A Hollywood Theme
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.” Hosea 1:2 NASB
A wife of harlotry – Hollywood loves the prostitute with the golden heart. Perhaps the best known Hollywood version of this romantic fantasy is Pretty Woman. Frankly, it’s just the movies. In real life, choices that lead to prostitution have such devastating psychological and moral consequences that hardly anyone, man or woman, is able to turn the other direction. The Pretty Woman Julia Roberts just doesn’t exist. But since Hollywood has made an icon of this myth, the idea also affects our view of the biblical story of Hosea. In other words, we think that Hosea’s wife, Gomer, was a prostitute. We glamorize the story, and in the process, we miss the real message. Heschel offers a correction:
“The phrase ‘esheth zenumim does not connote a harlot, which is called ‘ishah zonah or simply zonah, but, as Ehrlich pointed out, a person who is disposed to become a harlot, a woman filled with the spirit of whoredom. . . According to another view, the term denotes a woman who took part in the Canaanite fertility cult. . . The supposition that Hosea had married a harlot spoils the sense of the incident, which is meant to symbolize the historical relationship between God and Israel, the latter having been at the outset an obedient people.”[1]
Pay attention to Heschel’s closing remark. The symbolism of Hosea’s marriage depends on the initial obedience of the people. If we were to assume that Gomer was always a prostitute, then the symbolism fails. Gomer was originally just like the people of Israel, morally upright and obedient. But just like the people of Israel, she had a dark desire—a desire to experience the world that surrounded her, the world that went its own way without regard to YHVH. It is this manifestation of the yetzer ha’ra in her that leads her into a life of adultery, and it is the same manifestation in the people that leads them into idolatry. Gomer is not Vivian (Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman). She doesn’t start as a prostitute who becomes a moral, married woman. She starts as a moral, married woman who becomes enticed by the sexual license of the age. She becomes a prostitute despite the faithful adoration of her husband. It is just this analogy that God’s wants revealed in the life of Hosea. The lover loves the unfaithful who was once all he desired but has become the object of his agony and wrath. The story of Hosea is the story of God’s inner struggle to love a people who have betrayed Him.
Now that we know the real meaning of ‘esheth zenumim, perhaps we can accurately apply the lesson. If you had to film a story based on the analogy of Hosea, who would you cast as Gomer? Who has betrayed the love of YHVH? The Jews? According to Replacement Theology, the Jews are the ones who left the God of Israel because they refused to accept the Son as the second member of the Godhead, the divine Messiah of the world. The Jews are Gomer. But this doesn’t make much sense because in Hosea’s story, God’s efforts are to woo them back, but the Church teaches that they can only return to the God of Israel by denying that He is the God of Israel. According to the Church, He (the Trinitarian Godhead) is the God of the Church, no longer the God of Israel. Hosea’s story doesn’t follow this plot. In fact, it refutes it.
Let me suggest a different application. YHVH loves His chosen people, the descendants of Abraham (whether by birth or confession). When they stray, He does everything possible to win them back. There is no third player, a substitute object of His care, in this mix. In fact, the only extra player in this symbolic drama is the enticement of the world, drawing Gomer away from Hosea and the people away from God. Who would I cast in that role today? Well, the enticing agent must appear to be beneficial, offer something already present (however unconsciously) in Gomer (the people) and look like a way to live without obedience to the husband (YHVH). For a religious people, this agent must present itself as religious, just not the religion of Israel’s God. Do you remember the comment of Ehrlich in Heschel’s remark? Gomer may have been someone who participated in pagan fertility festivals. We react with disgust at the thought of sexual frenzy as a religious act, but that wasn’t the case in the ancient world. Fertility rituals were religious attempts to bring favor to men by acting out the sexual component of reproduction. This was religion without YHVH, not Pretty Woman prostitution. If that is Gomer’s past, then she was a participant in a religion that offered a substitute to obedience to Israel’s God. We have much the same situation today, don’t we?
Now who’s the ‘esheth zenumim?
Topical Index: ‘esheth zenumim, prostitute, Gomer, Hosea 1:2
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, fn. 8, p. 52
