Hosea - Part III - Whoredom

Do you have the habit of looking away whenever you come upon the word “whoredom” in scripture? It seems that the Old Testament writers in particular believed that prostitution was the quintessential sin. That “whoredom” directly involves women is not lost on me. The Book of Hosea explicitly identifies whoredom as Israel’s prevailing sin; spending a few weeks in lectio divina with this text made it impossible for me to look away.

Are women the worst sinners? Not an original idea. Do the sins of women embody the sins of all humanity? I've heard this before and I imagine you have, too. What is whoredom exactly?

Whoredom, prostitution, takes a gift of God, the sexual act, and turns it into a transaction. It is that simple. God does not want his gifts made into business.

There is no faithfulness or loyalty.
and no knowledge of God in the land.
Therefore the land mourns,
and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
and the birds of the air,
even the fish of the sea are perishing. 4:1,3

In Hosea, Israel, specifically the northern kingdom of Ephraim, has lost sight of their gifts from God and turned them all into transactions. They stripped these gifts of all their divine love and made them nothing but cash and carry stuff. Shepherds became politicians, tacticians, nothing of God. Grain and wine and oil became commodities instead of the gifts of a plentiful creation. They conveniently adopted the religious practices of their neighbors. It was good for business.

A wind has wrapped them in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their altars. 4:19

Israel has dug itself into a rut of sin and defilement. One thing led to another. It is impossible for them to return to God. 

Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
and they do not know the Lord. 5:4

It is worth remembering that the Book of Hosea is set in the time leading up to the Babylonian captivity. Israel would be looking back on this time with horror at itself. It would blame itself. It would see the exile as God’s fitting wrath, affecting all the people, all their hopes, their generations, their prosperity.

They shall eat but not be satisfied:
they shall play the whore but not multiply 4:10

So “whoredom” is a designation that gathers in its broad sweep the maligning of God’s gifts and our lives with those gifts. We are meant to feast on the bounty of the earth. We are meant to marry and produce offspring. We are meant to form communities with wise shepherds to lead us. We are meant, most especially, to remember that all this benefit comes from our creator.

When Israel failed in this imperative, they had no way back. Corrupt systems were in place, people sought gain, the rules went out the window.

Do you remember the part of Catcher in the Rye when Holden says that his brother, D.B. a writer, was “out in Hollywood being a prostitute?” He meant that his brother, instead of writing literature was writing screen plays. We might not take so severe a position against movies today, but for Holden, his brother was selling his gift to unworthy buyers for simple gain. Whoredom. In his view.

Can we look at our gifts and fully know that they come from God: the food on our table, the partner in our bed, the money in the bank? I think, with difficulty, we can. We are tempted to see our plenty as our right, as the result of our hard work, our charm, even our luck. But it takes only a step back, a grace before a meal, a long loving look into our partner’s eyes to find God’s hand in all of it, even in this finding.

And there will be whoredom no more.