Hosea 12 explained: Remember Jacob, Return to God

Chasing the wind (vv. 1-2)

Ephraim, the northern kingdom of Israel, is trying to stay safe by making deals with both Assyria and Egypt, sending olive oil as a gift to win favor. Hosea says this is like trying to live on the hot desert east wind: useless and even harmful, and the southern kingdom of Judah faces the same charge.

The story of Jacob (vv. 3-5)

The prophet recalls their ancestor Jacob, who grabbed his twin's heel at birth, wrestled with a divine figure and begged for a blessing, and met God at Bethel. Bethel was now a center of calf worship, so the memory is pointed, and some Christians have read the angel as an appearance of Christ.

Come back (v. 6)

Like Jacob, the people are urged to turn back to God, hold on to loyal love and fairness, and keep trusting God rather than foreign powers. It is the hopeful center of the chapter.

Rich and dishonest (vv. 7-8)

The Hebrew word for merchant also means Canaanite, so Hosea is saying Israel now acts like the cheating traders they looked down on. Ephraim points to its wealth as proof that it has done nothing wrong.

God's reminder (vv. 9-10)

God says he has been their God since he brought them out of Egypt and has spoken again and again through prophets and their pictures and stories. Living in tents again may be a threat of losing their homes or a promise of a fresh start like the yearly festival of shelters; scholars read it both ways.

Empty altars and coming judgment (vv. 11-14)

Worship in Gilead and Gilgal is worthless, and their many altars will end up like piles of stones cleared from a field, a pun on Gilgal, which sounds like heap. Jacob tended sheep for a wife, but God tended Israel through a prophet, Moses, and now Ephraim's guilt for bloodshed will fall back on it.

Key verse: Hosea 12:6

Where Christians differ

Readers differ on whether Hosea holds up Jacob as a model of seeking God that Israel has abandoned, or as a mirror showing that Israel's grasping and deceit run all the way back to its ancestor.

Something to think about

When life is going well for you, how easy is it to take that as proof you must be in the right?