Haftarah Bamidbar
“Wilderness People”
Hosea 2:1-22
excerpted from TorahScope Haftarah Exhortations
The opening reading of the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, details the Israelites’ wilderness journey from Mount Sinai, to the plains of Moab prior to their entry into the Promised Land. It is appropriately entitled, Bamidbar or “in the wilderness,” but has become known to us in English as Numbers via the Septuagint designation of Arithmoi, because it begins by numbering the tribes of Israel. Within Numbers, the trials and tribulations of Israel, for nearly forty years at multiple encampments, are recorded.
If there is one consistent theme down through the centuries of Israel’s history, it is the fact that the people were not always faithful to the Almighty. Their faithfulness seemed to always be ebbing and flowing, as they moved from times of intimacy, to times of seeming abandonment. Perhaps for these, and other reasons, the Sages concluded that Hosea 2 should be considered during the same week when the Torah portions begin to examine Numbers.
Hosea was a prophet raised up by God to speak specifically to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, after Israel and Judah had already been split into two separate states. As one reads through the Book of Hosea, you find that his life, marriage, and offspring were in many respects, analogous to the sordid history of Israel itself. Hosea married a woman who had become a prostitute (Hosea 1:2), who bore him children of prostitution (Hosea 1:3-6). These children were named Jezreel (God sows), Lo-ruhamah (no compassion), and Lo-ammi (not My people). The Prophet Hosea, in his personal life, very much lived out the kind of relationship which God had to the Northern Kingdom (cf. Hosea 1:6b-7), as they forsook Him, committing harlotry and idolatry, worshipping and loving gods other than He.
Hosea 2 is our Haftarah reading for this week, and we find the Lord telling Hosea to speak to his fellow Northern Kingdom Israelites how they would become Ammi, “My people,” and Ruchamah, “compassion.” In spite of their rebellion and disobedience to Him, the Holy One, in His mercy, indicated a great love and compassion for them. Yet, a rebuke of them for going after false gods was still required. A lengthy soliloquy described the House of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, contrasted with God’s faithfulness to the wayward people. In the opening verses of our selected reading, notice the statement of how God would actually make Israel “like a wilderness” (WMB) or “desert” (NIV), k’midbar, connecting readers to the opening portion in Numbers:
“Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ and to your sisters, ‘My loved one!’ Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst” (Hosea 2:1-3, WMB).
However, despite the wilderness path which the House of Israel would choose to take, the Lord would provide for her like a faithful husband:
“Therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way. She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.’ For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal” (Hosea 2:6-8, WMB).
There will be a number of methods which the Lord will use to bring back His beloved House of Israel, depicted as being brought into the wilderness where He might speak to her:
“‘I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers and forgot me,’ says the LORD. ‘Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness [ha’midbar], and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:13-14, WMB).
This wooing of God will eventually result in the House of Israel returning to her first lov. The intimacy will transcend from just being a Master, to them having a relationship like a loving husband and wife:
“‘It will be in that day,’ says the LORD, ‘that you will call me “my husband,” and no longer call me “my master.” For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name’” (Hosea 2:16-17, WMB).
The challenge in seeing this occur, is that it will take place b’yom-ha’hu, or “in that day.” This would be a particular time reference to the End of the Age, at the inauguration of the Messianic Age. Notice the changes which are to come about when “that day” finally arrives:
“‘In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely. I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD. It will happen in that day, that I will respond,’ says the LORD. ‘I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth; and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel. I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, “You are my people;” and they will say, “You are My God!”’” (Hosea 2:18-23, WMB).
In this prophecy, we see that how there will be an absence of war in the Earth, as well as compliance by the animal kingdom. The House of Israel will be restored to a full relationship with its King, and will exist in a permanent kind of betrothal. There will be eternal righteousness and justice prevailing. All of the Created order, including grains, wine, and oil producing plants, will be in compliance with the will of God. Most significant, though, is that the House of Israel will acknowledge the Lord as its God, and they will once again be recognized as His people—fully loyal and fully obedient to Him.
The overall story we have witnessed down through Biblical history, is that God’s people tend to wander from one wilderness experience to the next. At times along the journey—due to circumstances which require a response, resulting in some return to intimacy—they come back to their God. Yet, the pattern seems to repeat itself from almost generation to generation. We see it with the House of Israel in the Prophet Hosea’s era, and we have certainly seen it in Biblical accounts since.
How important is the prophecy which we are reviewing this week? In describing God’s saving activities in his day, the Apostle Paul quoted from the Prophet Hosea—actually applying God’s promise of restoring the Northern Kingdom of Israel to the salvation of the nations. He did this in an effort to explain to his fellow Jewish Believers what was happening in his day, and why many of their own Jewish brethren had rejected Yeshua—and even more so why many others of the nations accepted Him:
“So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. You will say then to me, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?’ But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory—us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? As he says also in Hosea, ‘I will call them “my people,” which were not my people; and her “beloved,” who was not beloved’ [Hosea 2:23]. It will be that in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” there they will be called ‘children of the living God’ [Hosea 1:10]” (Romans 9:18-26, WMB).
As you read and contemplate the Torah and Haftarah readings from this week, and how God will extend mercy upon His chosen vessels—you should rejoice and give thanks to Him for your personal deliverance from the wilderness of unbelief. Can you remember when you did not believe in Yeshua? Or can you remember seasons when you took your salvation for granted? Have you ever noticed a tendency in your own personal walk with the Lord, to wax and wane in your zeal and enthusiasm for Him?
We know that ultimately, the Lord is going to dwell with all of us “in that day.” But what are you doing today that would have you call Him your “husband,” and loyal provider? Are you seeking Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength all of the time? Or are you more attracted to some of the idols and distractions of this world, which compete for your time and allegiance?
We are each going to be held accountable for what we do with our time, talents, and resources. Clearly, where our heart’s focus is, is the place where we will invest our energies and treasure. The wilderness Israelites of Moses’ era, the Northern Kingdom Israelites of Hosea’s day, and the holy ones or saints of Paul’s time—each had the same questions which Believers today must ask. Is He my God? Am I one of His people?
Maybe we should occasionally turn the tables and quit telling people “I am one of His.” Instead, we should ask ourselves, “Am I one of His?” If this is indeed true, what are we doing to demonstrate that we have been delivered from the wilderness? Perhaps these occasional queries will help us from getting lost between the cracks of worldly distractions?
