For the last few months, I’ve been looking closely at the Old Testament book of Hosea. I printed it out and made a booklet and then I went to work with a pencil, making notes, looking for similarities, and writing all over it.

The reason I was looking at Hosea is because I wanted to be a better husband. The value I place in my marriage far outstrips my skills as a husband. I figured that I’d learn something deep and profound from the story.

Hosea has a short narrative, in a few sections, and then it’s page after page of rant. It’s easy to get lost in the rant, because we’re separated by about 2700 years, 16,000 odd km and differences in culture. I wasn’t able to tease all of it out, but what I did find was simple and profound, and I was able to set my course to a few bright, shining stars that appeared.

How I wish I got this advice twenty years ago, when I was a fresh groom. It would have saved a lot of heartache. But there ya go. Maybe you or someone like you can learn from my errors. If you’re not married or not planning to be, maybe you can tuck this information away in the back of your mind for someone else, or forward it to someone you care about.

Alternatively, the few nuggets of information that I mined shine brilliantly and are highly useful for guiding relationships in general, between siblings or employees or business partners, teachers and students etc.

Finally, this close study of Hosea gave me a fresh and surprising insight into the person of God, and specifically God’s heartache.

OK, strap in. Here we go.

The story we know…

 When the Lord first spoke by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take for yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry, departing from the Lord.”

These sentences begin the narrative. It’s easy to think that the people in the Old Testament were all “sword and sandle” types, who spoke in Thees and Thuses, but let’s remember that they were quite civilized. In terms of Biblical history, Hosea is closer to our end than he is to Adam. He’s in the “right half” of the timeline. His people, the Israelites, had been settled in their country for well over 500 years. (Um… How long has New York been settled? Not that long! My closest big city is Sydney, and that place isn’t even up to 250 years yet.) They had invaded and taken over from the Amorites (the Mari?) who had been there for over 400 years. All the roads were built, the wells were dug, the towns established, the bridges made. The land was divided up and parcelled out. They may have been different in culture, but people were people. I bet my bottom dollar you could go to any decent sized town and get yourself a cup of tea and some raising toast from a street vendor, and probably complain about the price like everyone else.

And, in a point that deserves a paragraph all of its own, let’s not forget that the people at the time were far from “Christian” (please excuse the anachronism.) Sure, a few hundred years before, Solomon had built a temple in Jerusalem, and they had ancient tales about as far back as our stories of Robin Hood about their ancestors in Egypt, the Ten Plagues and their escape through the Red Sea. But who honestly believed that rubbish? The temple was in ruins, and it was in the deep South, where people talked funny. There had been a civil war about 200 years before, and Hosea was from the North, which was much better connected internationally. If people there were religious, they tended to play around with orgone generators and the like, or endure some eye-rolling voodoo sermon about fertility so they could screw around with the holy hookers in the club on the hill.

Which brings me to the next snippet of Hosea:

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim as a wife. She conceived, and bore him a son.

I imagine that Hosea went to one such club, as horny as any other young man in his early twenties. God spoke in his ear. “Alright, buddy. We’re here to get you a wife.”

“Oooh, she looks nice. I could bring her home to meet mother,” Hosea said, eyeing off a nice looking wallflower in an ill-fitting dress.”

“Hmmm, no,” God said. “If we wanted a wife like that, we would have stayed at home. How about that one?”

And, in my imagination, Hosea looked and saw the one God pointed out. Long, long legs under a short, short dress, her hair swept up, showing off a snake tattoo curling down her neck and onto her bare back. She had flashing eyes, accentuated by dark makeup, and long, painted nails. Gomer. Strange name. One sexy chick.

“Yes! And Amen!” Hosea said. High-fiving himself as the nerd he was, and went over to make his move.

So they got married. Somehow. And at the wedding, young Hosea believed he had hit the jackpot. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. But all the old people who had lived more than a few heartaches shook their heads, looking down the years like they were looking down the wrong end of a telescope.

Hosea “put a baby in her,” and was very happy. But God whispered in his ear: “Call the baby Jezreel.” It doesn’t mean much today. It’s kind of like calling your kid Riot or Inferno or Havoc. These are the kids who terrorise the McDonalds playground, running the wrong way up the slide, screaming the F word at the top of their lungs and knocking the toddlers over. (There had been a murder at Jezreel, and the royal family had been implicated.)

She got pregnant and gave birth again. Twice. The Bible subtly points out that Hosea was not the father of either. I think the oldschool word is “cuckolded.” Who the father was (or the fathers were) is not mentioned. What we are told, however, is that God spoke in Hosea’s ear. “Call her Lo Ruhama.” Then “Call him Lo Ammi.” It’s pretty meaningless until I give you the translation.

His daugher: “Not Loved”.

His son: “Not Mine.”

So here’s a young guy, sitting alone at the table at Maccas, staring dumbly into the distance. In the playground are three kids. The first, with his rats tail haircut and his big, square teeth and his dirty, bare feet, who has the same chin as Hosea, is Havoc. Then there’s a girl, with a long fringe in her eyes and a swipe of chocolate thickshake on her cheek. She is “Not Loved.” Then there’s the baby, bouncing along the floor, with a snotty nose and a wet nappy. “Not Mine.” And Dad’s all alone, totally out of his depth, being a single parent.

Where’s mum? She’s nowhere to be seen. Off partying. Any excuse. New Years Eve. A monthly event at the club. Every weekend, at the Sabbath Sessions. She spends most of her time drunk, and she gets her advice from the horoscopes. New tatts, new piercings.

WHY??? 

And Hosea, a young guy with a strange connection with God, prays from his little plastic seat at the local McDonalds as he hears his kids tear around the playground through the glass door: “God, what have you done to me? You SENT me to her. You set this marriage up. And here I am, with my life in ruins, looking after two kids that aren’t even mine. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME???

Next…(Part2)