The Prophet in Tekoah.
King Jeroboam II was now an old man. The vehemence and determination and aggressiveness that had made him a far-famed conqueror had been mellowed by the years and rarely, if ever, showed themselves.
The note he received from Amaziah regarding Amos, however, awoke the old spirit in him. The dispatch of the section of the royal guard with orders for the Prophet's immediate arrest was in line with the way Jeroboam did things during the days when he personally led his armies.
But instead of having Amos put in chains and thrown into a dungeon, Jeroboam had him brought into his presence. The king wanted to see and speak to the man who, according to Amaziah, had conspired against him and the God of Israel and was proclaiming the doom of his dynasty.
Amos, who had never seen the king face to face, who had never even been inside any of the royal palaces, was, nevertheless, calm and cool as usual. The splendor of the throne room and the crowd of officers and counselors did not in the least affright him. He made a low obeisance to his king and waited for the order to rise.
Jeroboam was a much keener man than Amaziah. When he saw Amos, studied his bearing, the seriousness of his face, the simplicity of his garb, he recognized at once that before him stood an uncommon man.
Amos neither smiled the smirky smile of him who is anxious to get into the king's good graces, nor did he tremble like a coward, who, being caught, feared the king. He waited for Jeroboam to speak.
From the messenger who brought Amaziah's note the king had learned something about Amos and about the things he was telling the people. Having supposed the Prophet to be either a traitor or a madman, but judging him now to be neither one nor the other, Jeroboam now was puzzled as to the manner in which to speak to him.
Jeroboam looked quizzically at Amos for a few moments and began:
"Thou, then, art the Prophet?"
"I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees," Amos replied.
"But thou speakest evil against the king and against the house ofIsrael," exclaimed Jeroboam.
"The Lord God hath commanded me," answered Amos, with deep humility.
"Thou art a traitor and thou shalt die," threatened the king.
"I can but speak," calmly replied Amos, "even if thou slay me."
Jeroboam made the threat to take the Prophet's life in order to test him. He figured that it would send Amos groveling to his knees, begging for mercy. The quiet manner in which he accepted the threat however, puzzled the king. He concluded that Amos must be either exceedingly brave or hopelessly crazy.
Now, a man who is not afraid to die, be he brave or crazy, is a very dangerous man to have around. It would have been easy enough to behead Amos and be done with him, but Jeroboam was not a king who took his subjects' lives ruthlessly—especially when it was so simple to get rid of an undesirable one in another way.
"Then go to thy flocks and sycamores," commanded Jeroboam, "and speak to them."
The king's humorous sally called forth a great shout of laughter from those who were present. Jeroboam, smiling, waved his hand, indicating that the interview was over. The guard closed around Amos and he was led into an outer hall. After a short wait he was informed that, by command of the king, he must leave Bethel on that very day and never set foot in the Kingdom of Israel again.
Had Jeroboam himself been a wicked man like King Ahab, Amos, no doubt, would have disregarded the threat against his life and would have confronted the king in his palace, as Elijah confronted Ahab in Naboth's vineyard. Jeroboam, as ruler, however, did not oppress or mistreat the people. Being an old man, resting on the laurels of his great victories and knowing from his friends and counselors and the size of the royal treasury that his empire was rich and the people peaceful, Jeroboam probably had no idea of the corruption and injustice that was rampant in the land. He would have laughed at the thought of it.
Besides, and this was the important thing with Amos, it would have been folly for him to sacrifice his life at this time. To die a martyr for a cause is a noble and beautiful thing—if martyrdom will in any way advance this cause. To have confronted Jeroboam or to have remained in Bethel would have meant certain death—and, to die then would have meant an end to the crusade that he was just beginning against the oppression of the poor, the denial of justice, the unrighteousness in business dealings and the misunderstanding of God and His worship: it would have meant an end to his set purpose to warn Israel against Assyria, the enemy approaching from the North, and against the inability to meet this enemy, because of the immorality that was weakening the nation.
He had plenty of time to think this over as he wended his way mournfully out of the busy and joyful thoroughfares of Bethel to his quiet, though beloved Tekoah.
Amos found to his great joy that he did not now stand alone. Many who had heard him, had understood him. When the news that he had been driven out of Israel spread, many followed him to Judah and accompanied him to his home in Tekoah.
As was always the case with Amos in a crisis, he thought quickly and arrived at a new plan of action speedily. On his way to Tekoah he selected from among his followers men who could write—scribes—and confided to them that from now on he must confine all his wealth to the spreading of his ideas throughout the empire by means of the written word.
After all, God had willed it that he should be driven back to Tekoah. Amos, as a speaker, could address a crowd only in one place at one time. In listening to a speech, too, much of what the speaker says is lost to his hearers. Therefore, Amos concluded, God had willed it that he should return to Tekoah, write out his speeches and his warnings, send them to the farthest ends of the land that all the people may read and study and understand in order that they may return speedily to God; seek good and not evil, that the nation may live.
By day, he and his followers tended the flocks and gathered the fruit of sycamore trees. All the products that were sent to market were sold by honest weight and measure and at honest prices.
By night, he and his scribes wrote out the speeches that he had delivered in Israel, and especially in Bethel, added new ones and sent them with trusted messengers to all parts of Judah and Israel.
Amos was thus probably the first prophet who wrote down his speeches. What we have of them, however, are only fragments. There is not one speech complete as it was originally written or delivered. The fragments are collected in the Biblical book, called "Amos." Through this book the name of the humble herdsmen of Tekoah is written large in the history of religion.
It was Amos who first conceived of God as the God, not of Israel alone, but of all peoples:
"Are you not as the Ethiopians to me,O Israel? saith God.Did I not bring Israel up out of the land of Egypt,And the Philistines from Caphtor,And the Syrians from Kir?"
It was Amos who first appeared as the public champion of the poor and downtrodden, who publicly denounced the greed of the rich and the corruption of the men in power:
"For I know how manifold are your transgressions,And how mighty are your sins—Ye, that trample upon the poor,That afflict the just, that take a bribe,And that turn away the needy in the gate."
It was Amos who first cried out against the mistaken idea that animal sacrifices were what God asked of His people:
"Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and meal-offeringsIn the wilderness, forty years, O house of Israel?"
It was Amos who first brought forward the great and universal truth that God judges every human being, no matter what the race or color, according to his or her acts:
"Seek good and not evil,That ye may live;Seek God and ye shall live."
It was Amos who first made clear, that God demands of men, above all things, justice and righteousness:
"Let justice roll down as a flood of water,And righteousness like a never-failing stream."
We do not know definitely what became of Amos.
One tradition has it that he came to Jerusalem and, while he was denouncing Uzziah, king of Judah, Uzziah struck him on the forehead with a piece of glowing iron. As a result of the blow, Amos died while preaching in the hope of saving his people in Jerusalem, as his father died while fighting in defense of Jerusalem, in the hope of saving his country.
The probabilities are, however, that Amos lived peacefully with his disciples among his sycamore trees near Tekoah, until he had completed the writing of his speeches and saw to their distribution all over Israel, believing that there was yet time for the people of Israel to return to God and to save the nation from the calamity that was threatening it.
An Eventful Night.
Whenever Jezreel was sent early to bed, although he had been a good boy during the day, and, in addition, when his little sister and brother were ordered to go with him, he knew the evening would be another one of those that made his little heart ache.
Jezreel was only ten years old, but he was sharp and keen for his age. He understood that his parents wanted him out of reach and sound. Twice before, on similar occasions, after he had recited his night prayer and the maid-servant had tucked him in his bed, he lay with his eyes closed tight but wide awake, listening.
He knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he could not sleep. He heard his father and mother talking to each other loudly, but could not make out just what they were saying. Their voices, however, he felt, were not soft and sweet, as they usually were, when they addressed the children.
On this particular evening, as he went out of the dining-room with Lo-ruhamah, his seven-year-old sister, and Lo-ammi, his four-year-old brother, Jezreel made up his mind to do a very unusual thing. He determined not to sleep at all.
That afternoon, his father, Hosea, had returned from Bethel all out of sorts. The children had been expecting him, as they always did, when he came home from the sanctuary, to bring the usual little gifts; but the father seemed to have forgotten them. In fact, Hosea was quite irritated when, not understanding his father's mood, Lo-ammi cried for the expected sweets or trinkets.
In a little while, however, Hosea, calmed his youngest son and promised all three of the children that, in the morning, he would take them to the bazaars in the market place, to buy what they pleased.
Just then their mother, Gomer, came in. She was a beautiful woman, dressed in the latest fashions of the wealthy Samarians. Her robes were long and flowing. A veil, woven of golden threads and imported from Assyria, set off her jet-black hair. Her arms and fingers were adorned with jewel-studded bracelets and rings. She was accompanied by an Ethiopian slave.
Strange to say, the children did not rush to their mother, except little Lo-ammi, who was fond of the jeweled things she wore.
Gomer, on the other hand, did not seem to feel hurt that the children clung to their father and quite ignored her. After a formal greeting to her husband, and a pat of Lo-ammi's head, Gomer retired to her own room.
A little later the evening meal was announced, and, immediately after they had eaten, Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah and the baby were told to go to bed.
Their attendant, satisfied that the three children were fast asleep, left the room and went about her business. Thereupon Jezreel got out of bed, moved a chair near to the door, sat down and listened.
Below he heard his father's and mother's voices. Words were spoken in a high, shrill tone, loud and harsh, but indistinct. There were short periods of silence, followed by explosive sentences that sounded like threats. If he could only understand what it was all about! But he couldn't, until, finally all was silent in the room below.
Then Jezreel heard the street door close with a bang.
Going to the window that looked out into the street, Jezreel saw his mother standing alone in front of the house. It was an unusually moonlit night. Samaria, a beautiful city in the daytime, was a very dark and gloomy place at night, except when the moon and stars reigned in their glory in clear skies. This happened to be just such a night.
The yellow moon was reflected from the red-tiled housetops. In the distance were the famous Samarian houses of stone and marble, dark and foreboding against the moonlight. Above all the houses towered the royal palace—in which Zechariah, Jeroboam II's son, had been king since his father died, six months before—with its bright, gilded domes, like a sentinel wearing a brass helmet.
But the little boy, in his night clothes, looking out of the window of his room into the moonlit and shadowed street, saw only his mother standing there below.
His attention was called suddenly away from the window by loud sobbing. He hurried to the door, but did not dare open it. He listened until the sobbing ceased. Then he returned to the window, to find the street empty and deserted. His mother had evidently gone away.
He shivered. He folded his arms tightly, as if hugging himself to keep warm. Then he brought his chair from the door to the table, sat down and listened. In the room below he heard his father walking up and down with regular step. The house was completely silent but for Hosea's footfalls.
Jezreel drew his legs up under him on the chair. He was tired and rested his head upon his arms on the table. The silence and the monotony of the regular heavy walking in the room under him, made him drowsy. His little heart ached, though he could not explain why. He tried hard to keep awake, but finally fell asleep, there at the table. At one time he shivered, when the street door of the house shut again with a bang; but he did not wake up.
Below, a great big, powerful man had been keeping up a continuous march up and down the room. He was brooding over the events that had just preceded and thinking over the years of his married life.
When Hosea first met Gomer, she lived in her father's home in one of the poorest sections of Samaria. Diblaim, Gomer's father, was a poor man and could not give his daughter the advantages other girls in Samaria enjoyed. But Hosea loved Gomer most devotedly and he married her.
Son of the priest Beeri, Hosea inherited great wealth and a position among the priests at the Bethel sanctuary. He was thus able to give Gomer not only a beautiful home in one of the city's most beautiful suburbs, but also to introduce her to the royal and social leaders of Samaria.
After a few years, however, everything seemed to go wrong in the Hosea household. Gomer developed a weakness for luxury and jewels and fine clothes; she used to be away from the house and the children most of the time; she did not understand her husband, his desire for quiet evenings at home with the children and his dislike of the pomp and display at the court and in society. And that night, Hosea and Gomer parted, Gomer going home to her father.
Hosea felt very much oppressed. Walking up and down the room brought him no relief. So he rushed out of the house into the night, into the open, where he could breathe more freely—and think. It was the bang of the door behind him that disturbed Jezreel, asleep at the table.
But Hosea's brain was all clogged up. It could not dwell upon a single line of thought for five consecutive minutes. And yet he was so thoroughly absorbed in his thoughts, that he did not notice any number of people excitedly hurrying past him.
He walked on toward the center of the city in a daze. The first time he realized that he was not alone on the streets of Samaria was when he found himself being jostled in a wide thoroughfare leading to the market place.
Then he was awakened out of the stupor in which he had left his home by cries, coming from several directions:
"Shallum!"
"Long live the king!"
"Long life to Shallum!"
Shallum? Who was Shallum? Why was the name being shouted in the streets of Samaria?
Hosea, trying to find his bearings, was asking himself these questions when he arrived in the market place.
There an unusual and most unexpected sight met him. The place was filled with people. Troops were fighting in front of the royal palace. From the palace, which was brightly illuminated, soldiers and plain citizens were pouring forth in a stream. Above the shrieking of men and women and the clang of contending arms, he heard enthusiastic shouts:
"King Zechariah is dead! Long live King Shallum!"
What? Zechariah dead!
In a flash the whole situation was made clear to Hosea. Now he recalled that down at Bethel, the king's sanctuary, someone had spoken to him of a movement that was on foot to depose the king.
Hosea knew that Zechariah was unlike his great father, Jeroboam II, whom he succeeded in the year 742 B. C. E. The new king was a weakling. Upon his accession to the throne, Syria refused to pay the annual tribute, revolted, and Zechariah could not help himself. The wealth of the people, the luxury they lived in, the disorganization of the army by corruption, the oppression of the poor, the injustices practiced in business and in the courts of law, had unfitted Israel to wage war against Syria, or any other nation, for that matter.
Zechariah, in the six months that he ruled Samaria, therefore, lost all that had been gained by his illustrious father. Hosea, however, did not look for an insurrection in Samaria.
But here it was: Zechariah was dead and Shallum—yes, Shallum, the son of Jabesh, the one mentioned to Hosea as the probable successor—had been proclaimed king. When Shallum was spoken of, down at Bethel, Hosea had paid no particular attention. He was occupied with his own family troubles then, as he was in the presence of this history-making event. The threatened revolution was the farthest thought from his mind, at that time as it was at this moment.
Therefore, before Hosea had grasped the full significance of either of the two events that had occurred that night, he was jostled into a side street by the mob that now filled the market place.
Sick at heart, Hosea did not stop to see the bloodshed and the horror, nor to listen to the story of the revolt, but walked on to the outskirts of the city.
His head swam from the excitement. His temples pounded like sledge hammers. As he walked on, his feet grew heavy and dragged. Just how he got there Hosea did not know, but suddenly he found himself in front of his own home.
The day was now dawning. The first rays of the sun were shooting their way through the early morning mist and playing on the bedewed stones of the house. Hosea entered quietly, and walked up to the children's bed room. To his amazement he found Jezreel asleep on his arms at the table.
As he gazed for a moment upon the children, Hosea's heart was wrung with sorrow. He picked Jezreel up from the chair. The boy, asleep, clung tightly about his father's neck. Hosea laid him in his bed, covered him, kissed him and, with bowed head, went to his own room.
And while little Jezreel was dreaming that a great giant came to his home, picked up the house and shook it, carried it away to a beautiful valley and brought back his mother, Hosea sat at the window and watched and watched, until the morning's duties called him.
The Tragedy With a Purpose.
King Shallum soon discovered that a stolen throne is no sweeter than any other stolen thing. A palace is no more protection against conscience than a hovel; and Shallum passed miserable days of fear and nights of sleeplessness, because of his murder of Zechariah.
Smitten by his conscience and tortured in mind, Shallum was not able to collect a large force of followers to protect him or his ill-gotten throne. When, therefore, a plot was set on foot to dethrone him, Shallum was helpless.
Menahem, the son of Gadi, one of Jeroboam II's generals, organized an expedition against the usurper in Tirzah, the city that was the capital of Israel for fifty years after the Kingdom of Solomon was divided. Within a month after Shallum had proclaimed himself King of Israel, Menahem marched from Tirzah to Samaria, attacked Shallum, defeated him, and, in turn, mounted the throne of Jeroboam.
Instead of ruling peaceably in Samaria, however, Menahem started a reign of terror, until nobody in the country seemed safe in his home or in his possessions.
Trouble came for the new king thick and fast.
Tiglath-Pileser III, who had been ruling in Assyria since 745, and against whom Amos had warned the weakened Kingdom of Israel, had accomplished many conquests north of Israel, in Phoenicia and in the frontier lands of Damascus.
In the year 738, Tiglath-Pileser was knocking at the gates of Damascus and threatening Samaria. In order to keep the Assyrian conqueror off, and save their countries the spoliation and ruin that followed in the wake of the Assyrian armies, Menahem, together with Rezin, King of Damascus, the Kings of Tyre, Hamath, and other small states, agreed to pay him tribute.
Menahem's share was the enormous sum of one thousand talents of silver. To raise this amount, he levied a tax of fifty silver shekels each on "all the mighty men of wealth," both priests and merchants, in the kingdom.
Now, the lawlessness started by Shallum and the anarchy continued byMenahem had had their effect. The great sum of money needed forTiglath-Pileser was raised by "all the mighty men of wealth;" but itwas ground out of the poor by cheating, robbery and even murder.
The conditions against which the Prophet Amos cried out were now apparent to all observers. The final overthrow of the kingdom, which Amos declared to be but a matter of time, was now evident to all patriotic lovers of their country.
These conditions were clear as the light of day, especially to Hosea. Being a priest himself, he knew how the very priests at the sanctuaries had entered upon secret understandings with rebel associates of Menahem and the wealthy merchants to raise the Assyrian tribute at the expense of the people. Being a lover of his fatherland, he knew that these sins and crimes against God and men must react upon the nation as a whole and rush it on to destruction.
Hosea, like Amos, therefore, felt himself called upon by God to warn his people, and, if possible, to save his country. He could no longer stand aside and see rulers, priests and "all the mighty men of wealth" despoiling his well-beloved fatherland. He must speak words of reproach and warning. He must open the eyes of his people to the calamity that was ahead of them.
One night Hosea was at home brooding over his own family troubles and thinking of the future of his country. He had just seen the children to bed and his mind was dwelling on Gomer, their mother, from whom he had not heard a single word since she went away. As he came downstairs he heard shouting and screaming and hurrying footsteps. Going into the street, he learned that another of those attacks on peaceful people had been made by a company of Menahem's followers for the purpose of robbery.
This did not surprise Hosea in the least. What did chagrin and pain him was the discovery that the attacking party was under the direction of several priests whom, he knew personally.
All that night this phrase kept running through his mind—"Like people, like priest." And, strange to say, the thought of Gomer, his wife, whom he loved devotedly, whom he never ceased loving, kept on intruding itself into his thoughts about his country.
By morning, however, the whole situation had cleared up for him. Israel, its rulers and priests were like Gomer. God loved the whole people of Israel devotedly as Hosea loved Gomer, but Israel does not always understand what God desires of His people any more than Gomer understood what Hosea desired of her. If Gomer had continued loving her husband, as from the beginning, she would never have left him; if Israel had continued loving God, as from the beginning, Israel would never have strayed away from His law and commandments. What is to be done? Israel lacks knowledge of God and His will! Israel is being taught falsehoods by priests and prophets! Israel does not understand God's loving-kindness toward His people! Israel must be warned! Israel must be taught!
Hosea had determined what to do. His unhappiness at the departure of his wife was somewhat lightened now, because he read God's mission to him in the tragedy of his home. He felt himself ordained to be a preacher to Israel—and he went to work.
From that day on he traveled the wide land over, preaching to the people against the corrupt priesthood and against the usurpers of the throne of Samaria.
"Hear the word of God, ye children of Israel,For God hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land,For there is no truth, nor loving-kindness,Nor knowledge of God in the land;There is naught but perjury and lying,Murder and stealing,Violence and bloodshed.Therefore doth the land mourn,And all its inhabitants languish.
"Yet, let none bring charges,And let none reprove,Since my people are but as their priestlings.My people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge.Because thou has rejected knowledgeI will also reject thee,That thou shalt be no priest to me.Since thou hast forgotten the instruction of thy God,I will also forget thy children.I will change their glory into shame,And it shall be, like people, like priest.The people that doth not understand shall be overthrown!"
Hosea naturally, met opposition everywhere on the part of the priesthood and the hirelings of the king. Undaunted, he rebuked Menahem and the usurping rulers in Samaria, as well as the priests and the unrighteous people.
"Hear this, O ye priests!And hearken, O house of Israel,And give heed, O house of the king,Since for you is the judgment.They themselves have made kings, without my consent;They have made princes, but without my knowledge.For they commit falsehood;The thief entereth in and the troop of robbers ravageth without.And they consider not in their heartsThat I remember all their wickedness."
Then, his heart aching with pain, and remembering the sorrow of his life, which led him to prophesy, he concludes:
"What shall I do unto you, O Ephraim!What shall I do unto you, O Israel—Since your love is like a morning cloud,Yea, like the dew which goes early away."
But the people as a whole, having been taught by the unworthy prients, still believed that, in offering sacrifices, all their sins and crimes were forgiven them by God. Amos had objected strenuously to this common belief. Hosea went a step further and decried the act of sacrificing as an act of idolatry.
Referring bitterly to Bethel as Bethaven (the House of Violence)Hosea replied:
"Come not ye into Gilgal,Neither go ye up to Beth-aven,Nor swear, 'As God liveth.'In Bethel I have seen a horrible thing;All their wickedness is in Gilgal;For there I hated them.Because of the wickedness of their doings,I will drive them out of my house;I will love them no more.They shall go with their flocksAnd with their herds to seek God;But they shall not find Him;He hath withdrawn Himself from them."
Every place where Hosea denounced the sacrifices, the people who heard him, but could not or would not understand, called him a fool and said that he was mad. "Yes," replied Hosea:
"The prophet is a fool,The man that hath the spirit is madBecause of the abundance of thine iniquity.They shall cry unto me,'My God, we Israel know Thee.'(But) Israel hath cast off that which is good;Israel hath forgotten his Maker.And now they go on sinning,They make for themselves molten gods,From their silver, idols according to their own model,Smith's work, all of it!To such they speak!Men who sacrifice, kiss calves!They sow the wind and shall reap the whirlwind!"
After that Hosea followed up his rebuke and denunciation with most pathetic entreaties:
"Sow to yourselves righteousness,So shall ye reap loving-kindness.Break up your fallow ground,For it is time to seek the Lord,That the fruit of righteousness may come upon you.But ye have plowed wickedness,Ye have reaped disaster,Ye have eaten the fruit of lies.It is love I delight in, and not sacrifice,Knowledge of God and not burnt-offering."
When the time came for Menahem to send the tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Hosea discovered that even here the king and his advisers were double-dealing with Assyria. The sending of the money to the great emperor was only a blind on the part of Menahem.
Secretly he was in communication with the King of Egypt, sending precious gifts to him. Menahem wanted to create an alliance between Israel and Egypt against Tiglath-Pileser.
Hosea saw the folly of it all. He knew that neither the tribute to Assyria nor the proposed alliance with Egypt could help the corrupt, degraded people. He compares Menahem's double-dealing to the action of a silly dove, and concludes:
"Samaria shall bear her guilt,For she has rebelled against her God.Shall I deliver them from the power of Sheol?Shall I redeem them from death?Come, on with thy plagues, O Death!On with thy pestilence, O Sheol!Repentance is forever hid from mine eyes."
This terrible pronouncement, almost a curse, brought Hosea back to his home all wrought up. Never had he spoken so harshly. Never had he felt so deeply the doom of Israel.
He found his children in the playroom, playing an old game called "Mother." After watching them for a moment in silence and in thought, his heart was almost crushed by a question his little girl put to him:
"When is our real mother coming home?"
For answer he drew Lo-ruhamah close to his heart—and wept. Hosea did not know; only God knew.
All the love he bore for Gomer came back in an overwhelming flood. She had strayed from him, but his love had never lessened. Would that he could find her! With all her faults he would forgive her, if she would repent and return. And yet, that morning, he had been so harsh. He preached that Israel must bear its guilt and that God had forever hid repentance from before Him.
If he, a man, could love so deeply and could be willing to forgive, how much the more so does God love His people; how much the more so will God have compassion and forgive, if Israel will repent and return to Him?
And that very night it seemed that God had ordained an ordeal forHosea to test him and inspire him in his further work as a prophet.
A message was brought to Hosea that his wife, Gomer, was to be sold as a slave at public auction, in the slave market of Samaria, on the morrow!
The Repentant Returns.
With a bowed head, though with a stout heart, Hosea went to the market place on the following morning. He mingled with the people in the vicinity of the slave auction district, watching particularly a certain block, on which, he was told, Gomer was to be offered for sale.
He studied carefully every woman that was put upon the block. At last he recognized her. But how changed she seemed. Her beauty, for which she had been famous, was gone. Her straight erect form was stooped. Her eyes, once proud, were cast down. She had a forlorn, hopeless look, as if she didn't care what happened to her. Evidently she had suffered greatly.
Where had she been during the past four years? What hardships had she been through that she was so changed? Why did she fall so low that she had to be sold into slavery?
The answers to these questions would have made no difference in the plan Hosea had determined to follow with Gomer. Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, he raised bid after bid, until he bought her for "fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley and a half-homer of barley."
Gomer was not at all concerned about the one who had purchased her. She did not take a single glance in the direction of those who were bidding for her. When sold, she stepped wearily down from the block and waited listlessly to be claimed by the owner and taken away.
Hosea approached her, stepped to her side and spoke her name in a low voice: "Gomer!"
She raised her eyes and looked at him as through a haze. Hosea, too, had changed much during the past four years. His love for Gomer, the uncertainty of her whereabouts, his grief, his constant preaching to Israel that fell on deaf ears, had made deep furrows in his face and brought wrinkles to his forehead.
"Come with me," he said softly to her.
For a moment Gomer stared at him; then she fell in a dead faint at his feet.
It was a long time before she revived. Sorrow and repentance for her foolishness in leaving a home where her husband loved her and where her children would have worshiped her, had she permitted them to do so, had sapped all her strength. The sudden shock of seeing Hosea and the knowledge that he had bought her as a slave nearly killed her.
But Hosea had no thought of revenge. In his great heart there was naught but love for Gomer.
On their way home Gomer began:
"I regret," she said, "I am sorry—"
But Hosea stopped her. He would not even listen to words of explanation from her whom he loved. He knew that she must have suffered much, that she was unhappy. It was sufficient now that she was sorry, that she had repented. Hosea did not want to cause her the pain of a recital of her sorrows.
That is the way people who love truly do. They forgive and forget, quickly and without causing pain.
Hosea had the children removed to the home of a friend for several months. During that time Gomer quickly recovered from her trials and returned to health and beauty. Then he brought the children back and restored them to their real mother.
Once, after the reunited family had spent a very happy evening, a tremendous truth came home to Hosea. Here they were all happy, as if trouble had never entered to disturb the sweetness and beauty of their lives! Why had sorrow and suffering come upon them at all?
Then and there Hosea realized that there was a purpose in his home tragedy. He understood better than ever before that God had selected him to be a prophet to his people; that God had taught him through sorrow and suffering, the lesson he was to teach to Israel.
Israel had become faithless to God and had left His law; even as Gomer had left her husband. God grieved for the sins of Israel; even as he had grieved for Gomer who had strayed from him. God loved His people, nevertheless; even as he loved Gomer, continually. God was prepared to take Israel back under His guiding and loving care, when Israel would repent of its backsliding and sinning; even as he did with Gomer.
From that day on Hosea's preaching took on a different form. He no longer scolded and condemned, but entreated and pleaded with his people:
"Return, O Israel, to the Lord thy God,For thou hast stumbled through thine iniquity.Take words with theeAnd return to God.Say to Him,'Pardon Thou wholly iniquityAnd receive (us) with favor.Assyria will not save us,We will not ride upon horses (to Egypt);We will no more say to the work of our hands,"Ye are our god."'"
And, in the fervor of his poetic soul, the prophet hears God's answer to repenting and returning Israel:
"I will heal their backsliding,I will love them freely,For my anger is turned away from them.I will be as dew to Israel;He shall blossom as the lilyAnd strike his roots deep as Lebanon.His saplings shall spread out,And his beauty shall be as the olive tree.They shall return and dwell in my shadow,They shall live well-watered like a garden,They shall flourish like a vine,Their renown shall be like that of the wine of Lebanon."
But such hopefulness and promise of divine love had no more effect upon the doomed people than did the attacks upon their sinfulness and wrongdoing.
The Judean prophet, Amos, it will be remembered, drew a picture of God as a stern judge and Israel as the criminal. Israel is proved guilty of all the prophet's accusations, and the Judge pronounces sentence.
The experiences that led the Samarian, Hosea, to prophesy were different than those of the Tekoan. Understanding the lasting love that dwelt within him for Gomer, and how he yearned for her return to him, he cried out to his people, from the depths of a wounded heart, speaking through the inspiration of a loving and merciful God:
"O my people!How can I give thee up, O Ephraim!How can I surrender thee, O Israel!How can I give thee up as Admah!Or make thee as Zeboim!My heart asserts itself:My sympathies are all aglow.I will not carry into effect the fierceness of my anger;I will not turn to destroy Ephraim.For God am I, and not man,Holy in the midst of thee;Therefore I will not utterly consume.Turn thou to thy God,Keep kindness and justice,And wait for thy God continually."
Although Hosea saw that he was laboring to no good effect, he did not for an instant give up. Time and again he recalled the early days of love and devotion between God and Israel. He recounted the times when Israel deserted God, from the Exodus on, but God always received Israel back, when the people repented of their sins and returned to acts of justice, righteousness and love.
"I am the Lord, thy God, from the land of Egypt;Thou knowest no God but Me,And besides Me there is no Savior."
Hosea could not conceive the idea that God would desert Israel forever. He recognized, however, that the doom of the sinful nation was sealed. And so he read the drama of Israel in his own life. Assyria would destroy Samaria. Israel would leave the fatherland as Gomer left her home. In exile Israel would learn through suffering and hardships as Gomer had done. Israel would redeem itself and, eventually, would return to God. God, loving Israel always, would wait to receive His repentant people, as he himself had received Gomer.
And so Hosea drew a beautiful picture of that future day in these words:
"And I will betroth thee unto me forever.Yea, I will betroth thee unto me with righteousness,And with justice and with loving-kindness and in mercy;Yea, I will betroth thee unto me with faithfulness,And thou shalt know God."
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The compiler of the fragments of Hosea's speeches in the book bearing the prophet's name—the most fragmentary book in the Bible, and from which this story has been built up—concludes his labors with this admonition:
"Whoso is wise, let him understand these things;Whoso is prudent, let him realize them;For straight are the ways of the Lord.The righteous walk in them,But transgressors stumble upon them."