When the Prophet Hosea Failed to Plead for Israel

In the days of Uzziah king of Judah, four elder prophets prophesied, and Hosea son of Beeri was the eldest of them all. The Holy One, blessed be He, watched over them all, to see who would seek mercy for His children and who would not. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Hosea: See for Israel what sins they are committing. Hosea ought to have said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, they are Your children, the children of those You tested, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who did Your will in the world; turn upon them Your attribute of mercy and have compassion on them and pardon their iniquities. Not only did Hosea fail to say this, but he said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the universe, the whole world is Yours; exchange them for another people. As it is said, "The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea" (Hosea 1:2). Were there not many prophets who prophesied to Israel? Rather, of the four elder prophets prophesying in that period, the word of the LORD came first to Hosea. At that moment the Holy One, blessed be He, said: What shall I do with that old man? I will say to him: Go, take a wife of harlotry, and you shall have children of harlotry; and afterward I will say to him: Go, separate yourself from her. If he is able to send her out and divorce her and dismiss her, then I too will send Israel away from off the face of the earth. As it is said, "And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take you a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has greatly committed harlotry, departing from the LORD" (Hosea 1:2). And he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, an evil report, the daughter of an evil report, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the LORD said to him, "Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu" (Hosea 1:4). And she conceived again and bore a daughter, and He said to him, "Call her name Lo-ruhamah [Not-pitied], for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel" (Hosea 1:6). And she conceived and bore a son, and He said, "Call his name Lo-ammi [Not-my-people], for you are not My people and I will not be yours" (Hosea 1:9). After two sons and one daughter had been born, and three decrees had been decreed against Israel on their account, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Hosea, why did you not learn from Moses your teacher? When I spoke with him, he separated from his wife. Why do you dwell with the woman? Separate yourself from her. He said before Him: Master of the universe, I cannot send her out nor divorce her, for I already have children from her. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Hosea: If you, who married a wife of harlotry, whose children are children of harlotry, and you do not even know whether those children are yours or another's, say you cannot send her out nor divorce her because you already have children from her, how much more so these children of Israel, who are My beloved, the children of My beloved, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who are one acquisition out of the five acquisitions I acquired for Myself in My world. These are they: the Torah is one acquisition, Abraham is one acquisition, the Temple is one acquisition, heaven and earth are one acquisition, and Israel is one acquisition. Yet you said, Exchange them for another nation. How could I send them away from before Me? When Hosea knew that he had sinned, he began to seek mercy for himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Hosea: Hosea, before you seek mercy for yourself, seek mercy for Israel, against whom I decreed three decrees on your account. Go back and heal them of those three decrees. Immediately Hosea arose and sought mercy for them, and the decrees were annulled, and he began to bless Israel, as it is said, "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said to them, You are not My people, it shall be said to them, You are the children of the living God. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint themselves one head... Say to your brethren, Ammi [My people], and to your sisters, Ruhamah [Pitied]... And I will sow her to Me in the earth, and I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, You are My people" (Hosea 2). In the days of Ahaz king of Judah, Israel were doing the words of the Torah and the commandments. Ahaz arose and sealed up the Torah and decreed against Israel that they should not occupy themselves with Torah and commandments, as it is said, "Bind up the testimony, seal the Torah among My disciples" (Isaiah 8:16), until the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Isaiah: Go, say to Ahaz: Are you not a mortal? Ask for yourself a sign from the LORD, as it is said, "And the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask for yourself a sign from the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I test the LORD. And he said, Hear now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?" (Isaiah 7:10-13). In the days of Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah, Israel arose and made an image of four faces and set up that image in the Sanctuary so that no one should pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, there, until the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Isaiah: Go, say to that mortal: "Thus says the LORD: The heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you would build for Me, and where is the place of My rest?" (Isaiah 66:1). And not the heaven alone is My throne, but Vilon and Rakia and Shechakim and Zevul and Maon and Aravot, all these are My throne, and I sit above them all; and therefore it is said, "Where is the house that you would build for Me?" When that event befell him, he immediately repented, as it is said, "And when he was in distress, he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He was entreated of him and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD, He is God" (2 Chronicles 33:12-13). Of him, and of his like, and of those resembling him, and of those who do as he did, Scripture says, "You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, How have we wearied Him? In that you say, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" (Malachi 2:17). In the days of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, the land was captured, and the ten tribes went into exile in his days. Now what was different about Hoshea son of Elah from all the kings of Israel before him, that Israel went into exile in his days? Rather, from the time Jeroboam son of Nebat arose until Hoshea son of Elah came, idolatry hung upon the individual alone, and it was hard before their Father in heaven to exile the many of Israel for the sin of the individual. But when Hoshea son of Elah came, he arose and abolished all the guard posts that had stood upon the roads in the days of Jeroboam to prevent Israel from going up to Jerusalem for the festival, and he proclaimed and said: Whoever wishes to go up for the festival to Jerusalem, let him come and go up. Thus he removed the yoke-collar from his own neck and hung it upon the neck of the many. Therefore Scripture says of him, "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria... and he carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kings 17:2-6). From here they said: Whoever begins a commandment and does not complete it is held liable in his own life and in all that he has, and he buries his wife and his children. In the days of Zedekiah king of Judah, Jeremiah the prophet prophesied to Israel that if they would repent and return to better ways. But Israel rose up against him to kill him, and they cast Jeremiah into a miry pit, and afterward they brought him up out of the miry pit and placed him in the court of the guard. Many times Israel rose up against Jeremiah to kill him, and Jeremiah would curse Israel with many curses; and for each and every curse that Jeremiah cursed Israel, the Holy One, blessed be He, would sigh against it, as it is said, "For you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you" (Jeremiah 12:5). And then, in the days of Zedekiah, the ten tribes went into exile, and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin went into exile with them, and the people of Jerusalem went into exile with them; and the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to go with them into exile. Immediately the ministering angels gathered before the Holy One, blessed be He, to appease Him and to comfort Him, and they said before Him: Master of the universe, You already have the nations of the world in Your world, while we have neither limit nor number. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to the ministering angels: Am I flesh and blood, that I need comforting? I recognize the beginning and I recognize the end, for so it is said of Me, "Even to old age I am the same, and even to gray hairs I will carry you; I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will deliver" (Isaiah 46:4). Therefore it is said, "Look away from Me; I will weep bitterly; do not labor to comfort me concerning the ruin of the daughter of My people" (Isaiah 22:4). Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, not say to the angels, Do not gather to comfort Me, or Do not assemble to comfort Me, or Do not come to comfort Me, but said precisely, Do not labor to comfort Me? Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the ministering angels: These comfortings are insults to Me. Go down from before Me and see My people Israel, how they go into exile with great burdens on their shoulders. Immediately the ministering angels went down from before the Holy One, blessed be He, and went out in alarm and took the burdens of Israel from off their shoulders. And immediately the Divine Presence went out also with Israel into exile, as it is said, "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon" (Isaiah 43:14). And if you should say: Since a person commits a transgression, let him die at once -- if so, the whole world would be destroyed. And how do you know it is so? Go and learn from Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah, who left no idolatry in the world that he did not worship, yet the Holy One, blessed be He, had pity on him and did not slay him, because he repented and because of the righteous who were destined to come forth from him. From here they said: Even if a person has piled up many transgressions, one above another, and afterward he returns in repentance, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: Behold, I am with him in mercy, and I accept his repentance. And even if a person stood and reviled and blasphemed against Heaven and afterward returned in repentance, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: Behold, I am with him in mercy, and behold, I pardon him for all his iniquities, as it is said, "Have I any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked? says the Lord GOD; and not rather that he should return from his ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:23), and it says, "Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways" (Ezekiel 33:11), and it says, "Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him" (Malachi 3:18). And thus the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Israel: Come and bring yourselves into the words of the Torah and see what I wrote for you, to bear your transgressions and to pardon your iniquities and to remove your sins from before Me. Yet now you have not increased in the words of the Torah; speak with Me in the words of the Torah as a man speaks with his fellow, as it is said, "Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to Him, Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, so will we render the bullocks of our lips. Assyria shall not save us" (Hosea 14:2-3).