End of the Agreement?

Then He said, “Name him Lo-ammi (Not-My-People); for you are not My people, and I am not your God. Hosea 1:9 (NASB)

Not your God – Hosea is a book of word puns, double meanings and striking metaphors.  Many of these are lost in the English translation.  Usually this doesn’t have a significant impact on the meaning of the text, but sometimes what we miss clouds much deeper levels of understanding.  In other instances, the translators simply emend the text so that it reads “correctly” in English and we lose another insight into the Hebrew mind.  This particular verse is a case of the latter, a change in the actual Hebrew text which results in obscuring something important.  Most English translations of this verse begin with a Hebrew reading ‘anoki lo’ elohekem.  This means “I am not your God.”   But such a translation requires that the actual Hebrew text be modified.  The best documents of Hosea read ‘anoki lo’-‘ehyeh lakem.  Do you see the difference?  The translation of the actual Hebrew text reads, “I will not be for you.”  The meaning might be the same but altering the text changes something else.  Hosea is creating a word pun on the divine name (Exodus 3:14).  He takes the same verbal root used in the great name of God – YHWH is a form of the verb hayah (to be) – to provide a new name – “not I AM.”  While the covenant with Moses creates a people exclusively set apart for I AM, the judgment spoken through Hosea forcefully declares that God is no longer I AM for Israel.  It is not simply that He is no longer their God.  It is that the covenant commitment has been reversed.  I AM has become not I AM.  The amendment to the Hebrew text is unwarranted and it obscures the real impact of Hosea’s pun.

You might say, “Wow!  That’s so interesting.  It’s another example of tiny changes in textual translation that hide important facts.  But does it really matter now, two thousand years after Hosea spoke?”  Yes, it does!

Dearman captures the startling impact of this declaration.  “Hosea’s proclamation is designed to show that there is, at least in the historical process, a limit to God’s forbearance and thus also to his mercy in response to ingrained evil.” [1] God’s patience is not forever.  God’s forgiveness can be withdrawn.  God’s mercy can end (as Hosea’s second child is named Lo-ruhamah (No Mercy).   Just as there is a statute of limitation on compassion, so there is an end to God’s tolerance.  And when His forbearance ends, calamity follows.  If God can be the “Not I AM” for His beloved Israel, what does that say to us, His grafted-into-the-root extras?

Yes, the book of Hosea ends with restoration.  Yes, it is a love story of true faithfulness.  Yes, hope follows.  But we should never allow the end to obscure the beginning.  God might be omnipotent, but He is “not I AM” for those who continue to resist His call.

Topical Index:  lo’-‘ehyeh, not I AM, emendation, Hosea 1:9, forbearance