Hosea 11-14
The next chapter contains a shift in metaphor from Israel as an unfaithful wife to Israel as a wayward child. Verses like “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love” (Hosea 11:3-4a) are among the most quotable from the book, but are still interspersed with promises of punishment. The shift from a jealous husband to an enraged father still doesn't sit quite right to me. By this point in the book, I’m not reading the prophecies as following a linear order, but as a series of similar oracles with (largely) the same message, as the cycle of unfaithfulness, punishment, and repentance seems to repeat. I don’t think that the end of Chapter 14, for instance, portrays a meaningfully different redemption than the end of Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 11. There are some interesting historical tidbits from these chapters I want to mention. The first is the continued reference