God Teaches His Child to Walk

Hosea had bought Gomer back with silver and barley, and she lived in his house again. But the rest of Israel was still running. In the northern kingdom, kings kept grabbing the throne, people bowed to statues of a god called Baal, and far to the east the army of Assyria was getting ready to march. So God gave Hosea a poem for them. It sounds like a father talking about his son.

"When Israel was a child, I loved him.
Out of Egypt I called my son."

He had been a baby nation then,
a crowd of tired slaves with mud on their hands,
and God led them out through the sea.
(God also called them Ephraim, after the biggest tribe in the north.)

"It was I who taught Ephraim to walk.
I took them up by their arms."

Two steps, a wobble, and plop,
down on his bottom.
Then up again, both fists wrapped tight
around his Father's fingers.

"I led them with ropes of kindness,
with cords of love.
I lifted the yoke off their necks,
and I bent down and fed them."

(A yoke is the heavy wooden bar an ox wears to pull a plow.
A kind farmer lifts it off at night
so the ox can put its head down and eat.)

But the more God called, the farther Israel walked away.
They burned sweet smoke for Baal.
They kissed metal statues of calves.
(A metal calf gives no milk, and kissing one gets you a cold nose.)
"They did not know," God said,
"that I was the one who healed them."

So a hard day was coming.
Assyria would rule them now.
Soldiers would smash the city gates,
many people would be killed,
and the rest would be marched far from their land.

Then God's voice changes.

"How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?"

(Those were two towns destroyed long ago, along with Sodom.
Nothing grew there anymore.)

"My heart turns over inside me.
All my kindness is stirred.
I will not act in my burning anger.
I will not destroy Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man,
the Holy One who lives among you,
and I will not come against you in anger."

God was angry, and God was still his father.

Assyria came, just as Hosea said. The northern kingdom fell, and Israel was carried far away, a son who never learned to hold on. God kept both his words, the warning and the mercy. He did not wipe his people out.

Long after the northern kingdom was gone, a little boy came back up out of Egypt. His parents had carried him there as a baby, hiding from a cruel king, and God called them back. Matthew, writing down his story, remembered Hosea's poem: "Out of Egypt I called my son." This son learned to walk holding Mary's fingers. He grew up and never once let go of his Father's hand. He bent down and fed hungry crowds. "Take my yoke on you and learn from me," he said, "for I am gentle and humble in heart. My yoke is easy, and my load is light."

The son was Jesus. God would not give up his runaway child. Instead he gave up this Son, the one who never ran away, for all the ones who did.