A Door of Hope

Hosea 2 is a courtroom speech and a love song at once. Israel is pictured as a wife who left her husband to chase after the Baals, the gods of rain and harvest. She credited them for her bread, wool, and oil. But she didn't know that God gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

Because of this, God would take back His gifts and cause all her celebrations to cease. His goal was not to destroy her but to bring her to the end of herself, until she would say she would return to her first husband. God sometimes removes what we trust so that we turn back to Him.

Then the tone changes. I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. The valley of Achor, once a place of trouble, becomes a door of hope. God says His people will call Him my husband. I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion. In the New Testament, Paul applies these words to God's people: It will be that in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called children of the living God (Romans 9:26).