Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Hosea · About this commentary
Come, Let Us Return
Hosea 6:1-3
1 “Come! Let’s return to Yahweh; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds. · WEB
The people say exactly the right words, and the next verse shows that saying them was not enough.
Three verses of model repentance, and every clause of it is theologically correct.
Come! Let's return to Yahweh — the book's most frequent verb, shuv, which falls twenty-one times here. They name the injury accurately and attribute it to the right agent: he has torn us to pieces — the lion of the previous verse Hosea 5:14 — and he will heal us. The healing Assyria could not supply Hosea 5:13 is sought where it actually is.
Verse 2 expresses confidence in revival: after two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up. The two-and-three construction is a Hebrew way of saying soon and certainly.
And verse 3 uses the book's key word twice: let's acknowledge Yahweh. Let's press on to know Yahweh. The knowledge whose absence was the charge in chapter 4 is now the stated goal Hosea 4:1 Hosea 4:6. Then two images of reliability — the sunrise, and the spring rain that waters the earth.
Nothing in it is wrong. If a reader stopped here the chapter would be a success story.
But the next verse is God's reply, and it is a lament rather than a welcome: Ephraim, what shall I do to you?... your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early Hosea 6:4. The images answer verse 3 in kind. They had compared God's coming to reliable rain; he compares their love to moisture that is gone by mid-morning.
The passage is the book's most searching, because the words were right and the answer is that words were what they were.
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