Hosea 8:1-14

     God instructs Israel to sound the trumpet because an enemy is coming, “Because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law” (Hos. 8:1). Israel cried out to the Lord, claiming they knew Him (Hos. 8:2), but their actions betrayed their claim. In fact, God declares “Israel has rejected the good” by refusing to follow His commands, and so He would judge them by sending an enemy (Hos. 8:3). Israel’s rejection of God was seen in their independent selection of kings (Hos. 8:4a) as well as their idolatrous practices (Hos. 8:4b). Because they’d rejected Him, He rejected their idols in which they’d trusted (Hos. 8:5); idols that could not even protect themselves, as God declares, “Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces” (Hos. 8:6). Israel had brought judgment upon themselves, and God declares, “For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind” (Hos. 8:7a). As a result of their rebellion against God, He would also bring about agricultural devastation (Hos. 8:7b). Having forfeited their own blessing from God, Israel had become common, like the nations around them, and had become “like a vessel in which no one delights” (Hos. 8:8). And like an unreasoning animal—a wild donkey—Israel sought an alliance with Assyria, and so became intimate with them, like a hired lover (Hos. 8:9). However, their political alliances could not stay the hand of God who would “gather them up” for judgment (Hos. 8:10). Israel’s practices had become nationwide, for they’d constructed pagan altars across the land, and so multiplied their sin (Hos. 8:11). This was contrary to how they should have lived, for God had clearly given them His Word, yet His guidance was “regarded as a strange thing” (Hos. 8:12). Though they offered many sacrifices, “the LORD has taken no delight in them” (Hos. 8:13a). Judgment was coming, as Hosea declared, “Now He will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins; they will return to Egypt” (Hos. 8:13b). The sad thing is that “Israel has forgotten His Maker” (Hos. 8:14a), and lived as though He did not exist; and Judah behaved similarly, in that they’d focused on their human projects and “multiplied fortified cities” (Hos. 8:14b). However, Judah would not escape God’s judgment if they followed in Israel’s footsteps, as God announces, “I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings” (Hos. 8:14c). Human cities and fortresses cannot protect in the day of God’s judgment, and this became evident when God sent the Assyrians against Israel and Judah.