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The Book of Hosea – Part 5, Hos 5:1-15

[Study Aired May 11, 2024]

Following our Lord’s accusations in Chapter 4 of us for being recalcitrant harlots, in Chapter 5, He prophecies our punishment.

Punishment Coming for Israel and Judah

Hos 5:1  Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house [The Bride; the Temple of God] of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah [H4709] and a net spread upon Tabor [mound or mountain].

For those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and spiritual understanding, they fully appreciate that the vast majority of scripture is for the Bride’s understanding alone. Since her other titles are “Kings & Priests,” verse 1 of Hosea chapter 5 most shockingly speaks directly to her as a “Priest”.

Exo 19:5  Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
Exo 19:6  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign [Kings reign] with him a thousand years. 

Mizpah [H4709] Definition: Mizpah = watchtower 1. a place in Gilead north of Jabbok and location of Laban’s cairn [memorial].

Before the Bride understood that she was chosen to be Christ’s wife, she was a most miserable “watchtower” along with her sisters in Babylon, equally void of understanding of their husband’s commands. If a person such as her is blind, she doesn’t know her blindness and is unable to blow the trumpet of alarm for an approaching enemy upon the ‘mount’ Zion within, the emerging Heavenly Jerusalem.

Eze 33:3  If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
Eze 33:4  Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 
Eze 33:5  He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. 
Eze 33:6  But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.

Hos 5:2  And the revolters [rebels ~ the Lord’s Elect] are profound [deeply involved] to make slaughter, though I [Hosea/Christ] have been a rebuker of them all. 
Hos 5:3  I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled. 

Ephraim is Joseph’s second son. As the younger son, he sustains the mandate that the elder (Manasseh) shall always serve the younger, as did Esau to Jacob. Ephraim represents the Bride of Christ as a King and Priest who should know better than to rebel against her Lord, having slaughtered His word and made the land drip with blood.

Num 35:33  So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.
Num 35:34  Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel. 

Luk 11:50  That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 
Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 
Luk 11:52  Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

The lawyers are the 1,000 figurative wives in harlot Babylon, Christianity today, imagining that they are serving Christ. Before coming out of Babylon, the budding Bride, too, was a harlot polluting her land within with the blood of lies depicted as her children. Luke 11:37-54 perfectly compliments Hosea 5.

Eze 16:35  Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:
Eze 16:36  Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; 
Eze 16:37  Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 
Eze 16:38  And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.

Hos 5:4  They will not frame [be delivered from] their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD.

Wherever the Lord has any person in any age his moral or spiritual understanding, Hos 5:4 accurately salutes Revelation 22:11 – “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still”. Contrary to what the world of Christianity believes, not a single soul, filthy, righteous or holy is yet saved until the First Resurrection. It is only the Bride of Christ who knows that she is being saved and is given to become “holy still” all the way into the First Resurrection.

Hos 5:5  And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face: therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with them.

No greater “pride” is there than for all Israel in Babylon today, representing Christianity is there than her belief that she is saved, that she is the Lord’s chosen and graphically typified by the crypto-Jews in so-called Israel today. The world churches today believe that they do not have to suffer the Lord’s wrath since they utterly believe that by not denying Christ died for their sins and by simply verbalising it before a priest or Christ annuls all judgment. What they don’t understand in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 is that those verses are not speaking of them, but rather, the Bride of Christ!

1Th 5:9  For God hath not appointed us [The Bride] to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Th 5:10  Who died for us [The Bride], that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him [as His Wife]. 
1Th 5:11  Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do [… and Babylonian Christianity, effectively “Jews”, do comfort and edify themselves most vigorously with those words!]. 

Since the vast majority of Babylonian Christianity believes 1 Thessalonians 5:9 joyously invalidates judgment upon their sins and that the “wrath to come” is for some other poor wretched sinner destined from birth to burn forever in a literal fire, he draws a blank in explaining the following verses that all mankind are children of disobedience.

Eph 2:1  And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3  Among whom also we all had [past tense and referring to the Bride alone] our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others [… meaning, the rest of the world starting with Babylonian Christianity!].

Col 3:5  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6  For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7  In the which ye also walked some time, when ye [past tense] lived in them.

Yet, nothing will dissuade a twofold child of hell since he only sees the first sentence in the next verse upholding his strong delusion that he is saved now. For the non-spiritual mind, the last sentence is a parable too difficult to understand.

Joh 3:36  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: [“Whoopie, that’s all we need to know”, he says] and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; [Yet the Babylonian angrily says that he does believe] but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled [though joyfully enduring chastisement], we shall be saved by his life.

Pro 8:13  The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Joh 4:22  Ye worship [Christianity and the world] ye know not what: we [the Bride] know what we worship: for salvation is of the [SPIRITUAL] Jews. 
Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 

Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. 

Hos 5:6  They [the world, and for the unwitting Bride in her time] shall go with their flocks [the churches of the world ~ Jews who say that they are Jews and are not…] and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them. 
Hos 5:7  They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.

How does “a month devour” the Lord’s people in Babylon and cause some to mournfully look back at her riches? By accommodating the harlot doctrines of Babylon taught by the locusts with stings in their tails, they engender bastard (“strange”) children, representing the 200,000,000 lies depicted in Revelation 9:16. 

Rev 9:15  And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 
Rev 9:16  And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. 

Rev 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. 
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 
Rev 9:9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [Birds, the “fouls of the air” depict spirits ~ here, evil spirits] was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. 
Rev 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months [Isa 9:15  The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail].

Christ is the “month” in verse 7. He is the new moon sabbath. His people have spurned His spiritual kisses with harlot-like intent and thus dealt treacherously in birthing strange doctrines. Subsequently, He devours them and their inheritance for the First Resurrection.

Hos 5:8  Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Bethaven, after thee, O Benjamin. 

It is the Bride of Christ today (Benjamin) who blows the cornet in Gibeah (H1390 – hill), herself, the mountain of the Lord, that with an inward tremble of Godly fear, she brightly hears and takes defensive action by her Husband’s strong arm wielding his sword of spiritual truth. Consequently, the old man of Ephraim within is made desolate as she uses her Lord’s rebuke of her many lying children she lays waste. Her God-given wrath becomes one with her Husband’s wrath to flood away the multitude of lies.

Hos 5:9  Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be. 
Hos 5:10  The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. 
Hos 5:11  Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment. 

Ephraim would never be destroyed because he walked righteously after the Lord’s commandments, so the reason for his destruction has to be concluded (and as we historically know and particularly inwardly) that he walked after the commandments of men.

Mar 7:5  Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? 
Mar 7:6  He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Mar 7:7  Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 
Mar 7:8  For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 
Mar 7:9  And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

2Jn 1:4  I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father. 
2Jn 1:5  And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. 
2Jn 1:6  And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. 

Hos 5:12  Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.

The Lord, being a moth unto us, depicts us as sickly, eating spiritually pale-green and equally unhealthy doctrinal herbs. Since we are likewise Judah, the Priests of God with Babylonish customs, our treachery as a church, having formally taught others yellowish-green lies, becomes rotten to our bones.

Pro 12:4  A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.

The Lord’s wrath is poured out like water upon any lying doctrine even while she parades as a virtuous church (individually claiming His name), laying as a harlot with the world’s ideologies.

Num 5:20  But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: 
Num 5:21  Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; 
Num 5:22  And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. 
Num 5:23  And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: 
Num 5:24  And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. 
Num 5:25  Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar: 
Num 5:26  And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. 
Num 5:27  And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
Num 5:28  And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed [birthing righteousness spiritual children of the Kingdom, within]. 

Hos 5:13  When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound. 

Verse 13 is what we do with an idol of the heart where we implicitly know to heed the cornet blasting its warning, yet, like a female ass in her season, we seek counsel from Babylon’s more sensually titillating, less stressful actions against our enemy.

Isa 30:8  Now go, write it before them [Israel/the Elect of God] in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: 
Isa 30:9  That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: 
Isa 30:10  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: 
Isa 30:11  Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. 
Isa 30:12  Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: 
Isa 30:13  Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. 

Hos 5:14  For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him. 

The Lord’s people who enthusiastically keep His commandments delight in the word’s devouring nature and, ironically, are thus rescued by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, their High Priest.

Rev 5:5  And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

All of the studies taught in the Body of Christ are opened seals, and we know His word from the beginning to the glorious ending.

Psa 35:2 Take hold of shield and buckler, And stand up for my help. 
Psa 35:3  Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that pursue me: Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. 
Psa 35:4  Let them be put to shame and brought to dishonor that seek after my soul: Let them be turned back and confounded that devise my hurt. 
Psa 35:5  Let them be as chaff before the wind, And the angel of Jehovah driving them on. 
Psa 35:6  Let their way be dark and slippery, And the angel of Jehovah pursuing them. 
Psa 35:7  For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit; Without cause have they digged a pit for my soul. 
Psa 35:8  Let destruction come upon him unawares; And let his net that he hath hid catch himself: With destruction let him fall therein. 
Psa 35:9  And my soul shall be joyful in Jehovah: It shall rejoice in his salvation. 
Psa 35:10  All my bones shall say, Jehovah, who is like unto thee, Who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, Yea, the poor and the needy from him that robbeth him? 
Psa 35:11  Unrighteous witnesses rise up; They ask me of things that I know not. 
Psa 35:12  They reward me evil for good, To the bereaving of my soul. 
Psa 35:13  But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I afflicted my soul with fasting; And my prayer returned into mine own bosom. 
Psa 35:14  I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother: I bowed down mourning, as one that bewaileth his mother. 
Psa 35:15  But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: The abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; They did tear me, and ceased not: 
Psa 35:16  Like the profane mockers in feasts, They gnashed upon me with their teeth. 
Psa 35:17  Lord, how long wilt thou look on? Rescue my soul from their destructions, My darling from the lions. 
Psa 35:18  I will give thee thanks in the great assembly: I will praise thee among much people. 
Psa 35:19  Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. 

Hos 5:15  I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early. 

Since Christ is found able to open the meanings of the seven seals, John lamented that he couldn’t understand. Christ has now come out of that place where He formerly hid His word to us when in Babylon. He has now revealed to His Christ, the Elect of God, the meanings of His every word, since they were given by him to seek his face early.

Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. 

Pro 8:17  I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. 

Son 7:12  Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.

It is only the Bride of Christ in this age since Christ’s resurrection who increasingly knows the guarantee that if she remains in him, she will find Christ her flourishing vine by going to His vineyard (hers, she formally didn’t keep Son 1:6). The tender young and beautiful girl, the Bride is, and in a side embrace as a lover attached to ‘the Vine’, strolls in the vineyard; she sees the fruit of her devotion to him he evokes in her. She is thus exalted (pomegranates—H7426) in barely contained anticipatory joy for him choosing her, and her enthusiastic, spiritually coquettish response is to seek him early. Her every jewel, her joints (her sisters) likewise each a blossoming ‘hope’ of the First Resurrection where she finally gets to engage her every feminine delight solely for Him.

Son 7:1  How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.