In good times and in bad

In his new Wednesday night series of studies on the minor prophets, Jordan spoke of God's order to Hosea to marry a prostitute, etc. This reminded me of this article I wrote several years ago on the subject: 

 

 

What’s fascinating is how much God in Scripture talks about being married to Israel and refers to Himself as the husband who’s repeatedly cheated on with pagan “lovers.”

In one particularly blatant passage in Isaiah 50, God argues, “Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
[2] Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.”

Jordan explains, “God says, ‘Where’s the bill of divorcement I gave you?! Look at what you’ve done to me and yet I didn’t leave you! You left ME! I didn’t depart; you departed!”

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In another incredibly blunt confrontation, God says in Hosea 2, “Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.”

He continues, “And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
[8] For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.
[9] Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
[10] And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.
[11] I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
[12] And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
[13] And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.
[14] Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
[15] And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.”

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By way of example, God orders the prophet Hosea to, “Go find you a prostitute and marry her,” explains Jordan. “So, Hosea married a woman named Gomer. Somebody told me years ago that name means ‘fruitcake.’ It sure does apply. God says, ‘Just go love her and watch what happens,’ and she takes advantage of him; she goes after other lovers. And God says, ‘You see what’s happening to Hosea; that’s what Israel’s done with me!”

God’s reconciliation with his wife comes in Hosea 2:19-20 when He vows, “And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.
[20] I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.”

Just before this, in verse 16, God assured Israel that one day “thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.”

Jordan says, “Ishi means ‘my husband.’ They’re going to go back to calling Him ‘my husband’ instead of calling him by one of the names of the false gods that they’d been worshipping. He says, ‘I will betroth thee unto me forever.’ The word ‘betroth’ means faithfulness. ‘I’ll make you faithful to me.’

“God is literally going to make them faithful to Him. He’s going to give them power to become His faithful people. God’s going to restore Israel and rejoice over her as over a virgin bride.”

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In Isaiah 62, God promises, “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.
[5] For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.”

Jordan says, “That’s that thing about Beulah land—the word means ‘married’ and Hephzi-bah means ‘the one in whom I delight.’ God’s going to take Israel and marry them to the land. He’s going to put them in the land where they never depart again. And then He’s going to have them joined to Him so they’re never separated again.”

Beulah Land is a well-known gospel hymn dating from the late 1800s, in which the chorus goes:

O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land!

As on thy highest mount I stand,

I look away across the sea

Where mansions are prepared for me

And view the shining glory shore

My heaven, my home forever more.

 

Wikipedia defines Isaiah 62:4 as being “in reference to the return of the Jews from their exile in Babylon in which the Jews shall no longer be called Forsaken, but Hephzibah (My Delight Is in Her), and Jerusalem shall no longer be called Desolate, but Beulah (Married). This implies that the Jews have turned back to the worship of God.

“The idea the hymn presents that Heaven can be seen from Beulah land comes from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in which he states "Therefore it is, I say, that the Enchanted ground [i.e. Heaven] is placed so nigh to the land Beulah and so near the end of their race."

 

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Another very famous marriage passage, Jeremiah 31:31-33, states, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
[32] Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
[33] But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Jordan explains, ‘The implication is that what He’s going to do with Israel in the new covenant is to restore the marriage relationship that they’ve broken. He’s going to restore them back to Himself as His wife. That’s why Revelation talks about it being ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ She’s already His wife but now she’s going to be restored back to purity and fidelity.”

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Jordan summarizes, “What’s going on with Israel is they were committing spiritual adultery. They were going after all these other gods, and they were serially being unfaithful to God. They were spiritually polygamists, if you want to say that.

“People talk about polygamy, but I laugh at a culture . . . I was listening on the TV news recently about a Mormon guy in jail for having multiple wives. I’m thinking, ‘How in the world could a congressman put some dude in jail for having multiple wives when they believe in serial polygamy and most of them practice it!’

“Having one wife after another after another after another. I mean, it’s not a whole lot of difference, folks. If you’re going to have one wife and then get you a different one and then get another different one, okay you did it serially and the (Mormons) just did it all at once!

“Many times I’ve quoted (comics curmudgeon) Barney Google: ‘Pity the man with a soul so tough to say one wife is not enough.’ And I find that works the other way too.

“By the way, the passage people use to tell you the Body of Christ is the bride of Christ is generally Ephesians 5, where Paul’s talking about marriage. I scratch my head in wonderment why people would say our marriage is a picture of Christ when that passage says our relationship with Christ is a picture of our marriage. Would you want your marriage to be a picture of your relationship with Christ? Well, I hope not.”