Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:15 As together, we follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:20 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. And I am here with my co-host, who is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and of great kindness. John, when I read Joel chapter two, I thought of you, that you are gracious and merciful and slow to anger. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry. Have you ever been-

John Bytheway: 00:39 Really?

Hank Smith: 00:40 … angry, John? I would think people would want to know that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry. I’ve known you for a long time. When was the last time you got angry? Was it like 2006 or something?

John Bytheway: 00:50 I can be irritable almost daily, but I try not to be angry.

Hank Smith: 00:54 Okay. I can be irritable. I can be irritating. John, the other one I thought of as I read Joel 2, but I just didn’t want to do this because it just says, “Your old men shall dream dreams,” and I was going to ask you how your dreams have been lately, but I thought that would be mean. So I went with Joel 2:13.

John Bytheway: 01:13 I would dream dreams if I slept that well.

Hank Smith: 01:15 Yeah. That’s probably the beauty of old men shall dream dreams. They’re like, “Wow, the old men get to sleep.”

John Bytheway: 01:22 I think as you get older, you fall asleep when you’re not supposed to and you can’t sleep when you’re trying to.

Hank Smith: 01:27 When you’re supposed to. Well, a message from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All right.

  01:35 Hey, John, we are in the Books of Hosea and Joel today. Probably not ones that our listeners are very familiar with, and so we wanted to bring someone who knew these books backwards and forwards. So who’s here? Who’s joining us?

John Bytheway: 01:48 Hank, we mentioned this book when we had Dr. Belnap on, and there’s a lot of contributing authors here, but Aaron Schade is one of the main… Would you say compilers of this thing?

Hank Smith: 01:58 Yeah, he’s the editor.

John Bytheway: 02:00 Dan Belnap and Aaron Schade were the editors. Aaron is a Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU, teaches courses on religion and ancient Near Eastern languages, history, and archeology. Now, here’s where Aaron’s going to help me pronounce. Aaron is the co-director of the Khirbat Ataruz Excavation.

Hank Smith: 02:19 How did he do, Aaron? How did he do there?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 02:22 Yes.

John Bytheway: 02:22 Ataruz, Jordan?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 02:23 Fantastic.

Hank Smith: 02:24 Nice job.

John Bytheway: 02:24 Is it close enough? He completed his graduate studies at the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern civilizations. He’s a faculty member at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. His research interests and publications include ancient Northwest Semitic inscriptions, archeology, and the Old Testament. He is married to the former Karla Bertram. They are the parents of Adam, Elizabeth, and David.

  02:52 Hank, I love, every time we introduce somebody, to see how broadly these people have been educated. So University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. This is great. We’re excited for this. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Schade, today. Thank you.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 03:08 My pleasure. Happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 03:10 I’ve got to tell you, John, I’ve known Aaron for a few years here, and he is brilliant and kind, both. Top of the scale, both brilliant and kind. He’s as good as gold. I could call you Dr. Schade, but today, I’m going to call you Aaron, if that’s okay.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 03:22 Perfect.

John Bytheway: 03:23 We become less formal during the podcast.

Hank Smith: 03:26 Aaron, for our listeners who don’t know these books very well, how should we approach them? What do we need to know before we start? How do you usually approach these books?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 03:35 Hosea, for example, is one of those books that just doesn’t get a lot of attention. Part of it is just because by verse two through four, you’re just scratching your head and you’re wondering, “What in the world is going on?” And we start putting God on trial. We try examining him. What are you doing? Why are you asking Hosea to do something like this? Where really, the gist of the book is trying to get us to examine ourselves.

  04:00 Hosea is a book about love, it’s about a relationship with God. It’s about one that’s trying to get us to examine ourselves and our relationship with Him. So if we can just sort of muscle past the first couple of verses and see them for what they’re saying, we start to see that this is a deep love story between us, ancient Israel, and by extension, our relationship to God. I think that that’s a good starting point for Hosea. And we can talk a little bit about the imagery behind all of this and what’s going on in this marriage that Hosea is asked to engage in from the very start.

John Bytheway: 04:32 Aaron, give us kind of a quick historical backdrop. I think our listeners are now acquainted with the phrases, the Assyrian captivity and the Babylonian captivity. They know about Isaiah and Jeremiah. Where does Hosea fit with that backdrop?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 04:48 This is mid-eighth century. The book tells us in verse one that this is the word of the Lord that came in the days of Beeri, of Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Which is very unusual because most of the kings listed there are from the kingdom of Judah. So there’s something about this where the focus of the book is predominantly on Israel, and this is taking us straight into the mid-eighth century where you have the Assyrians that are looming, Tiglath-Pileser will shortly start wreaking havoc on the region. And yes, we have the Isaiahs, the Amoses that are warning us that there is some trouble that’s brewing and it’s time to do something about that and to turn back to God.

  05:33 So these books are trying to get us to think about returning to God. And it’s in a time where we’re meant to sort of read and reread and rethink what this is all about, because we’ll see in chapter one, that this isn’t just about the kingdom of Israel. Because he’s listing all of these kings from Judah, those take us a century later. So part of what these children in this marriage are supposed to represent is, I think, a series of prophecies that aren’t going to happen quickly, but that are going to happen through time. And this is taking place during the times of Jeroboam.

  06:07 And if either of you have been to Tel Dan, I think you have, you notice that massive temple complex that’s there. I mean, that’s the footprint of Jeroboam II. That’s the king we’re talking about. So this is during a period of just unheard of prosperity in the kingdom of Israel, and they’ve outcast back in the Elijah stories, the nemesis is the kingdom of Aram, so the Arameans, and the stories of Naaman. And at this point now, the Arameans have been expelled, and essentially, the Israelite kingdom is expanding and the prosperity economically is just off the charts.

Hank Smith: 06:40 Wow.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 06:40 So we’re going in now to where they’re going to start feeling a little confident and a little loose in their relationship with God, and Hosea is going to have to address that.

Hank Smith: 06:49 Okay. So this is the time where we still have a Northern and Southern Kingdom.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 06:52 Yes.

Hank Smith: 06:53 Northern Kingdom has not been taken yet. But like you said, Assyria is looming.

John Bytheway: 06:59 Yeah, and you used… I have always wondered how to pronounce the king of Assyria. Will you say that again? Tiglath-Pileser? How did you say it?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 07:07 Tiglath-Pileser, yeah. He’s just going to wreak havoc in this region. I really love the way a scholar whose name is Ehud Ben Zvi, he described the Book of Hosea as precisely the element of hope against a background of apparent hopelessness that has led to the book’s wide use in Jewish liturgy. So even today, during services like Tisha B’Av, Hosea 14 in the Sephardic and Yemenite traditions are read. And during Shabbat Shuvah, which is the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the reading passages from Hosea to again remind people of hope and a future.

John Bytheway: 07:41 Wow.

Hank Smith: 07:42 That’s awesome. What a great description, because how many of our listeners can identify with, “I need hope against a background of hopelessness.”? I’m sure there are people listening right now who are like, “That’s what I need.”

John Bytheway: 07:55 Yeah. I remember hearing Victor Ludlow years ago was kind of characterizing these different kingdoms around this period of time, and he called Babylon the commercial, cultural, financial center. But he called Assyria the cruel military superpower. I still remember Tiglath-Pileser as the guy that’s leading this military superpower that wreaks havoc, and that Isaiah prophesies that the Northern Kingdom is going to be taken captive by eventually. Did I get that right?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 08:29 Yeah, that’s correct.

John Bytheway: 08:31 I did want to ask, because to me, sometimes Old Testament names kind of indicate a mission. What does the name Hosea mean? And I’ve heard people say Hosea too.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 08:43 Basically, it’s rooted in the concept of saving. So ultimately, the book is trying to put forth a redemption template, one that brings encouragement amongst a situation that is admittedly bleak. And it’s heading in that direction where after Jeroboam II, the Assyrian intervention will take place. And part of what these children are going to represent in chapter one is a description that’s going to lead from a time where there won’t be mercy, from a time where God will sow them, to a period where all of those things that are negated are going to be reversed in the next chapter that describe now a condition where we are now once again reunited with God. And that that hope is now moving forward in a very productive way against the backdrop of the exodus tradition, which is described in chapter two and being described now as a way for us to look forward to a future based on the trust that we put in our past.

Hank Smith: 09:41 Aaron, you are blowing me away here.

John Bytheway: 09:43 Yeah, this is great. I love this idea of hope in a backdrop. That’s perfect. Way to just frame the whole thing.

Hank Smith: 09:52 Yeah, I think everybody listening just all of a sudden goes, “Yeah, that’s me. That’s what I need.” Let’s jump in then. Aaron, you keep talking about a marriage and children. What do you mean?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 10:02 When we get to Hosea 1:2-4, we begin to see this is the word of the Lord by Hosea. And he’s told now to “go and take thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.” So immediately now, we’re all scratching our head and saying, “What did God just command Hosea to do?”

  10:24 I’m not sure that this is meant to be a biographical sketch of Hosea. I can only imagine him coming home and saying, “Hey, honey, guess what I said about you and the kids today when I was out teaching the people?” It’s like, “It’s the couch for you, and thanks, Dad.” Whatever his familial circumstances are… And again, Isaiah is often used as a parallel to this because he names his children different things that prophesy of the future. So I’m not sure that Hosea is trying to get us to beat our head against the wall, trying to figure out what God is doing, but more to use these now to teach a message to say, “What are we as individuals and as people doing in our relationship to God?”

  11:04 Because with this, he’s starting to talk about name one of these children, Jezreel, which is a geographical place and region that factors in greatly to the Israelite kingdom during the eighth century, but it also has to do with God will sow. So we’re starting now to see, and Sperry called this what he thought was a metaphoric description of prophecies and of Hosea’s ministry amongst ancient Israel, and so that’s how he described it.

  11:34 Whatever Hosea’s family life was like, it’s clear that there are some metaphors going on here. And just to highlight this, Henry B. Eyring in a talk that he gave back in Conference of 1996, he said, “The Book of Hosea, like the writings of Isaiah, uses what seemed to me almost poetic images. The symbols in Hosea are a husband, his bride, her betrayal, and a test of marriage covenants almost beyond comprehension.”

  12:06 So what seems to be going on here is that the Lord is using sort of these images now, again, whatever Hosea’s personal life was like, it’s clear that these images in Hosea chapter one are trying to get us to think now about the unthinkable. And that is, what is it like for a spouse to betray another spouse? And as you start thinking, you’ll say, “This is horrific.” The toll that that takes on the spouse is the toll that it takes on the children. The toll that it takes on anybody that loves them. And we just sit back horrified at the image, realizing that really, the comparison in the book is now think about how you treat God. Think about how you approach God. Because we’re talking now about a spouse who will have undying love and fidelity to you covenantally. Do you have that same love and fidelity to Him?

  12:58 So the book, it just takes us into these depths of just self-examination of what is it that I see in my covenants with God. And do I understand how much he actually loves and cares about me? Because these children now, that again, this concept of Jezreel, it has to do with sowing. So you just get this very deliberate type of attempt of God. Destruction is coming at the hand of the Assyrians within a few decades, and we just get now a prophecy that says that God is going to sow. So this concept of the scattering of Israel is going to become something that’s very real, but also something very deliberate. Because, of course, when you plant a seed, you hope that eventually something grows from it. So again, the image of all of the horrific events that are on the horizon, the long game for God is what can grow and be accomplished through all of this.

  13:49 And ultimately, we now see the series of children that are going to be born. Lo-Ruhamah is going to be the next one. It means not being pitied, not being extended mercy. And that doesn’t mean infinitely, it just means essentially that justice has caught up. We’re going to see that in chapter two, where for hundreds of years since the Exodus, God has been patiently working with Israel, trying to help them, loving them, giving them opportunities, and we’re just getting to a point now where they’re denying Him.

  14:18 That’s the name of the third child, Lo-Ammi, which means not my people. And some people see this as a divorce declaration, but it’s really quite different than the actual formula used in the Hebrew Bible. So this isn’t so much as a divorce, as much as a separation, and it’s a separation that’s initiated by the people, not God. So it’s clear that God wants the people back, that He cares for them. And ultimately, that this chapter is now trying to set us up for what will follow in the last couple of verses and lead us into chapter two, which is about a restoration, a redemptive paradigm that brings all of these negative things into a positive sphere of blessing God’s children.

Hank Smith: 15:00 So if I’m teaching this at home or if I’m teaching this at church, don’t get caught up on the marriage itself or what’s happening there. I hear you saying, “That’s not the point.” Hosea doesn’t want us to all of a sudden, “Okay, focus in. Why would God give this calling?” This is just an introduction to a much broader message of this is Israel married to Jehovah, and Israel keeps breaking the covenant, and how would Jehovah feel.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 15:26 And it’s not that those details are unimportant and it’s not like we’re trying to skirt the issue, it’s just that it’s frustratingly shallow in providing a biographical sketch. And same thing with chapter three is you just look at it and just an example of when it says, “Go and take you a wife,” at the beginning of the first couple of verses here, that deviates from the normal marriage pattern in the Hebrew Bible. So there’s some indications that this isn’t trying to get us a focal point on the literal marriage between Hosea and his wife, and he probably was married, he may have been married. What this all represents, Gomer, or Gomer, is from a verb that means finished. So just even when we go into this, “Go, take yourself a wife from a people that are almost finished.”

Hank Smith: 16:09 Wow.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 16:10 It is trying to tell us that time is running out. What I love about Hosea is that it takes the onus off of God, and throughout the book, there are several things that are saying that the people have made decisions against the will of God that are bringing the Assyrians onto their doorstep. So we’ll see that Israel has hired her lovers and they have gone to Assyria and they could not heal her. And we just sort of get this impression now that they’re looking for answers in places where they’ll never find them, when they have this loving God with outstretched arms who’s always there trying to welcome them back and who’s pleading with them to come back.

  16:48 I mean, that’s how chapter two, which is actually… Hosea chapter one ends in the Hebrew Bible at verse nine, but verses 10, 11, and then chapter two are all about pleading with your mother, which is, again, a conception of what Israel is. And even within the book, there’s some passages in here that talk about Israel as a people, as a land, are the ones who are whoring after other gods. And ultimately, that’s what I really love about the book is it’s trying to say instead of pointing the finger at God as being this mean, angry, menacing, punishing God of the Old Testament, we’ve never seen him through a more loving and kind light than in the Book of Hosea.

Hank Smith: 17:24 That’s awesome. And I love what you said there, “You’re looking for answers in places you will never find them.” That’s so applicable to today. When we are on a background of hopelessness, we often ourselves go look for answers in places we won’t find them. You won’t find your answers. I think Jacob says something like that. You spend money on that which hath no worth. You labor for that which cannot satisfy. John, did you want to jump in before we keep going?

John Bytheway: 17:53 Sure. I just love the metaphor of the marriage. I think it continues. In the Book of Mormon class, we were talking about this super strong words for talking about this great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth. And whoa, my parents wouldn’t let us use that word when we were little.

  18:13 And then all through to the New Testament, here comes the bridegroom. The bridegroom comes, are you ready? I mean, Isaiah talks about the daughters of Zion and how they’re wearing all these ornaments and round tires like the moon, and mufflers, and crisping pins and all this. And it really helped me to see that this was a marriage and they were betrothed, and they were trying to attract other lovers. And as you said, Aaron, what could be more hurtful than the betrayal of a spouse? So we’re supposed to see, “Yeah, and God, Jehovah is the bridegroom, and how are we behaving as the bride?” So I love the metaphor and that he would use strong words like that, because it’s imagining the most hurtful thing possible, I think.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 18:58 It really is trying to get us to understand that God has never given up. Chapter two addresses that quite a bit.

  19:05 We mentioned in Hosea 1:4, it talks about Jehu will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And of course, we know that he was anointed to do so by a prophet. And he goes and in the midst of purging the Omri Dynasty, for whatever reason, unknown to any of us, he turns and starts thrashing part of the house of Judah. Ahaziah’s in the region at the time for whatever reason. And he turns on the house of Judah and then goes after them and their household, which essentially puts Athaliah, who is the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, on the throne in Judah, and it just wreaks havoc in both kingdoms now.

  19:45 Jehu is in this famous inscription from Shalmaneser III, it depicts him bowing down in tribute to the Assyrians. I think we see quite a bit of that in the Book of Hosea, again with this concept of you sold yourselves off to Assyria. And kind of what you were talking about earlier, I think it’s Isaiah 50 that talks about, “Where is the bill of thy mother’s divorcement? To whom have I sold you?” And the response is, “I haven’t sold you to anybody. You’ve sold yourselves off to this.”

John Bytheway: 20:15 You sold yourselves.

Hank Smith: 20:17 You left me.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 20:18 Yeah. That’s really, I think, what’s happening. Now, and particularly, there is a direct mechanism that’s involved in this, and that is that Jehu’s taken them into a first stage of vassalage to Assyria. So when you start striking deals with Assyria, it may temporarily work out, but it’s not a long-term solution in most cases.

Hank Smith: 20:36 All of these things are so applicable. I can see. We go to other places for hope, we go to other places for answers. And they may be short term, they may be self-medicating, but they’re not long term. They won’t last. I’m trying to do the application here, and you’re making it so easy. I can just see it as you talk.

John Bytheway: 20:53 I was thinking of that song from my teenage years, probably not yours, Hank or Aaron, but looking for love in all the wrong places. We’re looking in the wrong places for peace and for hope, like Jacob said.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 21:05 And it’s interesting because we see in here in chapter 1, verse 7, “I’ll have mercy upon the house of Judah.” So again, this concept of mercy where we had Lo-Ruhamah to the kingdom of Israel, which not being pitied. But Judah will have mercy. It says, “I’ll save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by the bow, nor by the sword, nor by battle or by horses.” This seems to be referencing forward to a time where you remember when the Assyrians are camped out on Jerusalem’s doorstep under Hezekiah, and ultimately, they do not win that battle with swords, with conflicts. There’s a plague of death or something goes through their camp. So this seems to be foreshadowing something of that nature that says, “You know what? God really does have mercy, but you’ve got to come back to him.”

Hank Smith: 21:49 You’ve got to choose him. So Israel is going to be destroyed while Judah will last a little bit longer.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 21:55 Until the Babylonians, yeah..

John Bytheway: 21:57 And Jerusalem will be protected in that battle you’re talking about. Which is always interesting because when Lehi is saying, “No, Jerusalem’s going to be destroyed,” they could go to their own past and say, “No, it was protected last time.”

Dr. Aaron Schade: 22:11 And they did appeal to that in the Book of Mormon. There is a sense of overconfidence in both the Book of Jeremiah and in the Book of Mormon, that God will protect us. This is his city, this is our place of refuge. And ultimately, we’re turned back to again this conception that when you get to the Book of Jeremiah, you’re going to see that there’s these pro-Babylonian, pro-Egyptian factions, and people are trying to appeal to both for answers when Jeremiah is giving them the directive. The question is who’s going to listen, who’s going to respond.

Hank Smith: 22:41 Yeah, this is fantastic. Let’s keep going. How do we want to look at chapters two and three, Aaron?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 22:48 Chapter two is interesting because at the end of chapter one, which again, ends in verse nine with the Hebrew Bible. So the paradigm shifts in verses 10 and 11 to what really sounds like language of the Abrahamic Covenant. Your numbers will be as the sand of the sea, and blessings of prosperity that are going to come forth. And you are not my people, and there it shall be said to them, “You’re the sons of the living God.” So you’re going to be gathered together under one head. So this really does have sort of an eschatological feel to it to a point where the house that’s been divided under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, at some stage, will be reunited under one head, and that will be God. And that’ll take us later into Joel when He comes again and when the earth is reunited under his kingship and everyone acknowledges that. So there’s really this great feel to it.

  23:40 Chapter two shifts to, “Brethren, Ammi. You are my people.” So the negation is gone there. So where you were not my people, you are now going to be called my people. And when you were not pitied, now you are Ruhamah. So you are pitied, you are extended mercy, but you’ve got to plead with your mother, you’ve got to plead with your people.

  24:00 So this began. It takes a larger eschatological feel to it. Because this isn’t just about one place and one time in one region. This now seems to be shifting to a time where the earth will receive its paradisiacal glory and the parlance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because verse three, it takes us back to the Exodus. So it says, “Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.” So this is taking us back to now when Israel became a people through the Exodus, and God nurtured them and cared for them and loved them and set up a covenant with them.

  24:41 And now it says that in verse five, she said, “Nope, I’ll go after my lovers.” And they often talk about water and wool and flax and oil. And in the Torah, these are all things that are depicted as blessings from God. And in Hosea, he’ll say, “I gave you all these things and you never recognized it. And you kept going to these other superpowers, like Assyria, looking to make these alliances that I knew would be trouble. And if you just would’ve trusted me, I would’ve provided for these things in the form of blessings.” And you just sort of hear God saying, “Just please, just stay with me on this.” The Exodus is the backdrop for all of that.

  25:18 In verse 15, chapter two, it says, “And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth.” So again, it’s hearkening back to the Exodus when they crossed, the rivers were parted, they came through in safety. And we always turn to it. Whenever we need answers, we go to the Prince of Egypt. That’s the greatest film of all time that shows us how to interpret things. And you remember that cute little girl that gives the song after they cross the waters? Ashira l’Adonai ki gaoh gaah. Essentially it’s talking now just about how powerful and merciful and how the Lord has just spectacularly triumphed. So it’s now hearkening back to that day of triumph and saying that’s also in our future after we go through this period of destruction. And ultimately, verse 18 is talking that. You hear this language of creation, “I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the fowls of the heaven, and with the creeping things.” That’s creation, Genesis language.

Hank Smith: 26:14 All the way back to Genesis.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 26:15 And basically, creation has been undone through all of this. The message of hope is that all things will be recreated under this one head, and creation will be anew and the earth will receive its paradisiacal glory. And he then says, “I will betroth thee unto me, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” That’s the good news of all of this.

Hank Smith: 26:39 So it starts out with this message of hope. Is the whole book this way, or is it now, “Okay, there will be hope one day at the end. Now let’s go through some of the things you’ve done.”? Because as I was reading, I thought we go back and forth between hope and the present of their present infidelity.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 26:57 Yeah, there’s no question about it. The first couple of chapters are setting us up to don’t give up. Several of the subsequent chapters are we’re in for a hard time here, and here are some things that are happening, but don’t give up hope.

Hank Smith: 27:09 Because they’re going to have to go through this because they chose this.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 27:12 The book does present it in that way that you’ve gone after these people. My people have gone after other lovers. And again, the idolatry, that’s back in chapter two, verse two, where it says, “Let her put away her whoredoms from out of her sight, and adulteries from out of her breasts.” That’s a really typical iconographic depiction of goddesses in the ancient Near East, is basically this bare-breasted female who’s usually suckling a child or feeding people in some way. Nurturing and nursing. And now they’re being told, “Come back to God, and Him only, and get rid of some of these other things.”

  27:50 So that’s the Elijah story of, “How long halt you between two opinions?” The literal verb there is to limp. How long are you going to keep limping around back and forth between different gods? I’m here for you. Come back, and I can do all of these things for you again, as I did in the Exodus.

  28:07 And Nephi loves this. Nephi’s hero is Moses. Everything that’s driving him is, “If God can do this for Moses, he can do it for us.” We hear it in the Book of Alma 36, “I always keep in remembrance things that God has done for me.” And we see it in Mosiah. So there’s just something about this concept of never ever forgetting all of the power that God has to enact in our lives, and the love that he does it with.

Hank Smith: 28:29 Man, well said.

John Bytheway: 28:31 I think that the Exodus, it seems to be the central event of the Old Testament everybody else refers back to so often. Maybe I shouldn’t say something that bold, but that just occurs to me that they’re always talking about that and trying to remember it.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 28:46 That’s really the epiphany of chapter two. There’s going to come a point where after following her lovers, it says, “I will go and return to my first husband, for there was it better for me than now.” So there’s the final recognition that just says, “You know what? It was really better for me when I did have God in my life than when I didn’t.” That does seem to be a major epiphany in chapter two.

Hank Smith: 29:07 And when I didn’t have these other lovers, these other gods, it was better. I’m going to go back.

John Bytheway: 29:14 And I love that repenting and returning are often kind of synonymous. I will return. Repent and return.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 29:20 Yeah, that’s the exact meaning. In Hebrew, shuv, it means to go back. So all of this concept of repentance is please go back to God and allow Him to show you the type of love that you’ve been craving for through all of this, and that he’s never ever withdrawn. In fact, is it okay if I read a statement by Elder Eyring?

Hank Smith: 29:42 Please.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 29:42 This was in the General Conference, April 1996. This is a little bit long, but he describes of how these first few chapters of Hosea changed his life as he was teaching this to some seminary students.

Hank Smith: 29:55 Wow.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 29:55 He said, “At that early point in the story, in just two chapters, even my youngest students knew that the husband was a metaphor for Jehovah, Jesus Christ, and they knew that the wife represented his covenant people, Israel, who had gone after strange gods. They understood that the Lord was teaching them, through His metaphor, an important principle. Even though those with whom He has covenanted may be horribly unfaithful to Him, He would not divorce them if they would only turn back to Him with full purpose of heart.

  30:26 I knew too that, but even more than that, I felt something. I had a new feeling about what it means to make a covenant with the Lord. All my life, I had heard explanations of covenants as being like a contract, an agreement where one person agrees to do something and the other agrees to do something else in return. For more reasons than I can explain, during those days teaching Hosea, I felt something new, something more powerful. This was not a story about a business deal between partners, nor about business law. This was a love story. This was a story of a marriage covenant bound by steadfast love.

  31:04 What I felt then, and it has increased over the years, was that the Lord, with whom I am blessed to have made covenants, loves me and you, with a steadfastness about which I continually marvel and which I want with all my heart to emulate.”

  31:19 So Elder Eyring just talks about how Hosea has changed his life and helped him more deeply contemplate what it means to have fidelity to God, but most importantly, what it means for us to experience the full love of God in our lives because of that relationship that we allow Him to develop with us.

Hank Smith: 31:41 Wow. We’ll make sure to link that talk in our show notes. Followhim.co. I’m sure that’ll be helpful for people. That was a wonderful thought. I loved how he talked about his students. They picked up on it.

John Bytheway: 31:52 I just get that impression that we’ve had before through all these chapters is that the God that we worship is an involved, caring, loving God. He’s not detached. He really wants us to be devoted to Him, and wants to bless us in everything. And when we’re not, He’ll teach us. I love that idea of His desire to be involved with us and with our lives. That gives me hope.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 32:18 I think that that really is a powerful part of the book, because it is filled with some gruesome things that are on the horizon that are coming. But chapter 11, for example, verse three, it says, “I taught Ephraim also to go,” and this is highlighting what you were saying, John, about this personal nature of this relationship. I taught them to go. Another word for halak is to walk. So I taught them to walk, taking them by their arms. And we just get this feeling of a very loving, tender relationship of a parent teaching this little child to walk and taking them by the arm and stabilizing them and leading them to safety.

  32:56 And it says, “But they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.” So we start seeing this synonymous parallelism here. “And I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and that laid meat into them.” So this again, it’s hearkening back and we have all these tomb scenes that are reliefs from Egypt of servitude. They always have this yoke that goes across the neck and they’re pulling two baskets, and you just get this impression that I took this away from you, and I led you out and I cared for you, I provided for you, and I’ve always loved you and I just want you to respond covenantally to me in this way that will allow us to have this relationship that thrives.

  33:40 And ultimately, now, we start getting this language that just says this was very personal. And ultimately, now, it’s just trying to say, “Remember me, because I’ll never forget you.” And of course, remember those passages in Isaiah that, “You are written upon the palms of my hand. I cannot forget you.” The message here is that no matter how hard things get, I will not forget you and I’m always here for you.

Hank Smith: 34:01 But they keep choosing other gods. There’s also a sense of love. But for me, there’s also this sense of frustration of in this family, some things never change. You’re always seeking other gods.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 34:16 This is what is so encouraging to me, because it is easy to read this and just get frustrated. And in verse eight, in chapter 11, you have God who just says, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel?” Just hear God posing these rhetorical questions. The answer is, “I won’t and I can’t. And there’s nothing that’s ever going to cause me to do that.”

Hank Smith: 34:39 I can’t give you up.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 34:40 Yeah, I’m your parent, I’m your father, I’m your spouse. I mean, however you look at it through all of these. And the New Testament picks up on this bridegroom image very well of trying to portray the personal nature between this relationship with God.

  34:52 What’s really cool about Hosea 11:8 is it’s drawing upon Deuteronomy 4 and a promise there in verse 31 that says, “Jehovah, your God is merciful. He’s a merciful God.” And you hear that mercy part come back. So Ruhamah. He says, “I will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers,” which he confirmed to them by an oath. Hosea 11:8 seems to be renewing that promise, reminding people that what happened in that covenant code with God has not changed and it’s still an option.

Hank Smith: 35:27 Yeah, and you’ve even got a JST there, that he says, “My heart is turned toward you. My mercies are extended to gather thee.”

Dr. Aaron Schade: 35:35 So there’s our gathering component of all of this.

Hank Smith: 35:38 They’re going to be scattered, but one day, they’re going to be gathered. And the Book of Mormon makes it clear, doesn’t it? In Jacob chapter five, that I’m scattering you to actually help you. I am not scattering you to punish you, I’m scattering to help you become who I need you to become.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 35:54 That really is the sowing nature now. So Jezreel, the first name of that child, was again this deliberate attempt to sow, because you hope that something is going to grow from it. And of course, we see that in Hosea, the concept of reaping what you sow. So if you want to sow a celestial life, you need to plant celestial seeds. So there’s this concept that’s just saying, “Have an awareness of our behavior and our actions and what it is that we’re actually trying to accomplish, because you can reap what you sow.”

  36:24 Now, that doesn’t mean that everybody’s always going to like you if you treat people with love. It doesn’t mean they’re going to love you back. But at least you’re giving a chance for something to grow through all of that. And again, seeds can grow in very different ways. Particularly, learning to love somebody that doesn’t love you back can be an extremely powerful lesson in life. That’s the story of Jonah and some interesting things there.

  36:44 But there’s this really neat image in Hosea chapter 13 that’s talking about, I think, the hope for of all of this. It’s in a pretty graphic depiction in Hosea 13:13, where it says, “The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him.” So we think of labor pains and how gruesome and how difficult that is for the mother as she’s going through trying to give birth. So these things are coming, some difficult times are ahead. And it says, “He is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of breaking forth of children.” And the Hebrew, it makes us a little more clear that this is talking about a child that’s just stuck there in the womb, in the birth canal, and just so close to life and so close to coming forth into a new light and just sort of stuck there in a place that can be either so close to life or so close to death, and how dangerous that can be in the birth canal if the child can’t be delivered.

  37:43 So again, that’s what chapter 14 will take us into now, this period of finding mercy. Chapter 14, verse 3 talks about, “For in thee the fatherless find mercy. I will heal their backsliding, and will love them freely.” So you just, again, get this message that eventually, through all of the difficult times, there will be light coming back into our lives. And you just get this wonderful image now of the fatherless will find mercy. I just love that.

  38:14 In John 14, you remember it when it says that, “I will not leave you comfortless.” The Greek actually uses the term that says, “I will not leave you orphans.” So it’s just, again, this very paternal type of feeling that just says God is very close to us and endearing to us in our lives if we’ll let Him. And even if we don’t let Him, He’ll keep trying.

Hank Smith: 38:35 This message of hope against the background of hopelessness is really, really touching to me. I have a thought here from Elder Christofferson. He says, “With God, comfort replaces pain, peace replaces turmoil, and hope replaces sorrow.” That seems to be the message of our Latter-day prophets. Turn to God, and He can turn ashes into beauty. “Do not despair,” President Hinckley says, “do not give up. Look for the sunlight, look through the clouds.”

Dr. Aaron Schade: 39:03 I love that, look for the sunlight, because we actually have that in Hosea 6, where it says there about, “Return unto the Lord.” So it’s exactly what you’re describing there, Hank, about coming into the sunlight that says, “Come,” this chapter 6:1-3. “Come, and let us return unto the Lord.” And it says in verse two, “After two days he will revive us” in the third day he will raise us up.” So this progression from two to three is a literary device that takes us into completely, perfectly three being that numerological symbol of perfection of entirety. He will thoroughly revive us.

  39:41 And in verse three, “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain.” So that seeing the light, you remember that talk by Boyd K. Packer of the brilliant morning of forgiveness. It just talks about what it’s like to see the sun rise, for that light to come back into our lives. And Hosea is describing exactly what you were talking about there. When the sun pops up over the horizon after a long dark night or even after a lot of dark nights, that all of a sudden now, we are revived and we see the light of day once again.

John Bytheway: 40:17 There’s some really beautiful verses in here. My goodness. Continuing in Hosea 13:14, after the sorrows of a travailing woman, verse 14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Like you said, a lot of hope in these verses.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 40:43 Yeah, and what better way to portray that? First of all, the use of the verb redeem. So you get the conception now that usually, in ancient Israel, the concept of redeeming is a family member who’s doing something to protect the wellbeing of the family. So we now get the-

John Bytheway: 41:01 The kinsman redeemer.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 41:03 That’s right. This is now that the redeemer is doing something for the good of the family to protect the family. And that is, I’m going to pull them out, I’m going to snatch them from death. And death will be saying, “Where are your plagues?” This is a total reversal. It shows the power of God, that He has power over the grave.

  41:21 So whatever you encounter… And just because we’re trying to do the best we can doesn’t spare us from loss. It doesn’t mean we won’t lose people that are close to us. It doesn’t mean that life is going to be easy. But the book is trying to get us to look at the big picture through the eyes of God, and try and just, in some small measure, understand what He’s trying to accomplish and trying to draw us closer to Him. And whether that’s in life or after death, the hope is is that eventually we’ll have this reunification with God that would be something far beyond any peace or hope or happiness that we could ever find in any other source in life.

Hank Smith: 41:58 And also, Aaron, isn’t it that these difficulties we pass through are not just punishment, but shaping. So part of the hope is that I haven’t given up on you, even though it’s going to feel like it. I’m actually shaping you for a future gathering, a future with me.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 42:16 Yeah, that’s really always the challenge is do we even recognize what’s happening in our lives, and do we see the hand of God in all of that. So that’s always been the challenge. And again, we see that over and over again in Hosea. They’re going after sources of happiness in places that won’t provide it. And all along, God is saying, “I gave you all of that stuff,” and that was something…

  42:37 This is chapter 7:14, where it says, “They have not cried unto me with their heart.” And verse 15 says, “Though I have bound them and strengthened them with their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me.” So this is return and come back to me is really that message, and just being able to recognize that God really is trying to be a big part of our lives if we’ll let Him. It’s inviting us to cry unto Him, because there’s some pretty desperate situations. We’ll see that in Joel as well. I mean, there’ll just be some times of just flat out it’s time for everybody to recognize the urgency of all of this and start crying to God for help.

Hank Smith: 43:15 Yeah, I liked what you said, a series on the horizon. If you weren’t paying attention before, you’re about to be paying attention.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 43:22 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 43:24 I’m looking at Hosea 7:11, “Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” Now here he is right there, and it seems like that was kind of Isaiah to stop making alliances with other nations. God is your ally. God is better than your ally. He’s your bridegroom.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 43:48 You’re right. And we’ll see that in Isaiah as well. Ahaz is going to sort of reject the council of Isaiah when he’s saying don’t join the Syro-Ephraimite.

John Bytheway: 43:57 Go after Assyria.

Hank Smith: 43:58 I was looking at that Contemporary English Version. Israel is a senseless bird, fluttering back and forth between Egypt and Assyria.

John Bytheway: 44:07 Yeah, I don’t think I’d ever seen silly dove before in my life until today.

Hank Smith: 44:12 “Silly and senseless,” another version says.

John Bytheway: 44:14 A senseless bird.

Hank Smith: 44:16 Easily deceived.

John Bytheway: 44:17 So that story where Ahaz is given the Immanuel prophecy, which has an immediate, perhaps, and a future fulfillment though, is telling him, “Don’t make allies with these countries.” But isn’t that exactly what he did, make an ally? Tried to make Assyria an ally?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 44:36 Yeah, so again, it doesn’t usually work out well in the long run for you know, you throw open your temple treasures and your coffers and say, “Here’s something for you, Assyria.” It holds the dogs off for a little while, but eventually, they come calling.

  44:51 There’s actually this really fascinating inscription from an ancient kingdom called Sam’al. It was an Aramean kingdom. It has this beautiful big stele relief with writing on it in a Phoenician dialect. It actually talks about in there that, “I hired the king of Assyria against my enemies, and we just destroyed them,” and all of these things. We got these great exchange rates economically, and it’s the whole text talking about that. And then you go look in the iconography on the left-hand side of the panel and it has the king dressed in Assyrian garb with all of the Assyrian gods depicted at the top. And you’re just like, “Yeah, that worked out well for you temporarily, but what happens next?”

  45:35 They took their treaties and alliances very seriously, but the next king comes along and sometimes all bets are off. Sometimes they honor them, but other times, there’s just… You never know what’s coming, especially when you have lots of things to offer in the form of resources, geographical benefits, military strategic value all through the Jezreel Valley. And of course, Israel and Judah are always in the crossroads between the superpowers of Egypt and Assyria.

Hank Smith: 46:02 Yeah, don’t dance with the devil, right?

John Bytheway: 46:03 Is that Jezreel Valley named because of Hosea’s child there?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 46:08 It existed before that, so it’s not a cause and effect. It’s drawing upon a conception, because essentially, the Jezreel Valley was one of the headquarters of the Israelite kingdom under the Omri Dynasty.

Hank Smith: 46:21 Aaron, are there any other verses in Hosea you wanted to hit before we move to Joel?

Dr. Aaron Schade: 46:25 There’s one I really love in Hosea chapter eight, verse 14. It just sort of ties this all back in, and it comes back to this theme, “For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire in his cities, and shall devour the places thereof.” And again, we just see all of these places that are designed to be holy, something that’s designed to enable individuals to go and enter into covenants with God, and yet, we see that those are going to be torn to the ground, burned to the ground.

  47:00 Elder Holland had a really interesting statement. He was quoting George Albert Smith and he says, “We may build temples, erect stately domes, magnificent spires, and grand towers in honor of our religion, but if we fail to live the principles of that religion and to acknowledge God in all of our thoughts, we should fall short of the blessings, which its practical exercise would it ensure.”

  47:23 So there’s just something about this. It’s more important to just get through the doors of the chapel or to get through the doors of the temple, that there has to be something where this becomes something ingrained in our heart. Again, we see that throughout Deuteronomy, that we’ve got to have a pure heart, that we have to have a heart that is turned to God. And of course, the whole Elijah narratives are crafted around that concept of turning our hearts to God. The Book of Hosea is trying to get us to take seriously the concept of what it means to enter into those covenants with God and to never lose sight of that fidelity to that covenant.

Hank Smith: 47:58 So they’re doing the outward behavior, but it hasn’t reached their heart.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 48:02 And again, what’s really cool is that in modern day Judaism, sometimes when they’re donning the phylacteries that are filled with passages of scriptures to remind us to keep our hearts close to God, some of the passages that they cite are from Hosea chapter two. So again, it’s just Hosea has a very profound effect on remembering what it is that God has done for us.

Hank Smith: 48:22 It seems to me, as we’re reading Hosea, that the Lord’s message hasn’t changed all that much. Having just listened to Conference, I heard a lot of the same messages of turn to God, He’s your source of peace, He’s your source of joy. Stop going other places. Stop looking for other sources of peace and joy. You’re not going to find them. Come back to God. And if you don’t, there’s consequences to those actions that you have to face.

John Bytheway: 48:53 And come back to those godly identities. That young single adult talk that President Nelson gave so good, where he emphasized, “I’m a child of God, I’m a child of the covenant, I’m a disciple of Christ.” Those identities that involve God instead of earthly, worldly temporary identities.

Hank Smith: 49:11 I had never seen that verse in verse chapter 11, “I taught Ephraim to walk.” That’s a touching idea of, “I was holding you as you were just getting started, and now you’ve turned on me.”

John Bytheway: 49:21 Taking them by their arms. That’s what that means? Is that a simpler translation, “I taught you to walk.”? In verse three, taking them by their arms.

Dr. Aaron Schade: 49:31 The verb halak, it does mean to go, but it also can mean to go by foot.

Hank Smith: 49:35 That’s just wow. I think Hosea is meant to be felt. Now that I’m reading it, I’m going, “Man, this book is meant to be felt.” You’re supposed to feel for Jehovah here, going, “I don’t want to do this to him.”

Dr. Aaron Schade: 49:48 I think you’re right. It just comes back to that, “I will sow her unto me.” So everything that’s happening here is with the intent that, “I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them, which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.”

  50:04 We’ll see that language again when you get to Ezekiel 37. And interestingly, it’s within the context of a temple that Ezekiel is describing. So it comes back to this theme of covenant and making those in sacred spaces with God.

  50:19 Jeremiah 31 to 34, we talked a little bit about this concept of the heart changing. Well, Jeremiah 31 talks about receiving a new heart and making a new covenant with God. And interestingly, this is a passage that according to Oliver Cowdery, Moroni, at some point, discussed with the prophet Joseph Smith, as something that was about to come forth, something that was about to be done. So at some point in those conversations with Moroni, Jeremiah 31 and this receiving a new heart was something that was yet to come for the restored church and the covenants that they were going to make in receiving this new heart. So again, this phrase, “They shall be my people, and I shall be their God,” usually occurs in covenantal context, sometimes in relation to temples.

Hank Smith: 51:05 Beautiful.

John Bytheway: 51:09 Please join us for part two of this podcast.