Reading
Hosea 3

1Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

2So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. 3I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”

4For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols. 5Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.


Devotional

Hosea’s wife left him and sunk deep into a life that no husband would want for his wife and no child for their mother.  She made the choice to leave her home and family and prostituted herself to other men.  Can you imagine the devastation that these actions caused, the hurt that Hosea faced?  The questions that the children had and that terrible sense of abandonment.  Gomer’s actions were harsh and selfish and caused chaos within the family relationship.  Despite pleas to come home Gomer spirals out of control until she finds herself for sale in the slavers market.  The freedom she once experienced had now gone as she was owned by some common slave trader.  Her actions are a mirror image of the actions of Israel as they violate their relationship with God.  Hosea takes on the actions of God.  What would God tell him to do? He could have her punished, he could find someone else, start again with a new wife.  He could abandon her as she had abandoned him.

Instead God told Hosea go to the market with 15 pieces of Silver the current price for a female slave and buy her back.  Hosea did this, he didn’t just buy her off a slave trader and let her go, he brought her back home.  All that hurt and chaos she caused and yet Hosea just wanted her to come home.  Sometimes the shame of the market place can prevent us from hearing the real heart and intention of God.  All he wants to so is set us free and bring us home.  The price he paid for us was higher than 15 pieces of silver, he set us free at the cost of his son.  Hosea turns up at the market not to heap shame on his wife but to bring her home.  Let’s not forget God is more concerned about our freedom and restoration than how we got to the market place.