Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


Love Those Raisin Cakes
The LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes."
So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.
Then I said to her, "You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you."
For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols.
Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king and they will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days. - Hosea 3:1-5 NASB

The world is bright and wonderful in the arms of love. Hosea loved his wife even though she was sleeping with other men, just as God loved Israel, even though they insisted on worshipping other deities. The raisin cakes, in this context, referred to the food used during the worship of other gods, such as Asherah.

Hosea's wife had left him, and she had fallen on hard times and become a slave.

Despite the fact that his wife had been and seemingly continued to be with other men, God instructed Hosea to buy her back. Hosea paid fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Fifteen shekels was about six ounces of silver, while a homer and a half of barley was equivalent to fifteen ephahs, about 430 pounds. An ephah was usually worth about a shekel. So Hosea paid the equivalent of thirty shekels of silver for his wife, the standard price for a slave (Exodus 21:32). He told her she had to remain with him and that she could not continue to behave or live as a prostitute. In the same way, Israel would no longer have contact with those things that were part of their idolatrous relationships. That is, as Gomer must turn from other men, so Israel must turn away from other deities—from their idols, ephods, and pillars.

There was no sense here that Gomer had repented, any more than there was a sense that Israel had repented. Instead, they were being forced into a process that would lead them to repentance. Gomer was exiled from her lovers, and Israel was exiled from her land. Both exiles would lead to restoration. God's punishment transforms, restores, and beautifies.