Thursday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 7, 2022

Hosea 11, 1-4; 8-9

Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer . . . . My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again; for I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you; I will not let the flames consume you.

The First Reading for today’s First Reading is taken from chapter 11 of the Book of the Prophet Hosea.  The chapter runs only eleven verses but some verses have been excluded from the Reading’s middle.  The should be read in its entirety so that the Lord’s words here might be more fully understood.  It does deserve to be studied in this way because in it God seems to wrestle with the problem of what to do to his erring people.  He considers what a human would do in his position and then asserts what he, as God, would do.  Using this kind of language, God reveals to us the enormous distance between the human way of thinking and his, that is, his transcendence.  As he says in Isaiah 55, 8-9: “My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

“When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son.”  St, Matthew cites this verse to show that the Infant Jesus would spend the first years of his life in Egypt where his parents had taken him to escape the murderous King Herod.  In the context of Hosea’s prophecy, God is speaking of his Chosen People at the time of their origin in the Exodus from Egypt.  God “calls” his son, Israel, to him, as though he were standing in the Holy Land and wanted his son with him there.  But like a willful child, Israel wandered everywhere but where he was supposed to go: “The more I called them, the farther they went from me.”  

“It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love.”  “Ephraim” is an alternative term for Israel, and was used by the Prophets particularly for the tribes making up the northern kingdom.  The Lord God speaks touchingly of his love and care for Ephraim though his child continuously rejects him.  In the omitted verses, which I have marked with an elision, Almighty God bursts out: “The Assyrian shall be his king: because they would not be converted. The sword has begun in his cities, and it shall consume his chosen men, and shall devour their heads. And my people shall long for my return: but a yoke shall be put upon them together, which shall not be taken off” (Hosea 11, 5-7).  God seems here to lean towards leaving the northern ten tribes to the consequences of their infidelity, and he declares: “How shall I deal with you, O Ephraim, shall I protect you, O Israel?  My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred.” (Hosea 11, 8).  Expressing himself thus, God presents himself as a human struggling with a tormenting problem.  But then he declares, “I will not give vent to my blazing anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again; for I am God and not man.”  After speaking as a human would, his reminder that he is God and does not reason as we do is stunning.  He is “the Holy One present among you.”  And because this is who he is, and not a man, “I will not let the flames consume you”.

In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass (Matthew 10, 7-15), the Son of God shows this same improbable mercy to recalcitrant sinners by sending his Apostles to preach to them, as he continues to send his preachers to call us to repentance and urge us to perseverance in the Faith.

In the end, the northern kingdom was swept away by Assyria in 722 B.C., probably after the death of the Prophet Hosea.  Its intransigence could not be broken, much as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose annihilation the Lord spoke of as a warning to future people who would reject his teaching.