The Promise of the Land

TORAH

Gen. 28:10-32:3

HAFTORAH

Hosea 11:7-14:9

B’RIT HADASHAH

John 1:43-51

Hosea 11:7-14:9

The prophet Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which he also calls Ephraim. Ephraim, as the largest of the northern tribes, stands for the entire federation, usually called Israel in the Bible. Hosea prophesied in a time between invasions by the Assyrians and some years before the invasion of the north by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser V, in 724-722 BCE.

Up to that point, Israel had obtained a degree of political stability, economic prosperity and agricultural abundance (2 Chron. 26:10). After much struggle and hardship, she had gained her independence through the efforts of strong kings such as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam. Therefore, by the time of Hosea, there had been peace for a generation and many people were becoming quite well off. Luxuries were available and building projects went on apace. However, at the same time, degrading social and moral conditions were developing. As the number of the very wealthy grew, so also did the number of the very poor. The rich were selfishly exploiting the poor and the politically disenfranchised for their own profit, (Isa. 5:8; Amos 8:5-6) even to buying and selling those who, out of extreme desperation, had to become indentured slaves in order to survive. Religious conditions were just as bad. Pagan Ba’alism was still ubiquitous in the land and was manifested by calf worship at Bethel and Dan. Sacred prostitution was common (Hos. 4:14) and the people (both rich and poor) were building “high places”, erecting idolatrous images and asherah poles that became objects of worship. This period of prosperity and peace did not last long. After the reign of Jeroboam II, there was increasing political and military instability, culminating in the complete destruction of the northern kingdom and the exile of most of her people by the Assyrian military.

Hosea’s principal prophetic theme is the necessity for moral repentance and social justice, as it was for his near contemporary, the prophet Amos. In this passage, God, through His prophet, delivers dire warnings of calamities certain to come. “The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds” (12:2; see also Exo. 34:7; Num. 14:18; Nahum 1:3). But along with these warnings are included promises of ultimate hope and restitution, “…the Lord  when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord” (11:10-11).

However, in this prophecy God did not reveal His exact plan of redemption. He did not reveal to Hosea—as He did with Isaiah—that the blessings to come would be for a portion of His people, a remnant that is, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth” (Isa. 10:20).

Be that as it may, the prophecy is chock full of hope. But not hope in some vague, watered-down promise. True, the guilty must pay for their injustice and idolatry, which would soon be so great as to cause God to do to His own northern tribes what He had already demanded of Joshua through the conquest of the land of Canaan and the complete destruction of the “cities of these peoples” (Deut. 20:16-18).

But we also have in this particular prophecy a three-fold restatement and confirmation of the promise made to Jacob at Bethel (see Gen. 28:13-15)—and which itself was a divine confirmation of the promise made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.

The first confirmation comes at 11:10-11, “…the Lord when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.”  The second confirmation is found at 12:9, “I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.” And the final confirmation comes at 14:7, “They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Together, these verses re-iterate God’s plan of redemption for His chosen people, not through their moral righteousness but through His own sovereign grace. However, we see from several biblical passages of which Isa. 10:20 cited above is but one example, that not all Israel is the chosen of the promise. Rather, there is to be a saved remnant that will not include the northern tribes, at least in the national sense (although there is always the possibility of national salvation in a limited degree). “In just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hos. 1:4). But this remnant will include at least a portion of the southern kingdom, the largest, most representative tribe of which is Judah, “But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them…” (Hos. 1:7). In addition, this remnant will ultimately include Gentiles.

We know from Paul that, “…not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9:6-8). And we know from both the OT and the NT that God’s remnant will be composed of both Jews and Gentiles (Isa. 66:20-21; Zech. 8:22-23; Acts 28:28).

For instance, in Paul’s famous passage of the olive tree he makes known that God is including Gentiles in His plan of salvation, “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles…But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:13a, 17-18).

So a remnant, including both Jews and Gentiles, will inherit the Kingdom. But in the OT passages, including the above quoted verses from Hosea, there is also an added dimension for “Israel.” God has always included the promise of the Land to His chosen people—who indeed are part of the remnant. This Land is known by various terms including the “land flowing with milk and honey”, the “glorious land” and so forth. Throughout the OT, part of God’s promise is—after a period of chastising—to gather together the people that He Himself has scattered because of sin and return them to the land of Israel (Jer. 29:14; 31:10; Eze. 11:17; Mic. 4:7). This will not happen however, until “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25b). This is a pre-condition for the fulfillment of the promise.

I believe that the modern return of Jews to the land of Israel may be considered a kind of foretaste or a type for the return promised in the Bible but is not a fulfillment of the promise because the extent of the Biblical borders of Israel as described in Numbers, chapter 34 are not yet in place (and probably won’t be until after the fall of Islam) and because the modern nation of Israel is essentially unbelieving and secular. God promised the land to the children of the offspring, that is, the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is, those counted righteous through their faith. Symbolically speaking, this would exclude the offspring of Ishmael and Esau.

Significantly, the promise of the land to the remnant (the “Israel of God”, Gal. 6:16) includes Jerusalem—the place where God makes His name to dwell (Deut. 12:5; 2 Chron. 7:12). So the full redemption of the redeemed house of Israel will include Gentiles in some dimension and will incorporate the Biblical borders of the Land as well as Jerusalem as the central place of worship for God’s people.

Yet in the book of Revelation, Jerusalem itself is redeemed and as such comes down from Heaven (Rev. 21:2). John does not have in mind (entirely) the notion of the physical city, or its temple. Does this constitute a Scriptural error? I don’t think so. I believe we can find the answer in the portion of Scripture from Gen. 28:12-13, which describes Jacob’s dream at Bethel. Bethel was for a long time a center of public worship but was eventually superseded by Jerusalem. The point here is that the physical location of the dream—at the place Jacob named Bethel—was simultaneously the location of the heavenly realms. It was then the point in time and space that heaven and earth intersected. And it is in Jerusalem that—in some mysterious way—access to heaven from our place on earth will be made available to all the Children of the Promise.

In this way, I believe that the earthly Jerusalem and the new, heavenly Jerusalem are intimately connected. There will indeed be a complete fulfillment of the promise to Jacob found in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and simultaneously a complete fulfillment of the promise of “New Jerusalem” found in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. God says of Himself that He is the first and the last (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 22:13) and since we know that “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” should we doubt or wonder how God could possibly bring this to pass or should we rather stand in awe of an omnipotent, all merciful God.

AMEN