Their Harvest Party
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Context
Context
A false send of security
Celebration of the harvest feast (some suggest this was the Northern Kingdom’s version of the Feast of Booths)
They had corrupted their religion through their idolatry, but they still clung to the Feast of Booths.
Cancel the Harvest Party
Cancel the Harvest Party
Nothing to celebrate
Nothing to celebrate
the Canaanites celebrated in drunkenness and debauchery but the people of God had no business participating in these practices.
The opposite of rejoicing is mourning. Why should Israel mourn here instead of celebrate?
God forsaken
God forsaken
The Northern kingdom’s first king, Jereboam I, deviated from Moses’ commands by establishing a new date for the Feast of Booths in order to lure the people away from Jerusalem, the temple and its priests, and the royal line of David. (1 Ki. 12:32)
32 And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
In addition, instead of living in booths made of sheaves, recalling Israel’s former sojourn, Jereboams’s feast happened on the threshing floors, where the grain was gathered (end of verse 1)
That they have forsaken God and His commandments is no small thing. In some ways, we have heard the same thing more than one in this prophecy: You have played the whore. But keep in mind what Israel was doing. They were claiming the be God’s chosen people, but worshipping as they saw fit. This is no small thing. This was grossly offensive to God.
Judgement pronounced (2-3)
Judgement pronounced (2-3)
The prostitutes wages reflects the fact that Israel saw her harvest bounty as the profit from their false worship. (worshipping Baal, the god of fertility) along with the Lord. (2)
In response to this corruption, God, through Hosea, pronounced judgement. He would remove their celebrations. Everything that they had come to treasure would be taken away. (Like Christmas being cancelled). (2)
The judgement would culminate in exile to the lands of Assyria, which was just a few years away. (3)
Worship Oppressed (4-5)
Worship Oppressed (4-5)
The people of Israel would no longer be in a position to make sacrifices.
While laboring as slaves in Assyria, the people of Israel may ask a slave master for wine to offer on an altar to the Lord, but the answer would be, “no”.
“Mourners bread” refers to the prohibition in Deut. against bread offered by those mourning or in contact with dead bodies. (see Deut. 26:12-14)
12 “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, 13 then you shall say before the Lord your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them. 14 I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God. I have done according to all that you have commanded me.
A fitting punishment for the idolatry committed is the last line of verse 4:
4 … for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
The bread would no longer have any religious function… just to deal with their hunger.
This speaks to the heart if the judgement: cut off from God. The sacrifices were signs of God’s grace and means of reconciliation to Him. This would all be taken away.
Verse 5 sums up the effect of all this:
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,
and on the day of the feast of the Lord?
While captives in a strange land, the Israelites would still be able to mark time. In other words, they would know when the Harvest Feast was due to be celebrated, but they would not be able to celebrate it. It would be like us knowing that Dec. 25 had arrived, but not being able to recognize it in any way.
The Judgement of Exile (6)
The Judgement of Exile (6)
Hosea imagines some fugitives during the days of the exile.
Some will escape to the south in Egypt. They will be snatched there. Memphis was famed not only for its pyramids but also for its cemetery, and that is where the fugitives’ bitter lives would end.
Whatever they considered to be precious possessions would be taken from them. Nettles is a reference to a thorny shrub.
