The Skeptics Annotated Bible (675 page)

13
But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.

(12.13)
“But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”

Yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
—
Hosea 9.16

Hosea is a book filled with whoredoms, children of whoredoms, adulteries between breasts, buying wives with barley, ripping apart pregnant women, and killing unborn babies. What will surprise most believers is that it is God who does the ripping and killing and who tells Hosea to buy a wife and marry a whore. Biblical family values at its best.

Here are the highlights:

• God told Hosea to commit adultery, saying “take … a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms” because the land has “committed great whoredom.” So Hosea did as God commanded and “took” a wife named Gomer.
  1.2-3
  
• God told Hosea to name his baby girl “Loruhamah,” which means unloved.
  1.6
  
• Hosea tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to “put away her whoredoms” and “her adulteries from between her breasts” or he’ll “strip her naked … and slay her with thirst.”
  2.2-3
  
• God will not have mercy upon children if they are the children of whoredoms.
  2.4-5
  
• “Now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.”
  2.10
  
• God tells Hosea to love an adulteress. So Hosea buys (another?) wife for a homer and a half of barley.
  3.1-2
  
• Committing whoredom by going a whoring with the spirit of whoredom. 4.10-12,
  5.3-4
  
• If you misbehave, God will make your daughters “commit whoredom” and your wife “commit adultery.”
  4.13
  
• Even more whoredom! “They have committed whoredom continually.”
  4.14-18
  
• More lewdness and whoredom.
  6.9-10
  
• “I will send a fire upon his cities.”
  8.14
  
• “Thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.”
  9.1
  
• “The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad.”
  9.7
  
• “Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them.”
  9.12
  
• “O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.”
  9.14
  
• “Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.”
  9.16
  
• God will punish Israel by “dashing” together mothers and their children.
  10.14
  
• “The LORD … shall roar like a lion.”
  11.10
  
• God will rip humans apart and eat them like a lion.
  13.7-8
  
• “Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.”
  13.16
  

1
The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

(1.2-3) God tells Hosea to commit adultery, saying “take … a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms” because the land has “committed great whoredom.” So Hosea did as God commanded and “took” a wife named Gomer.
110 Is it wrong to commit adultery?

2 The beginning of
the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.

(1.2)
“The LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.”

3
So he went and took Gomer
the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

(1.3)
“So he went and took Gomer.”

4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and
I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu
, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.

(1.4)
“I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.”
245 Did God commend or condemn Jehu for the killings at Jezreel?

5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

6 And
she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah
: for
I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel
; but I will utterly take them away.

(1.6a)
“She conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah.”
God told Hosea to name his baby girl “Loruhamah,” which means unloved.

(1.6b)
“I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel.”

7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

8 Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.

9 Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for
ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

(1.9)
“Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.”
Martin Luther interpreted this verse to mean that God had rejected the Jews and that Christians should do likewise.