10/12/2026
Hosea
While the main ways we communicate as human beings are through speech or the written word, we convey some of life’s most crucial information to one another non-verbally. Think about it. A look of reassurance. A quick glance of alarm. A subtle, graceful touch might denote, “I’m here for you.” A hearty embrace might communicate, “You can rely on me.” Sometimes our presence alone speaks volumes.
What we do, what we don’t do, and what we express to one another in a myriad of unspoken ways is a language all its own, one that often proves more powerful, revealing, and lasting than anything we could ever write or say in mere words.
Hosea, the prophet, is an actions-speak-louder-than-words kind of person, and the book that bears his name is that kind of book, as well. Fourteen chapters long, the book comprises about five thousand words, but its juggernaut message is remembered mostly not from anything Hosea says but rather what he does.
Around 725 B.C., God’s judgment is barrelling down on the Northern Kingdom—the nation known as Israel as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Judah—due to the flagrant unfaithfulness of its people. Guilty of idolatry, they’re brazenly chasing, lusting even, after the Canaanite’s false gods. As the book opens, it seems as if God is saying, “I’ve told you all about the devastation that’s coming and the restoration that will follow only after great pain, but you’re not grasping it. I’m done with words. Watch Hosea. Bear witness.”
And indeed, Hosea’s actions speak volumes. He’s ordained to sacrificially live out a kind of real-life parable before his people, and as such, there’s a powerful poignancy about his ministry that’s different than that of any other of the prophets. There’s a unique broken-hearted quality to it. The first chapter begins like this:
..the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife inclined to infidelity, and children of infidelity; for the land commits flagrant infidelity, abandoning the Lord.”
Hosea obeys, marrying a woman named Gomer, prone to unfaithfulness. God then commands them to give their newborn children ominous names to advance the parable that Hosea, and now Gomer, are living out in real time. The first child, a son, they’re told by God to name Jezreel, which means God sows, a reminder that God is the author of the coming judgment and whatever else might follow. The second child, a daughter, they are told to name Lo-ruhamah, which means, “I will no longer take pity on the house of Israel.” The last child, another boy, is named Lo-ammi, meaning, “You are not My people, and I am not your God.”
In the second chapter, Hosea, still living out the real-life parable, divorces Gomer, who by then has become unfaithful to him. He gives voice to legal words of divorce, marking the end of the covenant that binds them. “She is not my wife,” he says, “and I am not her husband.” Israel, like Gomer, has also been following after evil, lusting after false gods, triggering a similar end to God’s covenant with them.
But in the remarkable third chapter, the real-life parable takes an unexpected turn, as God tells Hosea this:
“Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet is committing adultery, as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods...”
Against all odds, Hosea’s husbandly love for his faithless wife Gomer persists, just as God’s love for Israel also persists against all odds. Hosea marries Gomer again in a way that mirrors God‘s coming future with Israel. Hosea buys Gomer out of prostitution, rescuing her from slavery.
So I purchased her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, a homer, and a lethech of barley. Then I said to her, “You shall live with me for many days. You shall not play the pr******te, nor shall you have another man; so I will also be toward you.”
In another actions-speaking-louder-than-words kind of way, Gomer returns to Hosea, their remarriage mirroring Israel’s approaching restoration. This time God’s redemptive new betrothal to Israel will be enduring. In fact, it will last forever.
God has spoken again and again about judgment, about exile, and about restoration, but through Hosea, God is no longer speaking in mere words but through the prophet’s very life itself, promising a grace eternal. As the parable comes to an end, it does so in a beautifully quiet whisper:
It is I who answer and look after you.
God, may we not miss Your love and grace so often experienced first-hand, unmediated by words. Amen.
— Greg Funderburk
