Obscure but powerful!

Hosea Chapter 3 has just five verses. It starts with Hosea being commanded by God to take back his adulterous wife. Hosea understood living a cross-centered life long before Yeshua told us to take up our cross daily. Instead of having a wonderful, godly family, where he and his wife could pour godly values into their kids and have Shabbat recreation, God tells the prophet to marry “a promiscuous woman and have children with her” (Hos. 1:2).

God will prophetically demonstrate his love for backslidden Israel through Hosea loving his promiscuous wife. Imagine that was you! You are in your early twenties and are looking forward to starting a family after you find a wife. Instead, God tells you to marry a prostitute.

Love her

She apparently leaves Hosea and sells herself. God tells Hosea to take her back and buy her for 15 shekels, “Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites” (Hos. 3:1). After he obeys, the word of the Lord comes to him, not for him and his wife, and not as a prophetic picture for Israel of his day—but a word for the Israelites (or Israelis) of the future…of now (I believe).

“For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.” Hosea 3:4–5

The first part speaks of the Israelites losing their political independence. The next has to do with losing their sacrificial system.

“Thus Israel will first lose its political existence, in which she believed herself capable of securing her life independent of Yahweh. Further, the offering of sacrifices becomes impossible … Sacrificial worship will cease … Thus Yahweh will withdraw himself from Israel, together with every means of approaching him that had become an idol. Politically and cultically* Israel will be virtually driven back into the desert.” [1] *Cultically in scholarly language is not about cults, as in Jim Jones but refers to the sacrificial system.

This indeed happened. Israel lost political control long before Yeshua came when the Assyrians conquered Northern Israel in 721 BCE. Judah lost political power when the Roman General Pompey invaded in 63 BCE. The Temple was destroyed, along with Jerusalem in 70 CE.

The second part of the prophecy has to do with the end times restoration of Israel, and this is the exciting part. It says that after this time of discipline or judgment that the Jewish people will “return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.” Why would they seek David? This is a clear reference to not just the Messiah, but the Davidic monarchy will be reestablished as eternal through his seed, the Messiah. “After His return, He will establish and reign over a literal, earthly, political, kingdom for 1,000 years on this present earth and for eternity on the new eternal earth.” [2]

Prodigal Son

The Israelites in the future submit to Yahweh and his Messiah and come “trembling to the Lord and to his blessing in the last days.” The idea of trembling signifies humility and repentance. The idea of to his blessing signifies Yahweh receiving them in his grace. “In this text Israel plays the part of the prodigal son. She returns in fear and yet is received in love.” [3] The Jewish “people will come in awe (“trembling,”), in genuine contrition.” [4]

Carroll accurately sees the two-fold restoration: “What, therefore, will be taken away in judgment—the king and religious practices—will be the centerpieces of renewed national life.” [5] “David” represents King Messiah Yeshua and “the LORD” (Yahweh) represents religious life—a complete national return to God (Rom. 11:26). The mystery that Hosea could not see “was not made known to people in [previous] generations” (Eph. 3:5) is revealed by Paul in Ephesians—the restoration is not just for the Jewish people, but the Gentiles will join with Israel in becoming the household of God.

Consequently, you (Gentiles) are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people (Israel) and also members of his household… This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:19, 3:6)

This powerful prophecy is rarely preached on, but is consistent with other prophecies of Israel’s return to Yahweh and born again experience such as Ezekiel 36:24-28, Zechariah 12:10, 13:1, Matthew 23:39 and of course, Romans 11:26 that predicts national salvation after the fullness of the nations.

Time to Pray

But the church plays a role! We just finished three weeks of prayer and fasting for Israel. Millions of people participated. We received signs in the heavens that God heard these prayers. The fact that it rained on the final two hours of prayer in Jerusalem is prophetic. You say, “Ron, come on…rain?” You don’t understand, it doesn’t rain in May in Israel. We have a dry season from the beginning of April until October. In 20 years, I have seen it just drizzle one or twice in the dry months. I have never seen several hours of steady rain. Then, on Friday morning, June 9th, we had thunderstorms all over Israel—again, unheard of in Israel in June.

But we need to press in. I am not looking for just rain, but real revival in Israel. Now is the time to press in prayer. We are in the verge of real breakthrough!

[1] Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 62.

[2] Renald Showers, “The Fulfillment of The Davidic Covenant,” Israel My Glory, November 1985, https://israelmyglory.org/article/the-fulfillment-of-the-davidic-covenant/

[3] Duane A. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, vol. 19A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), 104.

[4] M. Daniel Carroll R., “Hosea,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Daniel–Malachi (Revised Edition), ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 242.

[5] M. Daniel Carroll R., “Hosea,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Daniel–Malachi (Revised Edition), ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 242.