Can we do תפילות prayers for:
AZAMRA and Rav Avraham ben Yaakov?
So that through them The האור Light, The רפואה Healing and The אהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?
BS"D KNOW YOUR BIBLE: Hosea 3-4
Study Notes by Avraham ben Yaakov
HOSEA CHAPTER 3
"Having completed his words of comfort, he now returns to words of
reproof to the people of his generation. This is the way of the prophets
– to intermingle reproof and comfort" (RaDaK on v 1).
V 1: Having previously commanded Hosea to marry an adulterous woman, God
now commands Hosea to love such a woman in spite of her disloyalty.
This adulterous woman is a prophetic metaphor for the people of Israel,
whom God loves – albeit seemingly from afar – despite their disloyalty.
How now is God to show His love to His people? In the coming verses the
prophet takes a "long view" from the beginning of Israel's nationhood
until the very "end of days" (v 5), revealing that God's love will take
the form of the lengthy suffering of exile, which will eventually bring
the people back in search of what they have lost.
V 2: The PSHAT (literal meaning) appears to be that the prophet acquired
his wife as commanded through giving her KIDDUSHIN gifts of 15 silver
coins and a sizeable quantity of barley. As explained by Rashi based on
Midrash, all this alludes to God's acquisition of the people of Israel
as His "wife" through the redemption from Egypt on the FIFTEENTH of
Nissan, and through giving them the redemptive commandments of (1) each
individual's silver half-shekel contribution to the Temple and (2) the
barley Omer offering brought on 16th Nissan. Rashi himself as well as
numerous other midrashim also darshen this verse in many ways "…that the
Torah be made great and glorious".
V. 3: God's Covenant with His people was that the relationship should be
"for many days" ON CONDITION that the "wife" is loyal, and then He will
be loyal to her. This verse alludes to the first two of the Ten
Commandments: "I am…" and "you shall have no other gods…" (Exodus
20:2-3).
V 4: The people will remain in exile for "many days", waiting for
redemption, and God too will wait to be able to take them back as His
people, but even in their exile He will not chose another people. If
there is no MELEKH (king) – if God appears not to be with them in exile –
at least there will not be any SAR (angel), i.e. even in exile the will
not worship an intermediary. If there is no ZEVAH (sacrifice in the
Temple), at least there will be no MATZEVA (idolatrous pillar altar). If
there will be no EPHOD (high priest's breastplate, URIM VE-THUMIM), at
least there will be no TERAPHIM (astrological divining instruments)
(Metzudas David ad loc.).
V 5: After the days of exile, the Children of Israel will repent and
seek out the three things that they despised in the days of Rehaboam and
Jeraboam: the kingship of Heaven, the kingship of the House of David,
and the Temple in Jerusalem. "And they will seek out the Lord their
God…" = the kingship of Heaven. "And David their king" = the kingship of
the House of David. "And they will be filled with fear towards God and
to his goodness…" This refers to the Temple (Rashi ad loc. In the name
of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai).
CHAPTER 4
This chapter begins a new prophecy of reproof that specifies in more
detail the component transgressions which together constitute Israel's
infidelity to her "husband", God.
V 1: God's "controversy" or argument against the inhabitants of the land
is because all three columns are flawed. There is no TRUTH (=TIFERES,
the center column). There is no KINDNESS (=CHESSED, the right arm of
love) and there is no KNOWLEDGE OF ELOKIM (no awareness of God's power
of DIN, Judgment and Strength=GEVURAH, the left arm of might). The three
columns are supposed to be manifested in the LAND (=MALCHUS, the
receiving "vessel"), and the land is flawed because they are not.
V 2: The catalog of false oaths, deception, murder, theft, immorality
and adultery until "blood leads to blood" and one terrible bloody strike
follows another aptly typifies certain areas of present-day Israeli
society just as it typified the society in the day of the prophet.
V 3: Characterization of the mourning of the land under the devastations
of exile, which affects the entire ecology of animals, birds and even
the fish of the sea.
V 4: But the people do not want to hear the reproof, telling the true
prophets not to argue with them, while the people themselves argue
against their own priests, whose role is to teach them Torah.
Vv 5-10: Running away from the reproof of the true prophets, the people
will stumble together with their false prophets. The people have fallen
to a state that is the opposite of DA'AS (=true knowledge of God), and
just as they have forgotten the Torah, so God will "forget" their
children (since at Sinai the people brought in their own children as
guarantors of the Covenant) producing generations of assimilated
Israelites. They will eat without being satisfied and fornicate but not
increase their population.
V 11: The root cause of the national malady lies in ZENOOS,
"immorality"/disloyalty to God and the preoccupation with "wine" –
immediate gratification and the flight into fantasy.
Vv 12-13: "My people ask counsel of a piece of wood, and their staff
declares to them" (v 12) – they seek out idols and follow what their
false prophets say. Instead of going up to the Temple, which was
intended to be the single focus of worship of the One God, the people
are scattered, all in their own private cults. The fathers' disloyalty
to God leads to immorality among their daughters and daughters-in-law.
V 14 is darshened in Talmud Sotah as teaching that the plague of
immorality will be so widespread that the Bitter Waters that came to
test whether a man's wife had been disloyal would no longer be effective
because the men folk themselves were also immoral.
Vv 15-16: Admonition to Judah not to join with Israel or learn from
their path. [It is very tempting for the Torah observant to want to
imitate those who have thrown off the yoke when they see them living it
up and apparently enjoying themselves hugely.] For Israel is like a
headstrong cow that has been fattened up and now kicks, whereas God will
in exile pasture them like a lamb, whose diet is more skimpy (Rashi).
V 17: "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone". On PSHAT level the
prophet is saying that the Ten Tribes are so given over to idolatry that
further reproof is pointless. The Midrash learns from this verse:
"Great is peace, because even if they worship idols, if there is peace
among them He cannot (as if) do anything to them. But when they are
divided among themselves, what does it say? 'Their heart is divided, now
they shall be found guilty'" (Hosea 10:2; Bereishis Rabbah 38).
V 18: The people's drunken mentality is far from God. It is their kings
who initiated this path of sin. But just as a strong wind sweeps a weak
bird far from where it wants to be, the wind of exile will sweep the
people away until they become ashamed of their idolatrous sacrifices.
ABY
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