The Bible Says What? ‘God told Hosea to take a wife of whoredom’

‘From there I will give her back her vineyards and make the Valley of Disturbance the Door of Hope.’ (Hosea 2:17).

Hosea, the first of the 12 ‘minor’ prophets in the Hebrew Bible preached to the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE.

Israel had lost her outlying lands to Assyria. Hosea scorned appeals to Egypt ad Assyria and the people’s faithless wandering. The most difficult part lies in the imagery the prophet employs of God and Israel.God is a wronged husband, Israel an adulterous wife; God has sent her away because of her ‘whorings’. He strips her naked and exposes her as on the day she was born. 

In an extraordinary rhetorical device, this God tells Hosea himself to take a wife of ‘whoredom’ and to beget children of ‘whoredom’. And Hosea’s marital experience becomes a mirror of God’s own experience with Israel. His wife is named Gomer (‘finished’), his children Lo ruhamah (‘not accepted’) and Lo Ammi (‘not my people’). 

And yet, despite the brutal imagery, there is also a compelling message of reconciliation and love. 

The 40 years in the wilderness are seen as a time of courtship between God and Israel, the place where God entices His people and speaks tenderly to their heart. 

It is the above verse that speaks to us painfully now, as we witness events taking place throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

 Israel and Palestine may be unable to embrace the words of love in Hosea but, at some point, we can hope leaders will embrace the prophet’s vision of righteousness and justice, goodness and mercy and the Valley of Disturbance will become the Door of Hope.

•  Alexandra Wright is Senior Rabbi at The Liberal Jewish Synagogue