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Hosea 2:14–23
“In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal’” (v. 16).
Our Creator’s power indeed is unstoppable, but we should not think of it as a brute, uncontrollable force. A most holy, good, and loving God exercises divine omnipotence, and He uses that power for the well-being of His people. Scripture tells us this in many ways, including in its use of the metaphor of husband for the Lord. In today’s passage, as well as several other biblical texts, God takes for Himself the title of “Husband” (Hos. 2:16).
Looking at what the Bible teaches about the duties of human husbands gives us some insight into what it means for the Lord to be Husband to His people. Scripture tells us that husbands are to be protectors and providers for their families. Genesis 3:17–19, for example, gives husbands the vocation of working the ground to bring forth food. In other words, husbands work to feed their wives and children. In Ruth 3:9, Ruth asks for the hand of Boaz in marriage, imploring him to spread his wings over her. This image conveys the idea of protection. A wife’s coming under her husband’s wings meant that she was finding shelter in him (see also 2:12). God, then, as the Husband of His people, serves as their Protector and Provider, and it takes much power to safeguard others and to meet their needs.
Because marriage is a covenant between a husband and a wife, God’s status as Husband to His people takes on special covenantal and relational overtones. We see that especially in today’s passage, where Hosea foresees that the Israelites will have God as their Husband once again after a period of idolatry. The Lord pledged to take them away from their false gods and to be their covenantal Protector and Provider again (Hos. 2:14–23). John Calvin comments, “[Hosea] mentions the word, husband, to show to the people, that after having been corrected, they would be mindful of the covenant which God had made with them.”
As the bride of God, His people enjoy several benefits from Him, their Husband. We are freely loved by Him (Hos. 14:4), being assured that since there is nothing in us that merits His love, nothing in us can make Him stop loving us, His chosen saints. Because the Lord loves us, He is willing and able to restore us when we have fallen and been an unfaithful bride (Isa. 54:6–8). If God were not all-powerful, we could have no assurance that He could restore us even if He wanted to. His power guarantees that He can indeed redeem us from all our sins.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
In calling Himself our Husband, God reveals the intimacy that He desires to have with His people. God loves us more deeply than we can imagine, and in turn we are to love Him and to seek protection and provision from Him. As in an earthly marriage covenant, we are to have Him as our only spouse in a spiritual sense, meaning that He alone is to be God to us and that we are to worship Him only.
For further study
- Song of Solomon 4:1
- Isaiah 54:4–8
- Ephesians 5:22–33
- Revelation 21:2
The bible in a year
- 1 Samuel 1–3
- Luke 12:1–34