Hosea and Gomer

https://odb.org/2025/02/27/a-path-forward

Hosea 3:1–5 (NIV): 3 The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” 4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward, the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.

Hosea is a strange book as the LORD instructed His prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, a prostitute and she bore him three children. After that, she went back to her old ways and became a prostitute again. Despite her wavering and adulterous ways, the LORD instructed Hosea to reconcile with Gomer, and he redeemed her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lethek (about half a homer) of barley, the homer costing also 15 shekels of silver. Thus, all in Hosea spent roughly 37.5 shekels of silver (about US$560 in today’s money) to redeem Gomer. We are not told the circumstances why Gomer went into prostitution in the first place or later.

In the spiritual sense, the LORD used Hosea’s love for Gomer to illustrate His love for Israel that despite their worship of other gods, He still loved and remembered them. He had never forsaken and abandoned them in spite of their insolence and idolatry. As history has shown, the LORD has always stood with and for Israel, even modern-day Israel. 

The application of the story of Hosea and Gomer is for us to love and reconcile with our loved ones and Christian friends even if they are not walking in godly ways right now. Gomer was a prostitute and thus adulterous, and yet God instructed Hosea to marry her, and when she went back to her old ways, the LORD instructed him to reconcile with her. We do not know why Gomer was who she was, and in a way, this implies that whatever may be the reason, we are still to love those who have gone astray. Jesus taught us that we are not to judge and are to love our neighbours, even our enemies. What more our loved ones and Christian friends who may have gone astray. Stand with them and for them, like God does with Israel. Why did Israel worship Baal and the Asherah poles? It doesn’t matter. God still loved Israel.