We can see in the Old Testament that God has asked his prophets to do some strange things in order send an important message. God told Isaiah to walk around naked to send a message to the Egyptians that they will be under the same state when they are conquered by the Babylonians and taken away as slaves (Isaiah 20). Likewise, hes even asked Ezekiel not to mourn for his wife when she died so to give a message to the Israelites that they are too not to mourn when their sons and daughters die as well (Ezekiel 24:16-17, 20-24). And in this case of the prophet Hosea, God does not do any different. Trying to demonstrate something to the Israelites, He commands Hosea to marry an "unfaithful" woman (Hosea 1:2). .
It does not just end there for Hosea though. Gomer proves to be unfaithful and leaves Hosea to love other men. This would have been grounds for divorce and Hosea kicking Gomer out of his life, but God wanted to do something special here. He commands Hosea to buy Gomer back from her bondage and Hosea spends almost all he had to get her back even if there was no certainty that she would remain loyal (Hosea 3). This image is especially powerful when we keep in mind that back then such adulterous acts of having sex outside of the marriage was punishable by death (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22).
II. Why choose this topic?.
Why does this story about Gomer interest me? This story depicts how we are like "Gomer" who choose to forget the covenant that we are under with God, and choose to live a life of unfaithfulness and sin. We pursue others things rather than God. But just as Hosea was willing to take her back even after she proved to be unfaithful, God does the same and takes us back. He even paid a big price by sending His Son to die on the cross to buy us back so that we can once again be His. Such a marvelous story of God's love and faithfulness which is why I believe it deserves to be studied, hopefully, in doing so, we can further understand more of Gomer's character and what implications it may present in how we interpret this story.
