I am God, but Not a Male - Reflections on Hosea 11:1-11, Pentecost 8, Year C

by John C. Holbert on Monday, May 19, 2025

                   This extraordinary text from the eighth century prophet, Hosea, is well worth a very close look for many reasons, but perhaps the most important is the meaning of the amazing vss.8-9. The received text of Hosea is very poor; that is, it has not been transmitted to us in an easily read Hebrew. No final reason may be given for this difficult transmission history, but, ouside of the book of Job, no book in the Hebrew Bible has suffered in its text more than Hosea. I suggested in my earlier article on Hosea 1 that some of the reason may have been due to the shockingly explicit nature of the content of the book. Much of Hosea’s anger with the people of Israel is the result of their fixation on the worship of Baal, a Canaanite deity characterized by much talk of fecundity and sexual activity which was always seen as significant elements in the worship and practice of the Baal cult, worship that was practiced, probably by more than a few,  during nearly the entire history of Israel during its days in the land. It could then well be that the text of Hosea, in the attempt to combat the flourishing Baal cult, often employed language and ideas that would have been considered salacious by readers and transmitters of that text. After all, we saw that the prophet was asked by YHWH to marry a prostitute, and continue that marriage despite the woman Gomer producing three children, none of whom might have been fathered by Hosea! Thus, this is hardly a traditional holy book, to say the least.

         In the chapters that precede the one for today, the prophet, through the mouth of YHWH, rails against the false gods that Israel finds so attractive in multiple ways. For example, in chapter 10, the prophet speaks passionately of that sin of idolatry, accusing them of having a “false heart,” as they pursue their foolish worship, and announces that “the calf of Beth-aven” shall be destroyed by a furious YHWH, and that “the people will mourn for it,” while “the idolatrous priests will wail” over its loss” (Hosea 10:2,5). In chapter after chapter, Hosea points to Israel’s rank sin of idolatry, and promises in vivid terms how YHWH is angry, and how YHWH will come for destruction both of the idols and of those who dare worship them.

         And then comes Hosea 11. This chapter bears a sharply different tone, where YHWH now changes remarkably from rage to deep care, from the promise of destruction to the complete unwillingness finally to give up on the sinful people. Hosea 11 is one of the passages that gives the lie to that false old saw that “the Old Testament presents only a God of war.” After reading Hosea 11, words like those ought never pass anyone’s lips!

         Unfortunately, the bulk of the chapter is extremely difficult Hebrew. Vs.1 is, however, clear enough: “When Israel was a young lad, I loved him; out of Egypt I summoned my son.” Hosea begins with a subtle reference to the escape from Egypt due to YHWH’s power, the central claim of Israelite faith. We know that Hosea 11:2 speaks of Israel’s refusal to stay with YHWH, despite that love, and instead “kept sacrificing to the Baals.” Vs.3-7 are too often corrupt in the text to be absolutely certain of their meaning, but the upshot appears to be that YHWH remains angry at them, “because they have refused to return to me” (Hosea 11:5). 

         But vs.8 is thus startling: “How can I give you up, Ephraim (i.e. Israel)? How can I (possibly) defend you, Israel?” YHWH now speaks passionately of a desire to protect and defend these sinners; there is real divine feeling here, and since it comes from Hosea, the prophet married to an unfaithful woman, yet who remains faithful to her, it is thus not surprising that Hosea hears in YHWH a real person not so unlike himself. “How can I make you like Admah, set you up like Zeboim” (both are cities connected to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—see Deut. 29:23)? Then comes the following: “my heart turns upside down within me,” says YHWH; “my womb grows warm and tender. I will not pursue my fierce rage; I will never again annihilate Ephraim!” (Hosea 11:8b-9a). The “heart” in Hebrew anthropology is the place of reasoning and judgment, and the womb—the organ that the Hebrew’s made the basis of their word “compassion”—is here the female organ that the prophet assumes YHWH possesses. That astonishing fact is made well-nigh certain by the vs.9b. The reason that the formerly furious YHWH has quite literally changed the divine mind about destruction is: “I am God (el), and not a male (ish), the Holy One among you,” Unfortunately, the last part of vs.9 is quite unreadable. 

         Hosea, perhaps moved by his unique personal circumstances (especially if we assume that his unconventional marriage is historical) began to imagine God in profoundly different ways than his tradition had long believed. God will not again destroy Israel, he claimed, precisely because that God was female as much as male, the more common viewpoint. That word, ish,of vs.9b is rarely used as a human generic term, “humanity” or “mortal,” as the NRSV reads it. It is far more commonly the opposite of “ishah,” “female.” And it certainly follows from the reality of the “womb” of God that God is here seen as female. Such a reading may seem at first outlandish, the mere whim of an overly-feminist critic (I plead guilty to being a feminist!). But our God is ever new, so, I say, why not?