The Book Of Hosea. Day 12, Charged With Crimes, Part Three

The Lord has been talking about the ways in which the people of the northern kingdom of Israel have violated His laws and commandments. We closed yesterday with Him saying that even the priests and prophets have gone astray and cannot be depended upon to guide the people. He said that these men were stumbling (spiritually speaking) and were causing others to stumble with them.

Now He says, "So I will destroy your mother---My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:5b-6a) I believe that when the Lord says "your mother" this is either a reference to the nation as a whole or to its capital city of Samaria. We know that it won't be long until this comes true when the nation of Assyria attacks and conquers Israel. 

It's not that knowledge about the Lord wasn't available to the priests and the people. They had the laws and the commandments. But they've strayed so far away from His precepts and they've strayed for so long that the majority of the population has lost interest in seeking the Lord and in knowing His will for their lives. Not even the priests cared to retain their knowledge of Him, for when King Jeroboam (Jeroboam the First) set up the golden calf worship sites as substitute sites for the one at the temple in Jerusalem, he appointed priests who were not of the tribe of Levi, which was in violation to the Lord's commands. 

Jeroboam did this for two reasons. The first is that (as you may recall from our study of the kings) many of the priests of the tribe of Levi objected to the golden calf sites and left their houses and lands behind to move permanently to the southern kingdom of Judah. Priests of the tribe of Levi who did not remove their allegiance from Jeroboam were presumably on board with his religious policies---and men who found Jeroboam's religious policies acceptable were not godly men. The other reason Jeroboam appointed men from other tribes as priests is because this enabled him to lure in greedy, ambitious men who would go along with anything he said, regardless of whether what he said lined up with what the Lord said.

One of the primary duties of a priest was to teach the people what the Lord said. Because these men have not fulfilled this duty, He has harsh words for them. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as My priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. The more priests there were, the more they sinned against Me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. They feed on the sins of My people and relish their wickedness. And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them and repay them for their deeds." (Hosea 4:6a-9)

The priests of the northern kingdom were supported from the royal treasury (even those reprehensible priests and prophets of Baal during the era of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel) as well as being supported through the offerings and sacrifices brought by the people. Earlier in the Bible when we studied the offerings and sacrifices, we learned that a portion of most of these things went to the priests for their upkeep and for the upkeep of their families. The Lord appears to be saying that the priests of the northern kingdom care only about maintaining their standard of living rather than learning about and teaching the word of God. When we look at it like that, they are essentially getting paid without having performed their proper duties. They are enjoying the prestige of being priests and are enjoying a fairly comfortable lifestyle without carrying out the God-ordained duties of priests. He will soon remove their prestige and prosperity from them.

"They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not flourish, because they have deserted the Lord to give themselves to prostitution; old wine and new wine take away their understanding." (Hosea 4:10-11) The Lord often refers to Israel's idolatry as prostitution or infidelity. He uses the analogy of Himself as the husband and Israel as the wife and He speaks of idolatry in the same way one would speak of sexual immorality. They have engaged in all sorts of debauchery, thinking this will satisfy them, thinking this is a form of "freedom". But sin is a snare and ungodly living causes an empty, gnawing hunger at the very core of a person's soul.

We were created for fellowship with our Creator. Leaving Him out of our lives and going our own way will never satisfy us. We might try to ignore the emptiness inside by distracting ourselves with worldly pursuits and worldly pleasures, which is why so many people fall into dreadful addictions since it takes more and more of their drug or habit of choice to numb themselves to the emptiness, but nothing will ever satisfy us except a relationship with the God who created us.