“Though you, Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty. “Do not go to Gilgal; do not go up to Beth Aven. And do not swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’ – Hosea 4:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 12, 2014): Hosea 4

George Orwell once commented that “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” But revolutionary acts do not just happen. Revolutionary acts have to be thought through and courageously pursued. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes almost impossible. It takes a revolutionary act to swim against the deceptive culture.

When the original Kingdom of Israel divided into two nations, the northern nation retained the name “Israel,” but the southern Kingdom of Judah retained the temple and the cultic religion of Israel. Jeroboam, the northern leader at the time of the division, needed to stop his people from taking their religious pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem - inside the territory of the southern nation. So he set up two cultic cities in the north proclaiming that they were cities dedicated to the worship of the God of Israel – the very God that had brought Israel out of Egypt. The cities were Gilgal and Bethel – and the cities were built on a lie.

Hosea understood this – so instead of calling Bethel by its name, which means “House of God,” he chooses to call the city by a derogatory name – Beth Aven, which means “House of Deceit.” Hosea was highlighting the northern nation’s dependence on lies. The confusing comment at the end prohibiting the people from swearing ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ is probably indicative of the idea that no truth can come out of a lie. The northern cities of deceit could do nothing other than bring more deceit. In their origin they were given a lie that they were places of God – and now because of that lie every truth, including a truth about God, was contaminated. What they needed was a revolutionary act that would shatter the deceit leaving only the truth. But the revolution was slow in coming.

The idea of a little white lie is really a myth. There is really no such thing. Deception, no matter how small, always taints the truth. George Orwell died on January 21, 1950. He is buried in a Church Cemetery and his grave stone simply reads “Here Lies Eric Arthur Blair” – the name that George Orwell was born with. The stone contains no allusion to the pen name of the great author and thinker lying beneath the surface of the ground. Maybe it is Orwell’s own little revolution of truth in a world that seems to be bent on deceit.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 5