So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. – Hosea 3:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 11, 2014): Hosea 2 & 3

In 1850, the average price of a slave was $400. It was approximately four times the annual per capita income (in 1850 that level was around $110.) The economics of slavery was that the slave had to live and work for at least that length of time for the slave owner to be able to break even on the purchase. But the hope was that the slave would live a little longer. So each slave was examined for health before they were purchased. A young and strong slave might bring a little more than the average price – indicating that the economic break-even point would be a little further down the road. Of course, to be able to tie up that amount of money in a slave was also a status symbol. But you would still want to make good on your investment. A slave who died before that point would be a bad economic investment. And a slave who ran away might as well be dead. A runaway was treated harshly to try and stop future occurrences – or killed as an example to stop other slaves from attempting to run. But the other variable was that a good slave was only expected to live between seven and nine years. The best the slave owner could expect was to get approximately twice the life out of the money paid.

Hosea paid fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethek (about 195 kilograms or 430 pounds) of barley. The barley is thought to have been worth about fifteen shekels of silver bringing the total amount paid for the purchase of Gomer to 30 shekels of sliver. And that number is significant for two reasons.

First, it is the mandated price for a slave. Hosea was essentially purchasing his wife back from a slave holder, but that is also the point. Gomer was Hosea’s wife already. Under ancient law, she was already possessed by Hosea. There was absolutely no reason for Hosea to purchase her again, and no guarantee that his wife would not run again. And yet none of this seems to matter to Hosea. His love is so great for his wife that he is quite willing to pay the price of a slave to get his wife out of a bad situation. The anticipated symbolism of the story of Hosea and Gomer is intended to highlight the relationship between God and Israel. Israel had been God’s possession since the beginning of nation. He had blessed Abraham, and he had led Moses back into Egypt to free the children of Israel. And yet Israel had run away from the benevolence of God into the arms of other gods. Nothing required God to do anything other than walk away from the situation. But instead, God purposed to buy his wayward children back.

Which brings us to the second reason that thirty pieces of silver is significant. It was exactly the price that Judas was paid to turn Jesus over to the Jewish power hierarchy. Our freedom bought by the life of a man that bore the price of a slave. The action was not required, but God’s love for his creation continually goes beyond what might be necessary.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 4

Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. – Hosea 1:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 10, 2014): Hosea 1

According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, one in three families currently exist without a father. Single parent families, and specifically single mother families may be the most pressing tragedy that our culture is currently facing. As much as we might want to pretend that it doesn’t matter, children have a need for two parents – as well as a cast of others. There are traits in all of us that come from both parents – characteristics that we blend into our own beings, becoming something that has never existed before. And as children, we need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved, not by just one parent but by both.

Some of the saddest stories I have heard are about kids from one parent families whose parents have forgotten that their kids need both parents even if when it comes to a point in the marriage when the parents no longer believe that they need each other. That as their children, we are the sum of everything that they are – the good and the bad – and that nothing can change that that does not hurt us. And maybe that effect is multiplied when the child walks away from a parent. The result is a nightmare that is more than a dream – and the pain was very real.

Gomer conceives of a child, a daughter. The daughter is given a strange name – Lo-Ruhamah. We are told that the name means “not loved,” but a more precise translation of the name is “not loved by the father.” And the name is not a reflection on Hosea, because Hosea is not the father. But the problem is that no matter how much Hosea might love Lo-Ruhamah, the love that she needs is from her real father – her real absentee father.

It was a pain the Hosea needed to understand. Standing on the sideline all he could do was experience the pain that God felt as he watched Israel chase after other gods – gods that could never really make up for the love of the Father. It was a tragedy of israel’s own making, and there was nothing that Hosea could do but feel God’s very personal pain.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 2 & 3

Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. – Isaiah 66:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 9, 2014): Isaiah 66

Admirable James Stockdale spent eight years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He survived incredible hardship when many others simply gave up and died. In researching Stockdale for his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins remarked that he got depressed just reading Stockdale’s book “In Love and War” – a book written in alternating chapters by Admiral Stockdale and his wife, Sybil. When Collins asked Stockdale how he survived his time as a captive and Stockdale replied that “I never lost faith in the end of the story.  I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” Stockdale somehow maintained throughout his captivity that somehow, in the end, all of the pain that he suffered would be finally worth it. When Stockdale was finally released on February 12, 1973 he could not stand upright and he could barely walk as he returned home with his ordeal behind him. And yet he still clung to the idea that all of his pain, and the eight years that he spent separated from his family and friends, were somehow all worth it.  

There are a couple of ways that verse has been interpreted. And the first is to simply say that this verse speaks of a metaphorical rebirth of Israel from out of the Babylonian exile, and that rebirth would be without pain. It looks back to the rise Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire, and Cyrus sudden release of the captives sending them once again for home, as being a process that was absent of pain. But the problem is that that assumes that the 70 years of captivity were without pain – and that does not seem to make much sense. Any removal of a people from their home would definitely cause a certain amount of pain – even if their captors were intending no harm.

Maybe a better interpretation might to be to understand the passage to be speaking of the pain of the exile which will end quickly. The prophecy of the end of the captivity would fill the captives with hope – and in the end the pain of the captivity would provide a benefit to Israel that would be worth all of the pain that the nation had to go through – that somehow all of that pain would eventually be worth it.

Isaiah likens the process to a mother giving birth to a child. It is not that the mother does not go through any pain; the pain of childbirth is great. And yet somehow when you emerge on the other side and you are finally holding that new life in your arms, the pain seems inconsequential. And in the end, the pain is minor when compared to the immense joy that is gained in the child that is born.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 1

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. – Isaiah 65:17

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 8, 2014): Isaiah 65

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King delivered what may have been his most famous speech – the one that we know as the “I Have a Dream” speech. The speech was delivered to over a quarter million civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. And King begins his speech by referring to the Emancipation Proclamation – a war measures act put into effect by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, freeing the slaves of the rebellious states and effectively ending the practice of slavery in North America. The date of the proclamation was January 1, 1863. Just over 100 years later, Martin Luther King spoke to the crowd declaring that the slaves were still not free, that the dream of Abraham Lincoln still had not been accomplished.

But the most famous part of the speech is when King begins to speak about his dream. Repeatedly King says that he has a dream – a dream of a different world, a dream where the effects of racism are a thing of the past - a past that we can hardly believe was ever real. At the climax of this part of the speech that Dr. King spoke these words

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!”

With a single phrase Martin Luther King changed the landscape of American politics.

Isaiah also speaks of a dream. A time in the future when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah’s speech might have originally been intended as poetic hyperbole, although the New Testament writers pick up on this idea in a very literal sense. But in the mind of Isaiah, the dream of God would be a time when all of the things that are important to God would take center stage in our world. It is a time when all people are considered equal, a time when peace reigns, where all of the people of the earth finally come together with one peaceful purpose in mind. I believe that Martin Luther King’s dream and Isaiah’s God dream are not all that far apart. If King’s dream could just become true, we would be living on a new earth.

But Dr. King’s dream is still just that – a dream. It has been just over 50 years since Dr. King spoke his words, and just over 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln – and yet still we have slaves in our world. Still we seem to be more concerned with the color of a person’s skin, their socio- economic status or even their religion than we are of the character that resides inside. The United Nations estimates that there are currently between 27 to 30 million people involved in slavery currently – a figure that is the highest it has ever been and still moving upward. And absolutely none of this is a part of Isaiah’s New Heaven and New Earth.

But I have dream of a day when a New Heaven and a New Earth are a physical reality in our world. When the dream of God is a reality and equality and peace reigns I have dream, today.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 66

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! – Isaiah 64:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 7, 2014): Isaiah 64

A Coin depicting Saddam Hussein in
front of an image of Neuchadnezzar II
of Babylon

Saddam Hussein considered himself to be the reincarnation, or at the very least the one who possessed the spirit, of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. During his reign he seemed to desire to repeat the feats of Nebuchadnezzar and this was one of the reasons that Israel treated his threats so seriously – it had been Nebuchadnezzar that had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple for the first time (although Rome repeated the feat in 70 C.E. and Israel disappeared from the history of the world from that moment until 1948 – and the temple in Jerusalem [the third temple] continues to remain unbuilt.) Hussein even minted a coin that bore his image and the image of Nebuchadnezzar standing side by side. This practice of Hussein (and others) is usually undertaken in order to make a regime seem more legitimate than it really is. But there are other reasons to invoke the past. Sometimes it is just to revive a spirit that had existed in a previous time so that the society can reach for bigger things. Or it can serve to remind the people of their essential identity – the reminder of the past serves as a way of bonding the people together. For Hussein, it may have been for all of the above reasons that the ruler invoked “the Spirit of Nebuchadnezzar II.”

But this practice of identifying with ancient leaders is also a common device of the biblical writers – but usually in the Bible the purpose of this identification with ancient is only to remind the people of their essential identity. Usually the points of identification are one of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob – or the liberator of Israel – Moses – or the nation’s greatest king – David - so that the people would recognize their essential character as the people of God. And sometimes that identification is very obvious, but sometimes it is a little more obscure.

This would be an example of a more obscure identification. This portion of Isaiah was written about the exile of Judah in Babylon, the time of history inaugurated by Nebuchadnezzar II – or maybe possibly even written during the exile. But the purpose of this section of the prophecy is to remind the people of their essential identity – of who they really are. And Isaiah starts the reminder with two illustrations as he prays.

The first is his desire that God would split the boundaries of heaven and come down. In Isaiah’s mind, that must have been exactly what God had done during the time of Moses, when he repeatedly stepped into our world to meet with the prophet. This had to be what happened when Moses met with God at the burning bush, and when the plagues were brought on Egypt, and when the Red Sea was parted with the Egyptian army closing in from behind. God ripped the heavens and stepped into human time.

The second desire was a little more specific. Again it is a time when God tore the heavens, but this time he stepped into human time on Mount Sinai. And with all of Israel encamped around the mountain, God shook it.

The current situation for Israel was better than it was in the time of Moses, and yet Israel still was not allowed to return home. And yet, if God had split the heavens and he shook the mountain once, he could do it again. If God could do that for Israel then, the same God could do it for Israel now – as long as Israel remembered who it was that they were. And the same is true for us – if we remember who it is that we are – the adopted of God and co-heirs of the promise with Christ. This is our identity. And this is what we need to remember.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 65

“I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing. – Isaiah 63:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 6, 2014): Isaiah 63

The description in Isaiah 63:3 is almost gothic in nature. We have seen it so many times before. The battle is enjoined, and at the end of the battle only one man remains. He emerges from the battle alone, soaked with the blood of the enemies that he has killed. It is really an ancient image. One that is used by many of the ancient authors. For Aristotle, this is also a description of courage. Aristotle believed that courage was an action undertaken selflessly, always in battle and always in the pursuit of a noble cause. Courage is not always victorious, but when it is, this is the way that courage emerges – soaked with the blood of the enemy.

Maybe because it is a common ancient image, it might not be surprising that it is an image that Isaiah uses it. But, at the same time, the image has been a hard one for scholars to interpret. From a historical perspective, the idea of a military victor that fights for the freedom of the Judean exiles is an appealing one. It is a picture of the lone warrior, a military Moses that fights alone for the lives of those being held captive. But the problem is that it never happened.

Another option is to interpret the passage as being Messianic in nature – or having to do with Christ. But the passage also presents challenges to that interpretation. Two of the major objections are that Jesus was not from Edom (as is indicated in verse 1) and while the image of Jesus dripping with blood is a common crucifixion image, it can’t be said that he is dripping with the blood of his enemies – the standard gothic image is just not a Christian one.

However, the interpretation may still be warranted. The essential work that Jesus did on the cross, he did alone. And the work had to be done alone – no one else could sacrifice themselves for our sin. But beyond that, while Jesus was not an Edomite (or Idumean), Herod the reigning king in Israel was, and this prophecy may simply be an indication of the breadth of the work that Jesus did. It was not just for Judah that Jesus did his work, but for the entire world which included during the time of Jesus the foreigner that was sitting on the throne of Israel. But another image is also present in this passage. At the time of Jesus crucifixion, Pilate, the Roman Governor in charge of the area, washed his hands of the situation indicating his innocence. But at the same time, Jesus voluntarily took the blood and guilt of the people onto himself. Jesus was drenched with the guilt of his enemies, and therefore their blood. His work, done alone, was accomplished for all – even those who were considered to be his adversaries.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 64

As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. – Isaiah 62:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 5, 2014): Isaiah 62

The idea of marrying for love is a fairly recent development of society, although admittedly it is hard for us to understand any other reason to marry. Today, marriage is a commitment and a contract between two people who choose to face the challenges of life together. Although the top two fights in a modern marriage are listed in almost every study as being caused by money and sex, a modern marriage is really based on so much more. And the expectation in every marriage is that both of the partners will become the absolute best that they can be because of the union.

But an ancient marriage was quite different. An ancient marriage was an economic contract for the benefit of only one of the partners. In a male dominated culture like the Middle East, the benefitting partner was always the male. The question in almost every marriage was not do I love you, but rather how will I benefit from marrying you – a benefit that included but also went beyond jut the bearing of healthy children. It is not that love was totally absent, but it was not the priority and often showed up later in the relationship.

Because of the economic nature of a marriage, in every marriage a woman who was a virgin was valued higher than a woman who was widowed or divorced. And that is the meaning of the phrase “young woman” in this passage. The allusion of Isaiah is to the marriage of highly desirable woman – a virgin - by a man. Even a man who had married before would value a young, never before married woman over one who had been married before. And Isaiah says that God desires this kind of marriage relationship with Israel. But there is also an irony hiding in Isaiah’s words – there is absolutely no way that Israel could be considered either a virgin or a young woman. In fact, Israel was not even a widow. Israel was an unfaithful divorcee. She had bounced around in her relationships with the various gods of the land and had been faithful to absolutely none of them. And yet, Isaiah says that she is still desired by God. And not only desired, but desired in a way that young man desires a young woman or a virgin. It is as if God was willing to ignore all of Israel’s unfaithful behavior and accept her as if her unfaithfulness had never happened.

And this is really the beauty of the Christian message. The attractiveness of the message has never been that we are a perfect people – we know that that is not true. But God desires us even though we have not been faithful, accepts us as if we had been faithful, and rejoices over us as if we are the most valuable possession that he has. It is a position that neither we nor Israel deserved, but in God it is our reality. And the hope of God is that we will live our lives reflecting the value that he sees in us, even though we may not see it in ourselves.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 63