Students of military tactics will have recognized the two terms in my title for today’s sermon. The first refers to a superior force finding a weak point in the enemy’s defenses and rolling right over and through the enemy without having to stop for a pitched engagement. The aggressor defeats the enemy force and keeps on moving, securing the area while moving through it. The second term comes from U.S. military doctrine. It means that prior to an advance, a smaller unit than the one advancing takes a position where soldiers can see the positions in front of the larger unit. In this way, the soldiers in “overwatch” can alert the advancing unit to possible ambushes and enemy points of strength, but the “overwatch” unit can also provide covering fire for the advancing units.
In a very sad way, both terms could be used in today’s text. Where verse 1’s second line is often translated, “because they have broken my covenant,” the verb for “have broken” is really the verb “crossed over.” Ironically, even though we suspect that the actual term “Hebrew” comes from a foreign word (“’apiru”) that means trouble-makers, rabble, or thieves, the closest root idea in Hebrew itself is the idea of “crossing over.” And it’s a nice idea since Abram crossed the Euphrates to get to the land of promise, Moses led the people across the Red or Reed Sea to escape from the Egyptians, and Joshua followed God’s instructions in crossing the Jordan to reach the land of promise, as well. Crossing over, as a verbal idea, should have a very positive force in Hebrew understanding. But here, the verb that usually has such a positive connotation has the idea of trespassing or violation. Instead of an act of faith (like crossing a river at flood stage) that affirmed the covenant relationship, Israel had “crossed over” the wrong direction.
As a result of this negative “crossing over” or reverse faith, we are told that Israel needs to sound the alarm. Israel is about to be overrun by an enemy that will strike as fiercely as an eagle (or even more negatively, as a vulture—an unclean bird of prey). Israel is vulnerable because God is no longer providing “overwatch” for them. Let’s see what the text has to say. [Once again, I’ll be using my translation, but I urge you to also read from your primary version.]
v. 1 To your mouth a trumpet, [one] like an eagle (or vulture) upon Yahweh’s house,
on account [of the fact] they have crossed (overrun?) my covenant
and they have rebelled against my torah (law, way, teaching, lifestyle).
v. 2 To me they have cried out for help;
Israel has cried, “My God! We know you.”
v. 3 Israel has rejected good (or the good or the Good One).
An adversary shall pursue him.
The first three verses of this chapter picture a time of alarm. A predator is preparing to dive upon the very household or people of God. We don’t know if that predator is an unclean carrion-eater like a vulture, circling over that “house of God,” or if that predator is an eagle looking for live prey. It’s the same word in Hebrew and both nouns describe birds with large wingspans that glide up in the high winds before diving down on their prey, but eagles have a symbolic role in the Old Testament. Although all of these examples come from later than the time of Hosea, let’s consider Habakkuk 1:8’s description of enemy horsemen flying like eagles swift to devour, Jeremiah 4:13’s depictions of horsemen sent by God Himself as being swifter than eagles, Jeremiah 48:40’s depiction of God spreading His wings against Moab prior to judgment, and Ezekiel 17 where God is pictured as an eagle planting Israel in the land of promise (verses 1-6) before Israel reached out to another authority, an eagle that wasn’t God (verses 7-10) that plants Israel where it can only wither and die.
Clearly, the eagle is usually a symbol of judgment in the Old Testament, and clearly Israel has invoked the presence of this eagle upon itself by going over the line of God’s covenant, violating the boundaries provided in God’s Torah instruction. Now, I know that some translations merely use “law” for “Torah,” but that isn’t the true Hebrew understanding of Torah. Torah is the divine mentor, God teaching us how to live. Torah is the divine lifestyle, living in harmony with God’s instruction. And when Israel (or even we ourselves) get unsynchronized with God’s Torah, we’re headed for disaster. Torah is intended to keep us out of the disaster zone, but Israel kept thinking (and too many times we keep thinking) that it was smarter than God (and that we are smarter than God). Israel wasn’t smarter than God and we aren’t smarter than God.
Of course, when people find themselves in trouble, they cry out for help. The verb for crying out for help that is used here is the verb that is used in Exodus when God heard Israel’s cries. These are cries of desperation. But God seems unmoved, this time. Why? It is because they claim a relationship with God, they say that they know Him, but they have rejected the good, the Torah, the lifestyle that God gave them.
Now, the very people who rejected the goodness of God are going to be pursued, hunted, chased as prey by an enemy. The beggars who thought they could be choosers now find themselves on the run—a run for their lives.
The next few verses explain what has happened. Let’s see what they say, following our same format.
v. 4 They made kings and not from me (did they get any direction).
They made princes and I do not know them.
Their silver and their gold they use to make for themselves idols
for the sake of cutting it (goodness? covenant?) off.
v. 5 Your bull, Samaria, is rejected.
My anger is come against them.
How long will they not be able to be free from guilt?
v. 6 Because an artisan from Israel made it (the bull) and it is not God,
because the bull of Samaria shall be shattered (lit. become pieces).
v. 7 Because they shall plant the wind
and harvest the storm wind.
Grain that doesn’t sprout doesn’t make meal.
[I like James Luther Mays’ “Grain without head doesn’t yield bread.”]
(Even) if it did (sprout), foreigners would devour it.
Does this sound familiar? Instead of getting direction for all of life from their relationship with God, the people of Israel settled for political expediency. God was to have been their King, but they settled for human kings. As a result, they ended up with bloody coups, rival dynasties, and marriages of convenience with daughters from pagan nations. Everything was compromise, so everything was compromised. This wasn’t God’s plan.
Of course, there are far too many business executives who claim God’s lordship but give in to economic expediency—cutting corners for the sake of the deal and the quarter’s profits rather than being as honest as God wants them (us) to be. There are far too many citizens who vote for political expediency—following family tradition or one’s own prejudice rather than seeking God’s direction in the exercise of citizenship. There are far too many believers who settle for intellectual expediency—following the latest cultural or academic fad rather than examining all claims in the light of God’s Truth. There are far too many believers who settle for sensual expediency, figuring that if it feels good they’ll do it and rationalize their behavior at a later date. None of these examples is anything less than making kings and princes without God’s direction or approval.
Worse, the second part of verse 4 tells us that they used the economic advantages that God had given them to make idols, false gods that would cut something off. Now, you notice that my translation suggested “cutting off” the “covenant.” I say this because the verb used here is the same word that is used elsewhere in the Old Testament for “making” a covenant. When nations or individuals made “covenants” (which means treaty or contract, essentially) during Old Testament times, they almost always involved making a sacrifice to seal the contract and show each party’s good will. So, making a covenant came to be known as “cutting” a covenant because they would cut up an animal (sometimes whole donkeys, sometimes calves or lambs) to show the serious nature of the deal.
Now, instead of making a treaty, deal, contract, or covenant with God, Israel has used God’s own blessings as an opportunity to sin. Imagine if you will that a wife uses the gift of a fancy car given by her husband to drive to an assignation with a lover. What extra salt that would throw in the wound! Imagine if you will that a son uses money given to him by his parents to found a rival company to destroy his parents’ business! What a horrible betrayal! Yet, that’s the type of betrayal we see in Hosea 8:4.
In verse 5, God gets even more specific. God tells Samaria that its bull is rejected. What is this talking about? Samaria is the capital city of the northern kingdom. When Jeroboam I led the split from Judah, he had images erected in Dan (one of the northernmost cities) and Bethel (one of the southernmost cities) so that no worshippers would have to leave the political confines of the northern kingdom in order to worship. And, in spite of the fact that verses like Leviticus 19:4 express forbid the worship of idols, Jeroboam stated that the idols he placed in Israel represented the gods (note the plural) that had brought them out of Egypt (I Kings 12:28). Yet, God Himself was the One who had brought Israel out of Egypt. In short, he was using something God had expressly forbidden to represent an erroneous view of God in order to manipulate the people of God.
And then, we have verse 5 closing with a rhetorical question, a question that demands a negative response. It is a double negative meaning that Israel cannot remain free from guilt if the nation continues in its idolatrous behavior. Verse 6 continues the idea because it indicates that Israel is helpless. The nation has made a god that cannot be a god. When the enemy comes, the helpless idol will be melted down into splinters or slivers of gold, shattered because it cannot protect itself.
Verse 7 is one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, even though we’ve often heard it outside of its context. “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” we say. As an English axiom, we mean that the consequences are more severe than we anticipated in the beginning. We apply it with equal aplomb to bad risk management, a poor work ethic, unfortunate decisions, and poor planning in general. In context, it means that we think we can weather life without God’s help, but when we start things rolling, we end up creating a hurricane force of grief for ourselves.
The verse goes on to say that grain which doesn’t mature can’t sustain anyone. In the context, God is telling Israel that none of its plans were truly going to reach fruition. Then, it goes on to say that even if Israel’s plans reached fruition, they would be devoured by strangers.
The verse suggests, to me at least, that when one plans without getting direction from God, there are three possible results. First, we can set off a chain of events that gets quickly out of our control. Just as many scientists thought of atomic power as a potential source of energy rather than destruction and felt such intense guilt in the aftermath of Hiroshima that they actually started to pass along secrets to the Communists to try to restore balance, so are the plans of humanity when we ignore God’s purpose.
Second, it suggests that ignoring God’s direction makes it unlikely that we can actually achieve what we set out to achieve. I recently saw a picture in the archives of the University of Kentucky that showed a head of wheat that had been frozen on the top but was still alive at the bottom. As a result, the top part was useless; it hadn’t reached maturity and would not provide any meal. The Old Testament scholar, James Luther Mays, translated this, “Grain without head yields no bread.” Wheat without a harvestable crop is merely grass. And, life without God’s direction is merely a shadow of what it can be with God’s presence and power.
Third, it suggests that if we are determined to achieve without God’s participation in our lives and surrendering to God’s purpose, we are apt to have our achievements taken over by others. We are like great entrepreneurs who build great corporations and fortunes enough to found a family dynasty, yet like William Randolph Hearst might have to give away the jewel of our kingdom (in his case, San Simeon Castle) to pay the inheritance tax. We are like one of my former employers who built a huge publishing empire from the smaller empire he inherited from his father. He expected his three sons to take over the corporation, but they weren’t interested. First, a corporate raider and then, a global corporation, and then, the stockholders, and finally, the bankruptcy courts took over the business in which he and his father had invested their lives. The grain was devoured by “foreigners.”
Finally, in the last half of the chapter, we are told that Israel itself has been swallowed up just as verse 7 had told us that Israel’s efforts would be devoured by foreigners. Now, instead of being God’s marvelous vessel, God’s perfect pottery, Israel has became a broken pot or leaky jug (an unreliable vessel with no aesthetic value). Let’s read on:
v. 8 Israel has been swallowed.
They are among the nations like a jar with no pleasure in her.
v. 9 Because they have gone up to Assyria,
(like) a wild ass wandering alone, Ephraim gives love gifts.
v. 10 Even though they give (love gifts) among the nations,
I will gather them and they will writhe from the burden of the king of princes.
v. 11 Because Ephraim made many altars for (atoning for) sin (that) became for him,
altars for sinning.
v. 12 I wrote for him a great deal of my torah (my way, my lifestyle, my law)
(yet) they are reckoned (accounted) for them as alien.
v. 13 Sacrifices they love, so they sacrifice; flesh so they eat,
(but) Yahweh does not accept (them)
and now he will remember their iniquities
and visit (with judgment) their sins. They will return to Egypt.
v. 14 Israel forgot his maker and proceeded to build palaces
and Judah proceeded to multiply cities, fortified ones,
and I will send fire upon her cities
and I will devour her strongholds.
Verse 9 tells us that Israel has rejected God’s guidance and wandered like a wild ass, giving love gifts everywhere like a promiscuous lover who gives gifts to his or her multiple lovers. Israel hopes to buy favor (probably referring to the tribute that Israel was paying to Tiglath-pileser III). Instead, Israel will end up (verse 10) in an abusive relationship where this royal lover will oppress Israel into great sorrow.
In the final four verses, we see that altars are misused in verses 11 and 13, while God’s Torah and creation are ignored in verses 12 and 14. Instead of using the altars and sacrifices to glorify God and signify submission to God’s authorities, Israel was actually sinning by using the altars to give gifts to false gods. Now (verse 13), they want to offer the sacrifices and participate in the ceremonial meals to get forgiveness and gain God’s favor. Yet, God states that He won’t accept the sacrifices and that He will hold their sins against them such that they return back to where they started—slavery in Egypt.
This is a clever way of saying that if one has no relationship with God, life goes full circle and one ends up back at square one, a slavery where one doesn’t belong. And it works that way for us. We can pray and we can worship—even take the Lord’s Supper, but if we aren’t really interested in living according to God’s will, God will have to use the circumstances of our lives as that “heavenly sandpaper” necessary to grind off the rough edges that don’t fit His will.
Verse 12 is extremely sad. When God states that the Torah was written as a mentor, teacher, trainer, or coach for Israel, but Israel ignored it, it’s stating that Israel rejected the universe’s best possible advice. But the verse goes on to draw the picture as even worse. Notice the verb “reckoned,” as in “reckoned” to be something foreign or alien? This is the opposite of how we’re used to seeing this verb. It is the same verb used in Genesis 15 when God “reckoned” (“accounted,” “credited”) Abram’s faith to be the same as righteousness. God reckoned or credited Abram’s faith to be of such value that it counted on the eternal books as righteousness—a righteousness that neither Abram nor you and I can claim on our own. Now, Israel credited God’s Torah as being of such little value that it seems like foreign refuse, unclean or contaminated way.
In the same way, verse 14 states that Israel forgot its own Creator and became a creator itself. As a creator, Israel accomplished a lot. Yet, when one accomplishes a lot without God’s direction and provision, it can be destroyed quite easily. And that’s exactly what God tells Israel He is going to do.
So, what’s the message for you and me? I believe it’s that we have a choice between overrunning God’s direction and having God perform overwatch for us. We can have our lives go out of control, fail to reach our potential, or be stolen by the influence of others or we can receive rather than reject God’s Torah (coaching, counsel, instruction, and mentoring) and find our full potential with God’s help. Israel made the wrong choice. What is yours?
