1 Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt. 2 The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. 3 In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God. 4 He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there—5 the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is his name! 6 But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.
This passage begins with God accusing Israel (called Ephraim) of being a deceiver. Douglas Stuart sums up the theme here: “a deceitful nation defrauds Yahweh by cheating on his covenant.” The promise of the previous chapter disappears and there are only threats here. It is full of accusations against Israel and ends with a vision of its punishment. The courtroom aspect of this passage is clear with God as the accuser but he does call on them to return to him and be forgiven.
Hosea envisions Israel attacking its own God, using deceit and fraud as their weapons. Israel is said to be running after the wind, in an attempt to catch it and control it. Obviously this is impossible, and Israel is shown as stupid. They are in particular accused of following the east wind. East is the direction of the desert so that wind is terribly hot and only a fool would follow it. “Following the wind” obviously refers to Israel’s attempts to form alliances with her neighbors which Hosea sees as foolish and ending in disaster. The point is that the people deceive themselves. They are so used to living a lie that they no longer know what truth is. They have convinced themselves that they are doing the right thing when they obviously are not. They’ve made a treaty with Assyria and are sending expensive presents to Egypt in the hope of an alliance. But it will all be futile.
Hosea goes on the refer to history before the Exodus, to the patriarchs. This predates the time when Israel became a nation. Significantly, he refers to Jacob, to whom God gave the name Israel. In God’s speech here, Hosea builds up a contrast between the person Israel and what the nation has become. Jacob most certainly had a lot of faults, such as cheating his brother, Esau, out of his birthright. Indeed, Genesis 27:36 tells us that his name means cheat, and Esau was not the only person he cheated. In this passage, Hosea shows him as someone who will do anything to get what he wants. The text refers to two particular episodes in his life, both recounted in Genesis. In the first, Genesis tells us that Jacob was born holding his twin brother’s heel, and, based on this, a tradition grew up that the two fought in the womb. The idea was that, incredibly ambitious even before his birth, Jacob grabbed his twin brother’s heel to try to prevent him from leaving the womb first (3) and thus getting the inheritance. In the second, he fought with an angel, possibly God himself (4).
Hosea reminds the people of their history and of the power of their God, the Lord of hosts (5). In spite of all their plotting and planning, they cannot succeed without him. Therefore, in verse six, Hosea calls on them to return to God. They must respect the covenant, worship God and have a just society. They must trust in him to protect them. The point of these verses is that, when Jacob realized he was wrestling with God, he cried and asked for God’s favor (although Genesis does not say he cried). The cheat Jacob was more devout than his descendants, God’s chosen people, Israel (which was also, of course Jacob’s other name, which reinforces the link between the two). Note too, that Jacob recognizes God as he is struggling against him which should tell us something.
We all struggle with our faith at times, and God accepts this. All of us have experienced the dark night of the soul and should not feel guilty about that. What God does not like is to be ignored, to be completely excluded from our lives. The Israelites are not the only people to behave this way, and we should ask ourselves if we are also guilty of doing so.
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