The book of Hosea has held a lot of fascination for me ever since I first delved into it while reading Captivating by John and Staci Eldridge. It's a prophetic and allegorical story in which God tells his prophet Hosea to do something seemingly unthinkable--to redeem his wife Gomer who has left him and abandoned their children to become a prostitute. This is hefty enough--the sheer act of taking back such a wife into his home instead of allowing the law of the land to punish her (almost certainly by death) would have been considered ludicrous in Hosea's society. But, as usual, Jehovah is not satisfied with just the outward action. He commands Hosea to do something even more radical: he must love his wife.
"And the Lord said to me: 'Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.'" - Hosea 3:1 (the raisin cakes were sacrificial food used in idol worship)
Just as he tells Israel that he desires mercy over sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), and just as Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for tithing their income but neglecting the principles of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew23:23), God is making this a matter of the heart--something you can't fake.
God then makes a promise directly to his own Gomer, the people of Israel:
"And in that day, delcares the Lord, you will call me My Husband and no longer will you call me My Baal. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground.
And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord."
- Hosea 2: 16-20
They don't call it the oldest profession for nothing. I believe that there is little more inherent to the human condition than prostitution--the giving away of something of great value and infinite goodness in exchange for a lie, a deception, and a million fleeting consolation prizes that wither and decay. Isn't that exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden?
The amazing thing to me about these verses is that even after all this, God is still concerned with our hearts. He promises not only to redeem us, not only to love us, but also to give us peace--to make us lie down in safety. No more struggling to survive in a war-ravaged land. No more fearing for our lives from evil that lies in wait on every side. And then, at the end, comes the best promise of all: "And you shall know the Lord." Relationship. Intimacy. Unconditional faithfulness. Isn't that what we were looking for all along?
Alternatively, you can also look at this verse as a sort of litmus test for whether or not you really know the Lord. Does the God that you imagine give you peace? Does He love you, and are you secure in the knowledge that that love is eternal? Do you feel betrothed in righteousness and justice, love, mercy, and faithfulness? If not, something is wrong . It may be unrepented sin, it may be lies that you've been told, or it may be a limited understanding of God, but either way it's going to wedge itself between you and the true heart of God.
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In other news,
Chi Alpha tonight! Yay for community and pizza.
Lost is ridiculous. Simply ridiculous. But I really like Daniel Faraday.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is my current soundtrack. I never get sick of that CD.
Off to get lunch. Peace out ya'll!
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13 comments:
i really liked this.
hosea was a pretty awesome dude.
still need to get my hands on Wild.. and Captivating..
goodness, i wish you'd write in here more often! it's really great to get such analytical thinking and praise.
oh, also:
when a man loves a woman,
can't keep his mind on nothing else.
he'll trade the world
for the good thing he's found.
if she's bad, he can't see it-
she can do no wrong.
turn his back on his best friend
if he put her down.
when a man loves a woman,
spend his very last dime
tryin' to hold on to what he needs.
he'd give up all his comfort,
sleep out in the rain
if she said that's the way it ought to be.
well, this man loves a woman.
i gave you everything i had
tryin' to hold on to your precious love.
baby, please don't treat me bad!
when a man loves a woman
down deep in his soul,
she can bring him such misery.
if she plays him for a fool,
he's the last one to know-
lovin' eyes can't ever see.
when a man loves a woman,
he can do no wrong.
He can never own some other girl.
yes, when a man loves a woman
i know exactly how he feels
'cause baby, baby, baby, you're my world.
perhaps not the most entirely accurate portrayal of true G-dly and biblical love (i'll give it the benefit of the doubt and call it hyperbole) but. as usual with most things, there's at least a modicum of truth in it. i wonder if Hosea felt similar to what Percy was singing about ("well, this man loves a woman. / i gave you everything i had / tryin' to hold on to your precious love. / baby, please don't treat me bad!").
also (sorry! i keep thinking of things i've been meaning to ask you) do you have a location picked out for where you'll be "going Croatoan"? what sort of terrain- swamp? woods? plains?
i've been bad with blogging and keeping up with blogs...so i've only skimmed yours, but i'll dig into your blogged goodness soon.
and i totally echo your faraday sentiment. he rocks.
Hi there,
I notice in this article you're using a photograph directly from our website. We're a non-profit student newspaper, and our website hosting costs are quite considerable, and external websites like yours using our images directly add to our hosting costs.
Additionally, using the image which is under copyright and without our permission or even crediting us is not only illegal (under the Copyright and Trademark Act in the UK - I believe the US equivalent is the DMCA) and also highly unethical and tantamount to theft. I notice you're a Christian, and if I recall correctly my lessons from school, the Christian bible has a fair few things to say about theft.
If you wish to continue using this image, please host it on your own site instead of stealing our capacity, and also credit it to "Nouse - University of York's award-winning student newspaper and website".
In future, it is not only polite but a legal requirement to get permission of the copyright holder before using their images.
Regards,
Chris Northwood,
Technical Director,
Nouse.
i'm not sure if they'll see it or not, but let's examine copyright law.
maybe you aren't familiar with something called fair use.
for a quick conceptual summary in this context, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_on_the_Internet
i followed the link on the image, which links back to your site. there is no notice of copyright on that image and in a non-print and therefore non-dated publication system (such as digital distribution), the copyright notice on the image is absolutely necessary (if it is, in fact, copyrighted).
FURTHERMORE, i see no notice of copyright neither on your homepage nor on the actual article's page ( http://www.nouse.co.uk/2007/02/13/life-behind-closed-doors-the-hidden-york-sex-trade/ ). this breaks w3c compliancy in notification of ownership.
lastly, if you're in control of your content, there are ways to prevent hotlinking if it's something you don't want.
as a sidenote, trying to essentially call someone a theif in response to YOUR poor copyright practices is something i find deplorable, and comparable to the bully practices of the RIAA and MPAA. trying to guilt someone into your cource of action using their faith also is a disgusting course of action. you should really be ashamed.
as a closing note, leaving a comment criticizing someone's use of content will do diddly squat and is disruptive to the blog, and also unethical. if you truly do own this piece and find it in unfair use, then you need to get a proper DMCA takedown notice and register it with the host (in this case, blogger/google). there's a reason these channels of resources exist, and nik doesn't have to do anything until you prove you rightfully hold the registered copyright to the above content- which you do through registering a DMCA takedown.
regards,
brent saner
proud supporter of the EFF,
avid reader of Groklaw.net,
protector of copyright,
someone who deals with DMCA takedown notices every day of the week,
and a citizen of the internet that doesn't like bully tactics.
I suggest you look a little bit harder at the page. In our standard page footer there is a link to http://www.nouse.co.uk/about-nouse/disclaimer/. Similarly, under UK copyright law, lack of a copyright notice does not imply something is under the public domain. I'm not familiar with the US law but I imagine it's similar - the Fair Use article you linked to backs this up. I suggest you read the article about "Fair Use" you linked to, it contradicts the argument you're trying to make. We also license multiple things under creative commons, but not that particular article (ironically if the author chose to license it under creative commons rather than full copyright law the position would be considerably stronger).
>> as a closing note, leaving a comment criticizing someone's use of content will do diddly squat and is disruptive to the blog, and also unethical.
This is ridiculous. If using the built in feedback system to your article isn't the correct way to give feedback, what is? I find it hard to believe that you would find dealing with legal notices preferable to requests from individuals. As students volunteering for a charitable organisation we can not afford solicitors to run an international copyright case, especially over something so trivial.
We work very hard at producing our newspaper - something that we receive no financial reward for (indeed as a charity we're not allowed to), the only reward we get is recognition for our work. I made a polite request for you to please credit us for our hard work and to not leech our bandwidth. I did not demand that you remove the image.
I'm very disappointed to see such an aggressive response from you, however as you appear to take great delight in pointing out, you intend to do nothing to resolve the situation, and I'm at a loss to take this any further. I've never come across an attitude like yours in the 5 months since I took up the volunteer position.
I can only hope that people who stumble across your blog read the comments and realise where the credit for part of your work comes from.
I apologise, I appear to have made a grave mistake, the comment I responded to was not actually made by the original author but by a commenter! I apologise as some of the stuff I wrote will come across as overly harsh but I did not notice the difference before hitting the 'Publish' button!
I can only hope that the original author has more common sense than you have shown, Brett.
i'll keep this brief to hopefully avoid hijacking this post any more than it's already been done.
1. my name is brent, not brett. common mistake, though.
2. it contradicts nothing i've said; it's backed by the precedent of Kelly v. Arriba (content is linked to the original content).
furthermore, "International authors who failed to provide copyright notice or register with the U.S. copyright office are given additional contemporary remedies that may restore American copyright protection given certain conditions. International authors/corporations who fail to meet these remedies forfeit their copyright." have you registered with the US copyright office? or only the UK office? my advice is, if the former, you do so immediately to prevent this from occurring in the future.
3. you weren't responding to the actual content of the post; you were making a technical request. again, this is why DMCA takedowns exist. you can get into legal trouble by doing it person-to-person. pardon my gruffness, but i'm really trying to help you out here. look, i'll even do your homework for you:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/google.pdf
(per http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/g_agents.html)
like i said, i deal with US DMCA takedowns (it falls under US DMCA, since google/blogger servers are hosted in the US) all day long. they exist for a reason- they protect the rights of not only those of the defendant but also the plaintiff (as well as the host themselves, being an intermediary between the two). you don't call a singer to book him/her; you call their agent- the singer is busy performing and they have an agent for the entire reason that they don't/shouldn't handle booking. you don't call a doctor to schedule an appointment; you call the receptionist desk because the doctor is busy seeing patients. i hope you see where i'm coming from with this.
4. i apologize if i seem aggressive but i've just seen myself as being assertive. fair use is under heavy attack these days and copyright in general is a tricky, grey, and oft-misunderstood thing. consider it "tough love".
To address point 2, it's covered under the Berne convention, which both the UK and US are signatories of.
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