YOUR GOODNESS IS AS A MORNING CLOUD, AND AS THE EARLY DEW

The book of Hosea is taken up with a heart-rending plea from a covenant-keeping God to His chosen, though often wayward, people. The prophet, both by his own experience and in the mes­sage he brought, appealed to the conscience of the nation. The burden of Hosea’s message was directed primarily to the north­ern kingdom and addressed repeatedly to Ephraim who occupied the heartland of the ten tribes. Judah, the southern kingdom, is not forgotten however; Hosea’s words and actions challenged the whole nation.

After the opening chapters of the book, in which Hosea is called to pass through extremely trying domestic circumstances, the voice of God is heard through the prophet because He had ‘a controversy with the inhabitants of the land’, 4. 1. The Lord was painfully aware of their sin, their wilful ignorance and their idolatry.

The inevitable promise of judgement follows in chapter 5. ‘Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke … I will take away, and none shall rescue him’, vv. 9-14. Yet, such is the grace of our God, the door to recovery is left ajar! ‘I will go … till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face’, 5. 15.

As so often in their history, when retribution fell, the nation, or at least a part of it, showed signs of repentance. As chapter 6 opens we hear the voice of those who with sorrowing hearts turned to the Lord, a foreshadowing of the remnant in days of tribulation yet future who will turn in contrition to Him.

There follows one of those moments in scripture when the heart of God is laid bare. A piteous cry is heard, ‘O Ephraim. O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?’, v. 4. Knowing their capri­cious nature and the transient character of their repentance in past days, the Lord likens their change of heart to ‘a morning cloud, and as the early dew’. Both promise refreshment, yet as soon as the sun is up they evaporate and are gone, like good seed on stony ground, without root, withered and dry; how often are our best intentions, our noblest efforts, like ‘the early dew of morning’ which ‘has passed away at noon’? K. Hankey.