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Hosea 2:1-11: Metaphor
Renita Weems (and other radical feminists) objects to Hosea's use of the metaphor of an adulterous wife to describe Israel's apostasy, and argues that it legitimizes the mistreatment of women Death is all metaphors, shape in one history; writes the poet Dylan Thomas, filling his poem “Altarwise by Owl-Light” with hundreds of metaphors for death. In the same manner the Hebrew Bible is filled with metaphors that expand and explain Yahweh’s relationship to Israel. The prophet Hosea uses the metaphor of a wife and her husband’s reaction to her adulteress behavior to portray the relationship between Israel and God.1 The emphasis is on God’s treatment of Israel in His attempt to bring her back from apostasy to the covenant. As Michael Fishbane writes, “If there is any central motif in the book as a whole, it would have to be the recurrent focus on religious apostasy and the concomitant expressions of divine wrath or love toward Israel. Sometimes, in fact, these themes are combined—as, for example, in Hos. 2:4-22, where they underpin the motif of marriage-divorce-restoration.”2 The images of God’s behavior toward Israel are stark: desertion, stripping, denial of life sustaining water, rejection of her children. Feminist scholar Renita Weems and others object to the metaphor of the wife in this text. They believe the metaphor not only legitimizes the mistreatment of women but also pictures God as capricious, and one who had “volatile” and “erratic dealings with Israel.”3 In her book, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets, Weems refers to the biblical metaphors of husband and wife, as metaphors of “power and punishment,” and states that they, “not only capture the basis of social relations; they naturalize the ideological framework of those relationships.”4 In this paper I will focus on that problem. How does a metaphor work and how should it be used to understand the message of scripture and in particular this passage. What a metaphor is and what it does A metaphor transfers some or one of its meanings to another entity thereby expanding what we can know or understand about the second entity. Monroe C. Beardsley in his article on “Metaphor,” writes, “By common definition, and by etymology, a metaphor is a transfer of meaning, both in intension and extension.” 5 Beardsley explains the two properties of metaphor. His first understanding of properties has to do with the tension created between the “subject and modifier.” He writes, “we are alerted by something special, odd, and startling in the combination.” His second understanding of a property of metaphor has to do with the intelligibility of the combination. It cannot be nonsensical.6 Obviously it is important that a metaphor be understood correctly. G. B. Caird writes, that, “when two things are compared, they are not to be considered like in all respects.” He goes on to write: There is an intended point of comparison on which we are being asked to concentrate to the exclusion of all irrelevant fact: and the communication breaks down, with ludicrous and even disastrous effect, if we wrongly identify it. 7Caird explains the differences between simile and metaphor and points out that “In metaphor the two things to be compared are not set side by side; the name of the one is substituted for the name of the other.” He refers to G.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards and their terms “vehicle and tenor.” He writes, “ vehicle being the thing to which the word normally and naturally applies, the thing from which it is transferred, and tenor the thing to which it is transferred.” Caird goes on to suggest that as we look at the tenor through the lens of the vehicle, they become one. “We concentrate on the object and ignore the lens”8 Virginia Mollenkott argues that the metaphor reinforces the thinking of ancient Israelite men about women With what seems to be a bit of confusion, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott describes the interaction of vehicle and tenor as “like nuclear fission.” She suggests, in her article on metaphor in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, that “each term used is modified,” but goes on to explain, “like two people entering into partnership, the terms remain themselves, radically different, even as they merge into the third factor of a relationship or resemblance that may be complex, instantaneous, or even nonlogical.”9 This is a very different view of the metaphor from that of Caird. In Mollenkott, the vehicle is either “modified” or while retaining its own distinction it becomes part of a “third factor” in which it is modified. On the other hand, for Caird the vehicle is simply the lens, it is not modified. Weems uses the metaphor of the battered wife as a modified metaphor that works both directions. For her it not only informs and enlarges the audience’s views about God and His relationship to Israel, it also strengthens and “naturalizes” the views of ancient Israelite men about women. Weems argues that the metaphor is hopelessly bound to culture, and that it therefore in no longer relevant There is another way metaphors are used in contemporary theology. Garrett Green in his article, “The Gender of God and The Theology of Metaphor,” critiques a type of metaphorical theology that is based on role-model theology.10 This is an understanding of religious concepts that began with Feuerbach, Marx, Freud and Schleiermacher. The former three proponents meant the ideas as a refutation of religion but Schleiermacher fleshed out the apologetic aspects of this theory. The idea is that religion is a projection of human culture and consciousness, and God is shaped to be a role model for humanity based on a particular culture’s norms. 11 Not all scholars agree with Weems In this view metaphors are seen as replaceable and are expected to agree with current human experience. However, when applying these ideas to a biblical text the theologian misses the point. As Green points out, “the error of role-model theology is to confuse form with content: to assume that the cultural language of the story, rather than the narrative depiction of the protagonist, [in this case both God and Israel] is the theologically normative content.”12 This can be seen in Weems statements about the use of metaphors. Referring to Max Black’s work, she writes, Metaphors … are not timelessly applicable to every context nor timelessly relevant to every generation; the values, assumptions, and worldview inherent in a metaphor can differ according to context.”13 But Weems is not in the process of writing scripture, (one hopes), but of interpreting scripture. She is looking through the lens backwards and she is emptying the text of its true meaning. Green on the other hand, referring to a book about language and feminist theology which focuses on Hosea, chapter 2, writes: The scriptural point of the text is not to provide us with a model of sex and relationships, distorted or otherwise. Rather the prophet is talking about God. That he does so in the language of his culture goes without saying (what other language might we expect him to use?). Understood in the prophet’s context (and that’s what it means to understand a text), his metaphor proclaims the love of God.14Exploring the metaphor of the adulterous wife So using the metaphor of the adulteress wife as a lens for seeing Israel, and the metaphor of a hurting betrayed, but loving husband as a lens for seeing God, the text can help the reader understand God’s relationship to His people. Looking first at the image of Israel as the wife the reader sees her from the point of view of God the forsaken and betrayed husband. In verse two she is told to remove “signs of prostitution from her face, and her signs of adultery from between her breasts.” This could mean either that she dressed as a prostitute or may simply refer to her adultery and prostitution. Douglas Stuart suggests that the signs may also be referring to “amulets worn by women in Baal worship.” He, however, goes on to say that there is no confirmation of this idea.15 In verse 5 she intentionally makes plans: “For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers.’” Calvin expands on the word said in the verse. He writes, “But by introducing the word, said, he [the prophet] amplifies the shamelessness of the people, who deliberately forsook their God, who was to them as a legitimate husband.”16 She also gives the lovers credit for all the good she receives. “Those who gave me food and water, wool and flax, oil and drink.” Stuart, as do other scholars, considers “the lovers” the Baals. He writes, “ While perhaps not officially sanctioned by Jeroboam II, Baal worship was freely tolerated so that it flourished among the populace in a syncretism with Yahwism.”17 David Allan Hubbard goes further in describing Israel’s devotion to the Baals. He writes, The participial style with which she chants the lists of gifts virtually makes her words a hymn to the Baals (a close parallel in a hymn to Yahweh is Ps. 136:25: ‘he who gives [is giving] bread to all flesh’). Graspingly, she has claimed all this beneficence as her own, with the Hebrew suffix my attached to every noun. A two-fold error this: credit to the wrong giver; possessiveness by a selfish recipient.18The chasing after lovers or the Baals is enlarged in verse eleven where God tells Israel he will end “all her gaiety, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths and all her festal assemblies.” Hubbard explains that the prophet uses a “repetition of the pronouns” as a means of showing how Israel had turned the special days meant for Yahweh into her worship of Baal. Hubbard goes on to explain that: The agricultural character of the pilgrimage feasts made them readily adaptable to the fertility cult whose purpose was to assure regularity of harvest and abundance of produce. The new moon and sabbath, which had counterparts in other Middle Eastern religions, may well have become corrupted by the astrological practices of Israel’s neighbors as well as by the sexual rites against which Hosea inveighs.19Stuart concurs with Hubbard on this point. “Though these holidays were in their origin legitimate, they had been turned into ‘days of Baal’ by Israel, thus syncretistic in nature.”20 Stuart enlarges on these issues when addressing Hosea chapter four. The verses are, “Shall I not punish your daughters, since they turn to prostitution? And your daughters-in-law, since they commit adultery? Indeed, the men make offerings with prostitutes, and sacrifice with the cult prostitutes! A people that lacks understanding must be ruined because it turns to prostitution.”(4:14) The verse involves all the people in an affair with Baal. Stuart sees the women being charged in this verse with “theological heterodoxy,” and the men with real physical interaction with both female and male cult prostitutes. He writes of the men, “Then they would have intercourse with cult prostitutes, as a ritual act of ‘sympathetic magic,’ designed to stimulate the god(s) of fertility to fertilize the land.”21 This combination of self-centeredness and false worship went hand in hand for Israel, as did real prostitution and false worship. Stuart writes: By supplementing their religious base of Yahwism with other forms of worship . . . apparently effective for their Canaanite neighbors and the nations surrounding them, the Israelites assumed that they had hit upon a formula for abundance. A syncretistic religion was not only more enjoyable, in terms of practices it allowed and/or prescribed, but it also seemed to bring better results.22In the metaphor, Yahweh acts startlingly different than a human husband might Yet, Yahweh, the hurt husband, will bring back the straying Israel and cause her whole attitude to change. The contrast between how God acts in this text and how a husband might have acted is undoubtedly part of the “something special, odd, and startling,” that Beardsley wrote about in his article on metaphor. It is not just that God is pictured as an injured husband, but that His purpose in the treatment of His wife, Israel, is to bring her back into relationship with Himself, something that theoretically an Israelite husband would and should not have done. The audience receiving this message not only sees Yahweh as husband, but also as a husband who seeks a relationship with a wayward wife. First, He pleads with her to put away her adultery and prostitution. He offers her a chance to escape punishment with the word “or” in verse three. Even in his threat to strip her naked is couched a plea to remember the relationship. He states that He will expose her “as on the day when she was born,” and combines this with pictures of the desert and wilderness; reminding her that He was the one watching over her in the desert as well as the one who birthed her out of Egypt.23 In Israel’s attempt to go after her lovers, the Baals, Yahweh treats her like a farmer might treat a wandering milk cow. He hedges up “her way with thorns,” and builds, “a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.”(6) Hubbard writes of this particular verse, “The enforced chastity, described in the thorn bushes and stone walls (cf. the firm hand that God has to keep on ‘the stubborn heifer’ of 5:16) that block the paths to the shrines and cut her off from the Baals, anticipates the period of discipline and sexual continence in the second part of the action.” 24 The farmer does not do this to destroy the cow, but rather to keep her safe. The list of items the Lord will remove from errant Israel are all those properties she believes she has received from the Baals: protection, festivals, produce of the land as well as the riches of other lands. By removing them Israel will learn who really provides for her. Keren E. Morrell and Catherine Clark Kroeger put it into the wording of modern psychology; God will not be an enabler. They write: God is pictured as stopping the support of his adulteress wife. He does not enable flagrant promiscuity. The food, clothing, water, material comforts and wealth-which were his contractual obligations in the marriage covenant (Ex 21:10; Ezek 16:10)—were abrogated when the covenant was broken. The stripping bare was the lesser of two punishments for an adulterous wife (Ezek 16:39), the other being stoning. Yahweh distances himself from the behavior, but he waits for his repentant wife to return.25Stuart agrees and writes that, “The Israelites felt no urgency to return to Yahweh as long as he blessed them with plenty. So he must deprive them severely. They will be driven by their loneliness and misery back to him (Deut 4:30). 26 With this reference to Deut. 4:30 Stuart reminds the reader of Yahweh’s promise to the people in the desert, “When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God, and listen to His voice.” This is connected to the passage which promises that God is compassionate, and “He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them”(Deut.4: 31) And so Hosea states that because Israel has been hedged in and removed from her false lovers, she will say “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.” The wayward Israel is put in such a position by her husband, Yahweh, that she cannot move with her self-interest married to a false understanding of her own welfare. God has removed any delusions. Unlike Weems who sees this God as one who “is out of control,”27 the prophet portrays a God who acts with a definite and solid determination to bring about the relationship with Israel. Abraham J. Heschel writes of God’s anger, “It is never a spontaneous outburst, but rather a state which is occasioned and conditioned by man. There is no belief in divine arbitrariness, in anger which consumes and afflicts without moral justification.”28 Yahweh corrects, disciplines and woos Israel back to Himself. At the end of chapter two, the picture of the Lord’s betrothal to His people encompasses nature and the cosmic order. God makes a covenant with the beasts and birds and creeping things, He removes the “sword and war from the land.” The earth will once again bring forth the grain, wine and oil. Weems points out that, “many of the same extended metaphors from the natural world in 2:9-13 are alluded to and assumed in 2:18-22.” She enlarges on this: In the former, the husband hisses at the nature festivals the wife takes part in, and threatens to banish her from them and from any other rituals that might occupy her time. To deflect attention away from his previous threats of isolating her, the husband turns around in 2:13f. and describes their reunion in language reminiscent of an outdoor wedding ceremony. Wild animals, birds, creeping animals are all invited to join with them in this covenant-making ceremony, witnessing their oaths and sharing their joy.29Weems misses the point Weems totally misses the meaning of this text because of her methodology. It is not because the rituals “occupy her time” that He hisses at the rituals. The Lord hisses at them because they include the worship of Baal and all that that entails. The Lord is not picturing an “outdoor wedding” in order to “deflect attention away from his previous threats.” He is poetically proclaiming the redemption of creation. The husband to be, seen here, is not the earthly husband, but the Lord of all the earth. The One who is lord of all nature and lord of all nations. There is a true festival in this picture, with peace both among the nations and with nature. There is a faithful bride and a reason for singing. Most important is the emphasis on all of this as the work of the creator Yahweh. He removes, “the names of the Baals from her mouth.” God, who created all things good, makes covenant “with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky and the creeping things of the ground. God, who uses His wrath to bring redemption, abolishes war from the land. God, who loves, betroths Israel to Himself. God, who works in history, calls those who are not His people and they respond, “You are my God!” ________ 1 Douglas Stuart sees verse 2:1 as a part of the first chapter. “Hebrew
verse number 2:1 equals 1:10 in the English translations, where chap. 2
starts at Hebrew 2:3.” This places verse 2:1 as part of the blessing that
begins with 1:10 in the Christian Bible. The call for repentance and the
curse would begin with verse 2. This fits since verse one could be translated,
“Call your brothers “My People,” and your sisters “Shown Compassion.” See
Douglas Stuart, World Biblical Commentary: Hosea-Jonah, David A.
Hubbard & Glenn W. Barker, Ed. Old Testament Ed. John D.W. Watts, Vol.
31, (Waco, Texas: Word Books 1987) 35. Michael Fishbane also refers to
this as blessing, see The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot, Michael
Fishbane commentary, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society 2002),
210.
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