Hosea’s house, but these wicked men also told me I didn’t deserve to be with them. I had become as vile as the things I loved.” As I was about to ask more, Ammi came in the door to surprise his mother with an afternoon visit with his small son. They invited me to stay and play with the baby. I did so happily. Watching Ammi as a young father made me glad. He was beaming. It was so clear how much he loved his son Ben. Baby Ben was learning to walk and Ammi would hold him under his arm to help him if he started to toddle.

“You’re a good father, Ammi.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I just wish Ben wasn’t so rebellious.”

“Rebellious?” I asked. “How can someone so little be rebellious?”

“Just watch for a minute.” He said looking at his mom, “She knows all about it.” Gomer nodded.

As I watched Ben more carefully, I saw the way he heard his father’s instructions but ignored them. “Come here.” Ammi said but Ben toddled away. “Don’t touch that,” Then Ben hurt his hand on a hot plate.

As I prepared to leave Gomer told me, “See, we aren’t so different from babies, are we?”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“We hear the voice of a loved one, someone trying to protect us and care for us, but we ignore it sometimes.” She smiled down at her son and grandson on the floor. “It’s a good thing for us that love doesn’t give up on us.” I knew she was right. Although I rolled my eyes at my parents and was often frustrated with them, I knew that they would never give up loving me. Gomer was teaching me so much about even myself in our talks, I wanted to know more. She asked if I would like to come next week to help her in the garden, of course I agreed.

It was while we were planting together that Gomer asked me: “If we plant these flowers, what do you think will grow?”

“The flowers.”

“Yes. And if we planted weeds?”

“Then weeds would grow.” She nodded.

“You’re trying to teach me something.” She nodded again.

“We all reap what we sow. I reaped what I sowed. I lived a life of wickedness and it filled me with anger and sadness. And it was those things that had to be pulled up out of my heart!” She exclaimed as she pulled an old weed out of the ground. “It was painful to be torn away from the things that I had chased after for so long. But there came a time in my life when Hosea had come again for me and brought me home. ‘This time,’ He told me, ‘I’m not letting you go’.”

“And? Is that when you stayed?” She wiped her brow with dirt on her hands.

“Yes. I was tired of eating the fruit of deception, believing what others were telling me. I didn’t want that life anymore. Because I finally felt loved, my heart was like this dirt, it had been rid of the evil weeds and I wanted to sow righteousness, I wanted to reap the fruit of unfailing love. I wanted to seek Hosea’s one true God just as Hosea had been seeking me.”

There was part of me that wanted to live a life of adventure like she had, even when she had told me how sad it made her. So I asked her “Was it always bad when you were away from Hosea?”

“No, often at the beginning things were good! I would be successful and well liked. People would say nice things about me and to me. None of it was true, and none of it lasted. I could never go back to that life.” She said looking solemnly.

“The last time I went away I thought I was as good as dead. I was with another man who I thought would protect me and take care of me. But he abused me and left me for dead.” At this point I saw her tears hitting the soft soil. Watering the small seeds we had just planted.

“But Hosea had come for you.” She nodded.

“He told me that death would not get to destroy me, and right then it was like my life was renewed. I no longer believed in the power of golden calves, I wanted no part in human sacrifices, or handmade idols that do nothing. I wanted to serve the God that sent Hosea to love me.” I liked hearing her love story. It made me want to fall in love too.

“You know why I am telling you all these stories?” She asked me. I brushed the dirt off my hands and shrugged.

“It’s not so that you’ll live like me, or so that you look for a perfect husband (afterall, mine’s not perfect either.)”

“Why are you sharing with me then?” I asked.

“It’s so that you’ll do what Hosea has been preaching for 25 years.” I shook my head confused. I knew that he was preaching about us turning back to YHWH and turning away from our sins, but I wasn’t sure what they had to do with me.

“You can’t depend on yourself or the good that you try to do.” She said. “You may not be wicked like I was, but you have sin in you. There’s pride in your heart, you have disobeyed your parents I know it.” She laughed as I looked at her sheepishly.

“When Hosea brought me home I had to learn to pray to the Lord “Forgive all of my sins, receive me graciously”. I needed Him, far more than I needed Hosea.”

“And you think I should pray that too?” I asked her.

“Yes, I think we all should. If we walk a thousand miles away from YHWH or even just one step, if we want to experience life, joy, or hope all we have to do is turn back to him.”