“Low in the Polls” is one modern way to name weak leaders. What are other apt metaphors that best describe leaders who lead their nations astray? We talk, for instance, about failed leaders falling asleep at the wheel, or worse - being drunk drivers.
For the prophet Hosea, furious at the king who will also be the last to lead the Kingdom of Israel before its disastrous destruction - one of the puzzling poetic parables is that of a baker who lets the bakery burn down.
The king that he is most likely referring to - he does not use direct names - is also named Hosea. Hosea son of Ella was the 19th and last king of Israel, 732–721 BCE. This is the king against whom Hosea will rail through the rest of the book, leading to the Assyrian conquest.
King Hosea, backed by some of his court, leaned into alliance with Egypt and a rebellion against Assyria, which led to Samaria’s demise. Historians suggest Samaria could have survived, as a humbled submissive kingdom had it reconciled its territorial losses, and patiently awaited Assyria’s eventual fall from grace. King Hosea became involved in regional Egyptian political intrigue, unable to foresee the impending disaster that Prophet Hosea refers to in this chapter’s verse 16 - "This will be their calamity in the land of Egypt."
To capture the calamity Hosea depicts the kingdom’s leaders as a bakery whose owner, the baker, hosts a drunken feast, stops paying attention to the heated ovens and the entire bakery catches fire:
כֻּלָּם֙ מְנָ֣אֲפִ֔ים כְּמ֣וֹ תַנּ֔וּר בֹּעֵ֖רָה מֵאֹפֶ֑ה יִשְׁבּ֣וֹת מֵעִ֔יר מִלּ֥וּשׁ בָּצֵ֖ק עַד־חֻמְצָתֽוֹ׃
י֣וֹם מַלְכֵּ֔נוּ הֶחֱל֥וּ שָׂרִ֖ים חֲמַ֣ת מִיָּ֑יִן מָשַׁ֥ךְ יָד֖וֹ אֶת־לֹצְצִֽים׃
כִּֽי־קֵרְב֧וּ כַתַּנּ֛וּר לִבָּ֖ם בְּאׇרְבָּ֑ם כׇּל־הַלַּ֙יְלָה֙ יָשֵׁ֣ן אֹֽפֵהֶ֔ם בֹּ֕קֶר ה֥וּא בֹעֵ֖ר כְּאֵ֥שׁ לֶהָבָֽה׃
“They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker; he rests from stoking the fire; from the time of the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened
On the day of our king’s descent, the ministers were sick with wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners. For they made their heart ready like an oven, whilst they lie in wait: their baker sleeps all the night; in the morning it burns like a flaming fire.”
Hosea 7:4-7
Hagit Bartuv explores the odd bakery motif:
“There is much wrath and fury in Hosea's ongoing diatribe that describes, chapter after chapter in minute detail, the nation's horrible betrayal of their covenant with God, the ways they have hurt others, the perverse cult, and the split that will lead to disaster.
The words come fast and furious, as if they were breaking into pieces in his mouth, or shattering when they reach our ears...How does the baker’s oven transform in Hosea's words into a terrible metaphor for evil schemes, treason and perhaps even murder?
Perhaps the meaning of the image is lost in the mists of time. Or perhaps the meaninglessness of it is the point. Perhaps Hosea is trying with all his might to get the people to listen. He's using illogical metaphors to get them to finally stop, and listen, to ask themselves what has happened to them; to stop for a moment, and change. To remember that comforting oven that certainly existed some time in their childhood, to go back to that soft place, where an oven was not a despicable thing. And neither were they.”
The prophet Hosea will keep protesting King Hosea, as social voices of morality always have and should continue to talk truth to power.
Where does the buck stop?
Hosea will continue exploring this question and in the next chapter he’ll keep naming who is to blame, up the ladder of leadership and locate one of the origins and sources of who and what went wrong.
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