Late afternoon on a bare plowed hillside: a thin field of stunted grain in the foreground, and far off across the furrows a tall whirl of dust spinning up into a hazy sky.

Sowing the wind

Hosea 8

What are you planting now that you’ll be harvesting later?

14 verses≈ 3 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–3Hosea’s marriageA wife, three names, and love bought back
4–6:3The LORD’s caseNo knowledge of God in the land
6–11Sowing the windMist, kings, calves, and a love that won’t let goChapter 8
11–14Return, O IsraelJacob’s story, death undone, and the last call

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

God

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God

Dawn on the flat walkway of Samaria's wall: a watchman seen from behind lifts a long curved ram's horn to his lips, and high above the city one great vulture circles.

An eagle looms over the house of the LORD,

because the people have transgressed My covenant

and rebelled against My law.

God

Israel cries out to Me,

“O our God, we know You!”

But Israel has rejected good;

an enemy will pursue him.

God

They set up kings, but not by Me.

They make princes, but without My approval.

God

God

With their silver and gold they make themselves idols,

to their own destruction.

He has rejected your calf, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be

incapable of innocence?

God

Gray morning on stone paving: the pieces of a small carved wooden calf overlaid with gold, split apart, the gold leaf peeling to show plain wood.

For this thing is from Israel—

a craftsman made it, and it is not God.

It will be broken to pieces,

that calf of Samaria.

God

For they sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 8:7

God

God

There is no standing grain;

what sprouts fails to yield flour.

Even if it should produce,

the foreigners would swallow it up.

God

Israel is swallowed up!

Now they are among the nations

like a worthless vessel.

God

A lean wild ass stands alone on a wide white salt flat in the lower third, ears up, a tiny walled town on the far horizon, under a pale empty sky.

For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey on its own.

God

Ephraim has hired lovers.

Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will now round them up,

and they will begin to diminish

under the oppression of the king of princes.

Question

Quick question

Think about what a farmer gets back from a single seed before you answer.

What does 8:7 say Israel will reap?

God

Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin,

they became his altars for sinning.

God

Though I wrote for them the great things of My law,

they regarded them as something strange.

God

Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me,

and though they eat the meat,

the LORD does not accept them.

Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins:

They will return to Egypt.

God

The morning after on Samaria's hill: a fine cut-stone citadel with its roof gone, charred beams fallen across the walls, thin smoke rising, terraced olive slopes below.

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;

Judah has multiplied its fortified cities.

But I will send fire upon their cities,

and it will consume their citadels.

0:12

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Reflect

What you lean on

Kings, a calf, allies, altars, forts: Israel leaned on what it made or bought, and “Israel has forgotten his Maker.” What do you lean on when you’re afraid? Write it down, and tell the LORD you will lean on Him.

What Israel trusted

Whiteboard

Everything Israel leaned on, it had made or bought. The One who made Israel was the one thing it forgot.

You’ve experienced

Hosea 8

0 of 14 chapters read

A verse to carry with you

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 8:7

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