Hos 1:4 | KingComments | STEP | The first child of Hosea is a son. He gets the order to call him “Jezreel”. This is not without reason. The meaning of that name implies a message. What has been said of the children of Isaiah can also be said of the children of Hosea ( ). The name Jezreel, in connection with the name Jehu, refers to the city where Jehu exterminated the house of Ahab. He was commanded to do so by God ( ). This history is here recalled by God as something for which retribution must take place. How is that? Jehu has acted by order of God. God has given His approval after Jehu has carried out his commission. There is even a reward attached to it ( ). Yet here his actions are rejected and God speaks of a bloodshed, for which the house of Jehu will be punished. And not only that, because with the judgment on Jehu and his house the judgment on the whole kingship is pronounced. Israel will cease to be an independent kingdom. What follows after the reign of Jeroboam II are only the convulsions of a doomed empire. The name ‘Jezreel’ speaks of the judgment that God is going to make. Jezreel means ‘God will scatter’ or ‘God will sow’. This name, Jezreel, indicates the imminent end of Israel. The people will be scattered among the nations because of their harlotry. This must have sounded hard to their ears, but they will probably have laughed at it too. After all, they are experiencing a time of prosperity, aren’t they? But the laughter will disappear when, in the year 722 BC, the Assyrians deport Israel from its land and, as the Assyrians are used to, scatter the captured Israelites, as it were, over several other countries. In doing so, the enemy eliminated the danger of regrouping and Israel’s strength is broken. But now the question remains as to what Jehu’s bloodshed consists of. The solution to this problem is probably as follows. Although Jehu has done God’s will, he sins by killing more people than God has said. He killed Ahaziah, the king of Judah, and his forty-two brothers, and God did not command him to do so ( ). In God’s public reign, Jehu receives His approval and reward for what he has done. But Jehu’s hidden deliberations while fulfilling his commission are not pure. Here God shows how He really thinks about it: Jehu has shown himself to be ambitious and cruel. Nothing that man himself brings into the work of God is hidden from Him. What is man’s own will be judged righteously by God, especially where it happens under His great name ‘LORD’. Jehu is rejected for what he has done more than God had commanded him to do. It is also remarkable that it is already about eighty years ago that Jehu committed these murders. But God forgets nothing. In the same way, God comes back many years later to something Saul had done and for which no satisfaction has yet taken place ( ). With God, crime never expires. He will at some point confront everyone with acts for which no atonement has been made. There is only one way to escape God’s retribution and that is sincere confession. Then an appeal can be made to the work that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross of Calvary. There He brought about the reconciliation with the holy and just God for the repentant sinner.

‏ Hosea 1:4

The First Child of Hosea: Jezreel

The first child of Hosea is a son. He gets the order to call him “Jezreel”. This is not without reason. The meaning of that name implies a message. What has been said of the children of Isaiah can also be said of the children of Hosea (Isa 8:18). The name Jezreel, in connection with the name Jehu, refers to the city where Jehu exterminated the house of Ahab. He was commanded to do so by God (2Kgs 9:7-10). This history is here recalled by God as something for which retribution must take place. How is that?

Jehu has acted by order of God. God has given His approval after Jehu has carried out his commission. There is even a reward attached to it (2Kgs 10:30). Yet here his actions are rejected and God speaks of a bloodshed, for which the house of Jehu will be punished. And not only that, because with the judgment on Jehu and his house the judgment on the whole kingship is pronounced. Israel will cease to be an independent kingdom. What follows after the reign of Jeroboam II are only the convulsions of a doomed empire.

The name ‘Jezreel’ speaks of the judgment that God is going to make. Jezreel means ‘God will scatter’ or ‘God will sow’. This name, Jezreel, indicates the imminent end of Israel. The people will be scattered among the nations because of their harlotry.

This must have sounded hard to their ears, but they will probably have laughed at it too. After all, they are experiencing a time of prosperity, aren’t they? But the laughter will disappear when, in the year 722 BC, the Assyrians deport Israel from its land and, as the Assyrians are used to, scatter the captured Israelites, as it were, over several other countries. In doing so, the enemy eliminated the danger of regrouping and Israel’s strength is broken.

But now the question remains as to what Jehu’s bloodshed consists of. The solution to this problem is probably as follows. Although Jehu has done God’s will, he sins by killing more people than God has said. He killed Ahaziah, the king of Judah, and his forty-two brothers, and God did not command him to do so (2Kgs 9:27 ; 2Kgs 10:14). In God’s public reign, Jehu receives His approval and reward for what he has done. But Jehu’s hidden deliberations while fulfilling his commission are not pure. Here God shows how He really thinks about it: Jehu has shown himself to be ambitious and cruel.

Nothing that man himself brings into the work of God is hidden from Him. What is man’s own will be judged righteously by God, especially where it happens under His great name ‘LORD’. Jehu is rejected for what he has done more than God had commanded him to do.

It is also remarkable that it is already about eighty years ago that Jehu committed these murders. But God forgets nothing. In the same way, God comes back many years later to something Saul had done and for which no satisfaction has yet taken place (2Sam 21:1). With God, crime never expires. He will at some point confront everyone with acts for which no atonement has been made. There is only one way to escape God’s retribution and that is sincere confession. Then an appeal can be made to the work that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross of Calvary. There He brought about the reconciliation with the holy and just God for the repentant sinner.