Israel is YHWH’s abused prostitute wife and YHWH is the abusive husband?
Nothing about this theological metaphor is kind or flattering but this prophetic depiction of the rocky relationship between the Nation of Israel and its God, does exist - and it also includes a transformation and a happy end. Still, it’s a lot to take in and this is not even the whole story.
Welcome to the Book of Hosea son of Be’eri, living in the Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century - roughly 750-725 BCE - and speaking up against his people’s spiritual and political transgressions. For him the analogy of the people as a prostitute is not just an idea.
As soon as we meet this first of the twelve ‘minor’ prophets he is instructed by YHWH to marry Gomer, Daughter of Divlayim, a woman who is either promiscuous or a sex worker and produce children with her -- the most radically embodied acts of prophecy we’ve yet to encounter.
Before meeting Hosea’s wife,, a word about Trei Asar - the Aramaic name for the twelve final prophets of the Hebrew Bible.
Moshe Sokolow helps us frame this next section:
“This last book of Prophets (Nevi’im) is an anthology of twelve books, which were grouped together allegedly in order to ensure that they would not get lost due to their relatively small size (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 14:).
Its canonization (inclusion in the Bible) as an anthology occurred relatively early in the Second Temple period (i.e., prior to the Hasmonean dynasty) as attested to by the Book of Ben Sirach 49:10: “Then, too, the Twelve Prophets—may their bones flourish with new life where they lie—they gave new strength to Jacob and saved him with steadfast hope.”
The twelve prophets included herein span an era of about 300 years, from the decline of the northern kingdom of Samaria through the earliest years of the Second Temple. Among the earlier of these prophets were Hosea and Amos, who, along with Isaiah and Micah, prophesied at roughly the same time. Among the latest were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The order in which they are arranged corresponds, overall, to their chronological order; however, since the time frames of several are either unknown or highly speculative it is also possible that there are thematic links between adjacent books.”
Which brings us to Hosea and his family. The book begins with his summation and already in the first verse we sense the societal depravity and political turmoil Hosea is living through:
דְּבַר־יְהֹוָ֣ה ׀ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הָיָ֗ה אֶל־הוֹשֵׁ֙עַ֙ בֶּן־בְּאֵרִ֔י בִּימֵ֨י עֻזִּיָּ֥ה יוֹתָ֛ם אָחָ֥ז יְחִזְקִיָּ֖ה מַלְכֵ֣י יְהוּדָ֑ה וּבִימֵ֛י יָרׇבְעָ֥ם בֶּן־יוֹאָ֖שׁ מֶ֥לֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
The word of YHWH that came to Hosea son of Beeri, during the reigns of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and during the reign of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.
Hosea 1:1
What is seemingly a simple verse offers a keen historial eye an indication that something is seriously wrong. While Hosea lived through the reign of four consecutive Southern kings in the relative stable Judah, this verse only lists him as living through the reign of one Northern King of Israel - when in fact he seems to have lived through six - all with 20 years. What this text is not telling us that during this quarter of a century the Assyrian Empire rises from threat on the horizon to an actual occupying force, soon to destroy and empty Israel of its inhabitants.
The six kings - from Jeroboam the second to another one named Hosea - represent the quick shift that led the once proud and prosperous kingdom into a heap of ashes. Hosea doesn’t even list the last kings whose corruption filled the land with loss and blood and whom he does not even consider worth of naming.
Hosea lives through these decades of despair and disappointment and this might just be the context for his harsh, horrific, abusive and misogynistic prophetic style.
Scholars claim that the first three chapters of this 14 chapters long book are their own unit from a latter part of his life, but either way - it’s quite the introduction.
Brace yourselves.
תְּחִלַּ֥ת דִּבֶּר־יְהֹוָ֖ה בְּהוֹשֵׁ֑עַ
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהֹוָ֜ה אֶל־הוֹשֵׁ֗עַ לֵ֣ךְ קַח־לְךָ֞ אֵ֤שֶׁת זְנוּנִים֙ וְיַלְדֵ֣י זְנוּנִ֔ים כִּֽי־זָנֹ֤ה תִזְנֶה֙ הָאָ֔רֶץ מֵאַחֲרֵ֖י יְהֹוָֽה׃ וַיֵּ֙לֶךְ֙ וַיִּקַּ֔ח אֶת־גֹּ֖מֶר בַּת־דִּבְלָ֑יִם וַתַּ֥הַר וַתֵּלֶד־ל֖וֹ בֵּֽן׃
“When YHWH began addressing Hosea, YHWH said: “Go, get yourself a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land strays from following YHWH.
So he went and married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim. She conceived and bore him a son”
Hosea 1:2+3
Gomer’s name may mean many things, some of them objectifying her in the most demeaning manner. What do we know of this woman, introduced as a sex-worker, who becomes the prophet’s wife and eventually the mother of three of his children, each with a sad symbolic name?
What do we make of this divine command, domestic relationship, and its metaphorical analogy to the ties that bind YHWH and the declining Kingdom of Israel? We’ll explore these perplexing patriarchal prophecies for the next 3 chapters.
Rev. Dr. WIlda Gafney applies her compelling Womanist Midrash lens to these and the following violent verses:
“Reading a text like Hosea can easily have you convinced God–or somebody–is fixated on women’s bodies and sexuality as though we are the genesis of everything that is wrong with the world...Reading Hosea as scripture means taking seriously that as a part of the canon it holds authority; however that authority is assessed from community to community and person to person. For me that means I can’t easily write Hosea off, not as a pastor, priest, or preacher, and certainly not as a black woman who is a womanist. The spittle-laced violence with which this word ‘whore’ has been imposed on women and girls often accompanying or preceding physical violence, and the enduring emotional and spiritual violence it begets mean that I cannot remain silent on this text. Neither can I by any means leave its proclamation and interpretation solely to the lips of those who will never hear this epithet hurled towards them.
But I don’t run from a fight or a hard text or a fight with a hard text. I believe in wrestling the bruising words until I squeeze a blessing out of them, no matter how down and dirty it gets or how out of joint I get. So I’ve been preaching about women called whores and the men, prophets, and God who use that language for some time now. I also don’t run away from the word whore or soften it to harlot because that’s not a word we use, but every day some woman somewhere is being called a whore.
The texts of Hosea and Jeremiah present prophets who heard and spoke for God in and through the vernacular of their culture. As Dr. Weems taught us (in Battered Love), that vernacular was androcentric with a mean misogynistic streak, and in a shame/honor society the worst thing you can call a man is a bad woman.
Then we meet Gomer bat Diblaim. In spite of the way the deck of the text has been stacked against her, not even the text calls Gomer a whore. What it does call her is daughter of Diblaim. Whether Diblaim is her mother’s name, her father’s name or her home town she is somebody. She is somebody’s child. She comes from somewhere...Her name is Gomer and unlike the vast majority of women in the Hebrew Bible her name is among the nine percent of all names in the Hebrew Bible that belong to a woman. Her name is Gomer. Whore is not her name. “
Gafney does more than courageously and creatively challenge the male-centric and sex-negative attitude of Hosea and others who treat non-males as inferior and translate hierarchical modes to other ethnicities, religions and species. She spins the story to imagine Gomer not just as the wayward wife in this allegory - but actually as God, generous with love, beyond boundaries. It’s a dramatic read of this divine-human relationship that leaves us wondering what the implications of such deities might have for past - present - and future human attitudes:
“Gomer is a representation of God to me. She shamelessly mother-loves her children no matter how their names are rightly or wrongly tarnished. She loves those who others say don’t matter. She loves the folk some preachers count out as dirty, soiled, ruined. And she loves promiscuously.
God’s love is promiscuous. She just can’t keep it to herself. She loves wildly and widely, freely and without fetters. She loves those who have been deemed unlovable, illegitimate in who they are or how they are, the circumstances over which they have no control, or might not even want to change. God loves with a flagrant love those who have been told they are or unworthy because of who what they are, who they love, how they love, what they have done, or even what has been done to them. God’s love is insatiable. She is not content with a single beloved people, church, denomination, or even religion. All the earth is the fruit of her womb and she loves us all fiercely. She even loves men like Hosea and his interpreters who relish shaming and subordinating women, men who inflict violence with their words and hands and weaponize their bodies and sometimes our bodies against us. It’s as though God doesn’t have any standards about who she loves.”
What would it be like to worship this kind of goddess, live inside this inclusive generosity that goes beyond our well worn limits of faith, the familial, and the familiar?
For Hosea, life and life lessons will weave this and bigger questions, as his family becomes the canvas, cruelly or not, on which he'll paint the prophetic messaging it was his destiny to deliver. We won‘t know Gomer’s thoughts or wishes but we honor her and her family’s story today, as it will continue to evolve.
Hosea’s family feud continues into the next chapter and towards one of the most needed and hopeful healing restorative acts in our literature and ritual lives.
Image: Gomer and Hosea by Cody F. Miller
Go Below the Bible Belt. Link in bio. subscribe.Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Hosea #Hosea1 #ProphetHosea #הושעבןבארי# הושע #BookofEzekiel #תריעשר #treiasar #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #Gomer #Womanism #Feminism #DomesticAbuse #toxicmasculinity #patriarchy #sexwork #legalizesexwork #womanistmidrash #genderbasedviolence #stoptheviolence #peace #prayforpeace #nomorewar #hope