Take Words With You
Scripture Reading: Hosea 14:1-3
O Israel, return to the Lord your God,
For you have stumbled because of your iniquity;
Take words with you,
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him,
“Take away all iniquity;
Receive us graciously,
For we will offer the sacrifice of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us,
We will not ride on horses,
Nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’
For in You the fatherless finds mercy.”
What shall we prodigal children bring with us when, after being awakened to the dark emptiness of this world and its fleeting pleasures, we turn back toward home? Having irrecoverably wasted all that our Father put into our hands, have we nothing to give back to Him? What shall we do? Shall we return dressed in the robe we turned into rags? Shall we who left, arms loaded down with gifts, now return with empty hands?
Hosea has been called the Old Testament version of the Prodigal Son story. Israel, in Hosea, is God’s prodigal. It fittingly ends in chapter 14 with a plea for Israel to return to the Lord. As if anticipating the question, “What shall we bring when we return to God?” Hosea answers, “Take words with you.”
That brilliant word picture encapsulates what we do when we repent. Hosea means pray and confess your sins, but he says it in a way that physicalizes the act. He paints a picture of prodigals going to God and taking something with them as an act of repentance. He doesn’t show the prodigals leading lambs to be slaughtered on an altar. As we learned through Abraham’s offering of Isaac, God will provide Himself a Lamb. Hosea instead, tells the prodigals that words or prayers of repentance are what they are to take with them when they return to God.
Hosea says this again in a different way in the second half of verse two. Various translations handle this part differently because of the strangeness of the language and the obscurity of how it sounds when translated in a more literal form. Literally translated, Hosea tells them to pay “with the calves of our lips.” The New King James Version, quoted above, clarifies it for us by translating it as “We will offer the sacrifice of our lips.” That gets the meaning right but leaves us without the metaphorical language of Hosea that is meant to help us get the idea he is conveying.
When we read the story of The Prodigal Son, one of the key elements is how the Prodigal returns home after having rehearsed a solemn speech of repentance. He presents these words to the Father when the Father runs out to meet him. When the Prodigal returns, the Father does all the work of restoring him to his sonship. The Father has the calf killed, robes the son, and restores him to his place in the family. What does the son add to his restoration? Only repentance that he expresses through his words.
He came home and brought words with him.
We stray to some degree every day. Thus, to some extent, we should always be returning and repenting. We may not have gotten far from home, but a disastrous journey to the far country begins by wandering out into the street. So, every day we should “Take words with us and return to the Lord.” Every day we should confess our sins in the faith that our Father is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I still enjoy reading your commentary on Hosea.