Hosea 14:7

Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel, also called Ephraim, in its final decades, before it fell to Assyria in 722 BC. It was a time of political turmoil and moral decay. The people mixed the worship of the LORD with the worship of Baal, looked to foreign alliances for safety, and practised oppression. Most of the book charges Israel with spiritual adultery and warns of the judgment it will bring, with the land laid barren and waste.

The last chapter turns. In Hosea 14:1–3 the prophet pleads, “return unto the LORD thy God,” and gives the people words of confession to bring with them as they forsake their idols. Verse 4 is God’s own reply, and verses 5–7 paint what his healing will bring as a thriving garden. The whole of Hosea 14 is the hopeful end of the book, and these verses are its heart.

The verb for heal, râphâʼ, means to mend or to cure. It is the ordinary word for healing, used of God and also of human healers and physicians. Hosea used it earlier of the king of Assyria, the one Ephraim had looked to for healing (Hosea 5:13). Now the LORD says that he will heal them himself.

What he heals is their mᵉshûwbâh, their “backsliding.” The word comes from the root meaning to turn back, and it names Israel’s turning away from God: their apostasy, their habit of leaving the covenant, their pursuit of idols. God speaks of this as a sickness in his people, and he promises to cure it. So his healing reaches the turning itself, the wound and the bent of heart that led them astray, as well as the sins they committed. Jeremiah carries the same promise in almost the same words: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jeremiah 3:22). Ezekiel speaks of the new heart and new spirit God will put within his people (Ezekiel 36:26–27), and that is the deep renewal this healing points to.

“I will love them freely” uses the word nᵉdâbâh, which speaks of what is given willingly, of one’s own accord and with generosity. God’s love for Israel comes from his own generous will and flows from his own nature. Israel has earned none of it, and nothing compels him to give it. He gives it to a people whose long unfaithfulness the whole book has laid bare, and he gives it lavishly.

The verse closes with the reason for the healing and the love: “for mine anger is turned away from him.” God’s anger at Israel’s sin was just, the fitting answer to their covenant breaking, and now it has turned away. The “him” is Israel spoken of as one person. With the anger gone, nothing stands between God and his people, and there is peace. Isaiah’s song of the redeemed says the same: “O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me” (Isaiah 12:1).

In verse 5 God describes himself with a picture from the land. The word ṭal, dew, comes from a root meaning to cover, and it is the moisture that settles on plants, especially at night. In Israel’s long, dry summers, when rain was scarce, dew kept vegetation alive. So when God says “I will be as the dew unto Israel,” he promises to be the quiet, gentle and constant source of his people’s life after the drought of judgment. He is the one who gives the blessing, and he is himself the blessing.

Dew is a sign of God’s favour elsewhere in Scripture. Moses’ blessing of Israel speaks of heavens that drop down dew on the land (Deuteronomy 33:28), and in the wilderness God’s bread for Israel came with the morning dew (Exodus 16:14). Isaiah gives the same kind of promise when God says he will pour water upon him that is thirsty and his Spirit upon his offspring (Isaiah 44:3).

Under that dew, Israel “shall grow as the lily.” The verb pârach means to bud, sprout, blossom or flourish. The lily, shûwshan, is probably a general name for beautiful flowering plants, and it stands here for beauty that everyone can see. Israel’s renewal will show.

The next picture adds strength below the ground: Israel will “cast forth his roots as Lebanon.” Lᵉbânôwn is the name of the mountain range north of Israel, which Strong’s explains as the white mountain, from its snow. Lebanon was famous for its great cedars and their deep, wide roots, and so the name here speaks of firmness and permanence. The flower and the forest together promise a people both lovely and lasting, established in God’s faithfulness.

Other scriptures use the same pictures for those who belong to God. “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon” (Psalm 92:12). The one who trusts in the LORD is like a tree planted by the waters, whose roots reach the river (Jeremiah 17:7–8), and the blessed man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water (Psalm 1:3). Jeremiah also promises a joyful return of God’s people to his goodness (Jeremiah 31:12).

Verse 6 carries on the picture of Israel as a growing tree. “His branches shall spread” uses yôwneqeth, a sprout, tender branch or young shoot, from a root meaning to suckle. It is fresh growth, the sign of new life. The verb is yâlak, the everyday word for walking or going, so the shoots “go” outward as the tree spreads.

“His beauty shall be as the olive tree.” The word for beauty, hôwd, means splendour, majesty, glory or excellency, and it is used of grandeur that commands honour. The zayith is the olive tree, which was a staple of Israel’s life. Its oil gave light, food and anointing, and the tree was known for living long and bearing year after year. Its beauty is the beauty of a tree that lasts and yields. David uses the same picture of himself: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever” (Psalm 52:8).

“And his smell as Lebanon.” The word for smell, rêyach, is a pleasant scent. Lebanon was known for the fragrance of its cedar forests and aromatic plants. In the law, an offering that pleased God is called “a sweet savour unto the LORD” (Leviticus 1:9), so a fragrant Israel is a people whose worship and life please God and draw others to him. Isaiah likewise calls God’s restored people trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified (Isaiah 61:3).

All of this answers the earlier pictures of Israel’s sin. Hosea had called Israel an empty vine (Hosea 10:1), and Jeremiah’s word for the unfaithful people was “a degenerate plant” (Jeremiah 2:21). God promises to make the same people a tree that is green, splendid and sweet.

Verse 7 begins, “They that dwell under his shadow shall return.” Israel has just been pictured as a great tree, and the shade of a large tree is a picture of shelter from the heat. Those who dwell there live under the care of the God who made the tree grow, kept safe in his presence: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1).

The verb for return, shûwb, means to turn back or return, and it is also used of things that pass or happen again. So “shall return” can speak of a people who have turned back to the LORD, as the chapter opened by calling them to do, and it can also mean that they will again revive. Both fit the chapter, and in both the return is part of what God gives.

“They shall revive as the corn.” Corn in the KJV means grain. The verb châyâh means to live, and in its causative sense to revive or keep alive, so the people come to life again like seed that sprouts after the dry season. “And grow as the vine” adds steady growth toward fruit. Grain and vine were the staples of Israel’s food and the plainest signs of God’s blessing on the land, as in the blessings for obedience in Deuteronomy 28:1–14.

“The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.” The word the KJV renders “scent” is zêker, which means a memorial, remembrance or memory. Here it speaks of the lasting name the restored people will have, like the wine of Lebanon, which was prized for its fragrance and quality. Their renewal will be known, and it will bring honour to God, as the Lord God causes righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations (Isaiah 61:11).

These promises were first spoken to Israel, and they find their fullest answer in Jesus Christ. He is the Great Physician who heals our backsliding by giving new life. God’s free love is shown most clearly in him: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s righteous anger against sin is turned away at the cross, where God made peace through the blood of Christ and reconciled all things to himself (Colossians 1:19–20).

The dew that gives life points to the Spirit poured out through Christ, by whom believers grow in grace and in the knowledge of him (2 Peter 3:18). Jesus calls himself the vine: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” (John 15:5). Through him the branches spread as the gospel goes out to the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8), and Paul pictures Gentile believers grafted into God’s olive tree (Romans 11:17–24). The roots like Lebanon answer to being rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17), in a kingdom which cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28).

The fragrance of Lebanon becomes the fragrance of Christ in his people. Paul says believers are unto God “a sweet savour of Christ,” and to those around them “the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16). And the reviving of grain and vine is the life Jesus came to give, life more abundantly (John 10:10).

These verses show God taking the first step toward a people who had wandered far from him. The healing is his work, the love is his free gift, and the end of his anger is his own decision. Everything that grows afterward grows because he is the dew. The beauty, the roots, the shade and the fruit are what his presence produces in those he has healed.

So the passage gives anyone who has turned away from God a sure word about how he receives those who come back. He meets them with healing and with love that costs them nothing, and he makes them a blessing to those who live near them.