Do not rejoice, Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor. 2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people; the new wine will fail them. 3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria. 4 They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, nor will their sacrifices please him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves; it will not come into the temple of the Lord. 5 What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals, on the feast days of the Lord? 6 Even if they escape from destruction, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers, and thorns will overrun their tents. 7 The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired person a maniac. 8 The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. 9 They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.
This passage seems to refer to the Assyrian withdrawal from the country around 735BC. The background to this was that Israel and Syria had rebelled against Assyria and the latter had swept down on them and violently defeated them. Around 732 the Assyrians began to leave and Israel could relax and even, according to Hosea, rejoice. Their departure brought back old habits, and, once again, the Israelites take God for granted. Hosea, however, warns them against this for the improved situation is only temporary. There will be worse in the future.
The immediate background seems to be that of the autumn harvest festival, Succoth, also called booths or tabernacles. Celebrations were probably tainted by paganism and Baal worship. Once again, the Israelites probably thought that how they behaved didn’t matter as long as the worshiped God in a particular way. Hosea warns them to end their celebrations and once again accuses them of prostitution. For too long the Israelites have seen their land as permanently theirs, as an irrevocable gift. In some ways it is but that does not mean that a generation, or even generations, cannot lose it.
In verse three, God says that it is and always has been his land. They have that land because God generously gave it to them as part of the covenant. But they have repeatedly broken the covenant and so the agreement no longer stands. They are simply tenants, who have broken their lease and the actual owner can then evict them. Think of Jesus’ parable of the unworthy tenants. And so the Israelites will go into exile (as they had in Egypt, referred to in verse three), although they will be even further from home. They will eat unclean food in Assyria because they will be slaves and unable to choose their own food. So, one can either repent and return to God or return to Egypt figurative term for slavery). The Israelites are not the only ones guilty of taking God’s gifts for granted. We all have done so at times.
If someone gives us an uncomfortable message, many people will try to discredit that person. In verse seven we see the Israelites doing this, trying to discredit Hosea by calling him a fool. Hosea understands what is happening and realizes that their hostility shows that he is right. In any case, he is only the messenger. In verse eight, Hosea describes the prophets as the “watchmen” who stand guard over Israel and warn of present and future problems. But the people refuse to listen or to see the approaching danger, the traps all around them.
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