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Speaking through Agricultural Images

Hosea 10:11-13

Chapter 10 contains many agricultural images that clearly illustrate the message God wanted to convey to the people of Israel: Return to Me!

• Until this point, Ephraim (Israel) had worn a gentle harness and done the fairly easy work of threshing grain. But Ephraim would be forced to "pull a plow" as a "trained heifer" (10:11)—a reference to their future captivity and the hard labor that would be forced on them.
• God called His people, who have "plowed wickedness" (10:13), to now "sow righteousness" (10:12).
• He exhorted His people, who had "reaped iniquity" (10:13), to now "reap in mercy" (10:12).
• God's people, who had "eaten the fruit of lies" (10:13), would now break up the "fallow ground" (10:12) of their hard hearts and turn back to God.

Old Testament scholar David Allan Hubbard, in Hosea: An Introduction and Commentary, paraphrases it this way: "You know now what God taught you—invest your lives [sow] in keeping with your relationship to God and all its implications [righteousness] and the result [reap] will be a corresponding measure of his steadfast love. None of this is easy, and for it to happen you will have to change your patterns and be open to God's new ways [break up your fallow ground]."

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