B’Midbar-Numbers 1-4:2; Haftorah is Hosea 2:1-22
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California –This mainly poetic text is half autobiographical, half metaphor for the Northern Kingdom’s idolatry, or whoredom, through adoption of the Baal religion of their neighbors. Hosea, who married the unfaithful harlot Gomer, depicts his entire country behaving as married to the whore Baal.
Hosea is one of twelve ‘Minor Prophets’, i.e. those whose writings are fairly short. In his case, the writings are fourteen chapters, while other Minors’ writings are even as short as three chapters.
The connection to the Torah reading is that parasha B’Midbar inaugurates a period of wandering while the Haftorah metaphorically indicates wandering from the moral law into idolatry, i.e. harlotry. [1]
Hosea’s prophecies are dated c. 760-720 BCE [2], in the Northern Kingdom. They were delivered during the rule of King Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE), followed by a series of six short-lived kings. This all coincided with the Kingdom’s decline and ultimate destruction by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. This caused the ‘Lost Ten Tribes’. [3]
The imagery of harlotry is prevalent in many other prophets, as criticism of the Israelites’ apostasy of straying from the Law. However in Hosea, it is presented in spades.
Hosea is directed by God to marry Gomer, a promiscuous prostitute, who enjoyed favors from various lovers. Metaphorically, Israel, unfaithful to God, is the harlot, who violates her marriage. Hosea and Gomer have a son, Jezreel, whose name also refers to a valley in which much blood is shed, a reflection of the Northern Kingdom’s bloody wars. Jezreel also means ‘God sows.’ [4]
They also have a daughter, Lo-ruhamah, meaning Unloved. Gomer has a second son, whom God commands to be named Lo-ammi, meaning ‘not my people.’ It is a name of shame, representing the shame of the Kingdom.
All these images indicate the prophet’s displeasure with the violation of The Law. [5]
Here are excerpts from the Haftorah as translated by Professor Robert Alter of the University of California-Berkeley:
It starts with a criticiasm that suggests Israelites should be “Children of the Living God” rather than being “You are Not My People.”
This poetry theme follows:
Bring a case against your mother bring a case,
for she is not My wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her take off her whoring from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts,
lest I strip her naked
and set her out as the day she was born.
And I will turn her into a desert [6][7]
and make her like a parched land [8]
and let her die of thirst.
And to her children I will show no mercy,
for they are the children of whoring…
For she said, “Let me go
after my lovers
who give me bread and water,
my wool and my flax,
my oil and my unguents”…
And she shall run after her lovers
and shall not catch them…
And she shall say, “Let me
go back to my first husband,
for it was then better for me than now”
And she did not know
that it was I (God) who gave her
the new grain and the wine and the oil…
Therefore will I (God) turn back and take away
My new grain in its time
and My wine in its season
and reclaim My wool and My flax
that would cover her nakedness…
And I will put an end to her rejoicing,
to her festivals, her new moons, and…
And I will wither her vines and fig trees
of which she said, “They are a whore’s pay for me
that may lovers gave to me”…
but Me (God) she forgot, said the Lord.
Here Hosea does an upbeat turnaround to close the Haftorah:
Therefore, I am about to beguile her…
and speak to her very heart.
And I will give her from there her vineyards…
and she shall sing out there as in the days of her youth…
she shall call Me ‘my Husband”
and no longer call me ‘my Baal.”
And I shall take away the names of the Baalim from your mouth,
and they shall no more be recalled by their name…
And I will betroth you to Me forever,
I will betroth you in right and justice
and in kindness and mercy…
and you shall know that I am the Lord.
Actually this entire Haftorah is one continuous metaphor, plus vivid imagery. I commend Hosea for his literary imagination and capacity to carry it out.
As per the standard in prophetic writings, there is strong castigation imagery, followed by a forgiveness and invitation to return to the Hebrew God.
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NOTES
[1] Etz Hayim,The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, New York, p. 786
[2] Book of Hosea, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. His start coincided with Amos’s brief period of prophecy (760-755 BCE). The Book of Hosea actually pre-dated the final editing and canonization of the Torah!
[3] See- Internet—“Kings of the Northern Kingdom”
[4] Op. Cit,. Book of Hosea, Wikipedia, Hosea is the source of “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind”
[5] Ibid.
[6] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, p. 1207, This is a metaphor within the larger metaphor—turn her from sensuous body to a dried desert of ruin
[7 Op. Cit, Book of Hosea, Wikipedia—The Israelites’ wayward worship included Baal (the Canaanite storm god), and Asherah, a Canaanite fertility goddess. Other sins included homicide, perjury, theft, and other forms of sexual sin.
[8] a simile
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.