Back Again?
So, are we back
On our track
Where we started
Before you forfeited
Our little beginnings
Like Gomer you went astray
Is it nature or your fray?
I can't but wonder
What tore us assunder
What would cost your returning?
You looked at me
Tagged me unworthy
Ostracised from your world
You treated me like blunt sword
Are we back darling?
A man's essence
Lies in his usefulness
What you want in me
Lies nowhere but here
That explains your beckoning
I would be glad
To make you sad
Turn you to your comrades
With whom you found sheltering shades
Or why?
Tell me
Are we back again
Where we started?
Hosea and Gomer -- Cody F. Miller
The Jews ruled 2 neighboring states. The northern kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 9th century BCE, before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE, while the kingdom of Judah emerged in the 8th century BCE and enjoyed a period of prosperity as a client-state of Assyria and later Babylon before a revolt against the Neo-Babylonian Empire led to its destruction in 586 BCE. According to the "Book of Hosea," before Israel's destruction the people had lost their faithfulness, kindness, and knowledge of God; swearing, deception, murder, stealing, drunkenness and sexual vice were rampant; the religious establishment was corrupt; the people had become idol worshipers; and the orgiastic cults of the fertility deities Baal and Ashtarte had become particularly prominent. (According to 2 Kings 17, human sacrifices were also being committed.) The political situation had been in turmoil for decades, since Jeroboam's revolt against the original Jewish dominion and his creation of the separate kingdom of Israel, and his policies of reorienting the political and religious focus away from the Temple in Judea's capital Jerusalem by encouraging the building of local altars, appointing priests from outside the hereditary Levite family, and tolerating other cults. Israel's 4th king, Elah, was murdered by Zimri, the "commander of half the king's chariots," but after a reign of only 7 days, in order to avoid capture and torture at the hands of Omri, Elah's "commander of the army, he set fire to the royal palace and died in the blaze." Nothing is known about Omri's lineage, but as his name is either Amorite or Arabic, he may have been a foreign mercenary. He secured a marriage alliance between his son Ahab ("Brother of the father") and the daughter of the Phoenician king Ethbaal of Tyre, Jezebel (Izevel, meaning "Where is the Prince?"," a ritual cry from ceremonies in honor of Baal during periods of the year when the god was in the underworld). (According to Titus Flavius Josephus, she was the great-aunt of Dido, the 1st ruler of Carthage, who would proclaim eternal hatred between her people and the descendants of her unfaithful Trojan lover Aeneas, the founder of Rome.) Jezebel brought her own priests into Israel, and Ahab built a temple for Baal while launching a murderous purge against his foes. The religious orientation of the kings of Israel brought about domestic security but were opposed by the religious traditionalists led by the prophet Elijah (Eliyahu, "My God is Yahu"), who invoked a divine drought so severe that not even dew would fall. (A deliberately provocative pronouncement since Baal was responsible for rain, thunder, lightning, and dew.) After more than 3 years of exile and famine, Elijah demanded the execution of the priests of Baal before fleeing to Mt. Horeb, where Moses had received the Ten Commandments centuries before. From there he went to Damascus to annoint Elisha ("My God is salvation") as his own successor and to provide divine support for Hazael ("God has seen") as king of Damascus and later for Jehu as king of Israel.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Jehoshaphat ("Jehovah has judged"), the 4th king of Judah, fortified his realm against its Omri's supporters by suppressing idolatrous worship and sending out priests and Levites to instruct his people in the correct religious observances; he also married his son Jehoram to Ahab's daughter Athaliah ("God is exalted"). When the Syrian king Hadadezer fell ill he sent court official Hazael to Elisha to seek a cure; after Elisha told Hazael that he would die of other means the Syrian suffocated Hadadezer to death and seized power. He quickly began to enlarge his territory east of the Jordan river. When Jehoshaphat and Ahab advanced to recover Ramoth-Gilead, Ahab was mortally wounded by an unaimed arrow. The prophet Jehu reproached Jehoshaphat for his alliance with Israel, and the king resumed his policy of religious purification. Ahab was succeeded by his son Ahaziah; after falling from his palace roof he sent messengers to consult with the priests of Baal-Zebub, the god of prophecy, but Elijah swore that Ahariah would never recover. Ahariah was succeeded by his younger brother Jehoram ("Jehovah is exalted"), who moderated his dynasty's religious policies and even gained Elisha's support against Hazael.
ReplyDeleteIn Jehoram's 5th year Jehoshaphat's son, also named Jehoram, began a co-regency with his father and eventually succeeded him as king of Judea; to secure his reign he killed his 6 brothers and lost the rest of his family (except his youngest son Ahaziah) in a raid by Arabs, Philistines, and Ethiopians. After a 2-year struggle against an iflammation of the abdomen, Jehoram of Judea was followed by Ahaziah, who made his mother's relatives his chief advisors and introduced forms of worship that offended the Yahwistic party. He joined his uncle Jehoram of Israel's failed expedition to recover Ramoth-Gilead from Hazael; defeated and wounded. Jehoram withdrew to Jezreel to recover, and Ahaziah joined him there. Elisha ordered the anointment of general Jehu ("Jehovah is He") as king. Jehu shot Jehoram in the back; Ahaziah was wounded and fled to his capital Samara, but Jehu had him killed. Jehu then ordered Jezebel's servants to throw her from the window, and he trampled her corpse with his horse and chariot. Then stray dogs devoured her remains except for her skull, feet, and the palms of her hands. Jehu then had 70 royal princes executed and moved to exterminate Ahaziah's 42 remaining relatives and launched a new pogrom against the worshipers of Baal. However, Hazael defeated his armies "throughout all of the territories of Israel" beyond the Jordan river, and Hosea later attributed the Assyrian punishment of Israel to Jehu's bloodbath.
ReplyDeleteGod ordered Hosea ("Salvation" or "He saves" or "He helps" -- his name may have been a contraction of a larger form that signified "YHWH helps," the original name of the post-Exodus general, Joshua) to “take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD." So he married Gomer, who bore him 3 children, each of whom was named to symbolize some aspect of Israel’s relationship with God: a son Jezreel (the symbolic source of much of the wickedness associated with the northern kingdom), a daughter Lo-ruhamah (“to have no pity,” referring to God's impending judgment, and another son Lo-ammi (“not mine,” an acknowledgement of Israel's harlotry and a declaration of divine rejection). His name may also have been an indication that he was not Hosea's progeny. After the couple separated Gomer consorted with a man who was unable to support her, but Hosea secretly continued to provide her with her basic needs for awhile. Then her lover sold her into slavery. Hosea bought her for 15 shekels (1/2 the value of a maidservant as set in Exodus 21:32).
ReplyDeleteAside from being an exposition on Israel's punishment and redemption, the story is also a prophetic reference to various bogus unions between the tribes of Israel and the descendants of Japheth's eldest son Gomer, the father of Riphath, Togarmah, and Ashkenaz. The children of Ashkenaz were identified as the "Ishkuza," the Assyrian name for the Scythians. According to tractate Yoma, in the Talmud, Gomer was the ancestor of the Gomermians (modern Germans). "Gomer" is also associated with the Cimmerians (Akkadian "Gimirru" [complete]) who were defeated by Assarhadon of Assyria sometime between 681 and 668 BCE. Various ancient writers claimed Gomer as the ancestor of the Cappadocians or the neighboring Galatians (and therefore of the Gauls and Celts), so the Cimbri who settled in Danmark in ca 200 BCE were believed to be a Cimmerian tribe, and the Irish claimed descent from Gomer's son Ibath (thought to be a form of Riphath). The Welsh called themselves the Cymbri and sometimes called their language "Gomeraeg." Armenian and Georgian chronicles list Gomer's son Togarmah as their ancestor, and the Khazars identified Togarmah as the ancestor of the Turkic-speaking peoples. In 1498 Annio da Viterbo published fraudulent Babylonian records that said Comerus Gallus (Gomer son of Japheth) settled in Comera (modern Italy) in the 10th year of Nimrod, following the dispersion of peoples due to the fall of the tower of Babel, and thatNoah's 4th son Tuiscon (later identified as Ashkenaz) ruled in Germany/Scythia.