How Shall I Give Thee Up

Picture a father with both hands under a small child's arms. He walks the boy up and down the same few feet of floor, over and over, until the child's legs learn how to do it.

That is the picture God gives of Himself in Hosea 11, and He gives it as a memory. "I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms." Then He adds a picture from the farm: "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws." He was like a farmer who lifts the heavy yoke so his animal can eat in peace. But the memory ends badly, because "they refused to return." So the Assyrian will be their king, and the sword will stay on their cities. Hosea does not soften any of it.

Then come the questions of verse eight: "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim?" Ephraim is named, but God is not waiting for Ephraim to answer. He is speaking out of His own heart. Admah and Zeboim were the towns destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah, and Deuteronomy names all four together when it describes a land of "brimstone, and salt."

So God has put that old judgment on the table. It is what He has done before, and He could rightly do it again. Yet He says, "mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together." The word repentings here means His compassion, and it is burning warm inside Him. The reason He gives has nothing to do with Israel getting better: "for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee."

Three chapters later, the book gives words to anyone who wants to come back: "O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." You may borrow that prayer. It was written for people who had nothing else to bring, and it was given by a God who had already been heard asking Himself how He could ever let them go.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 271 is Satan Bruised Under Your Feet (Romans 16:20).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two