Therefore, behold! I will allure her
and bring her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor ["troubling"]
a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
And in that day, says the Lord,
you will call Me "my husband",
and no longer will you call Me "my Baal[lord, master]"
For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth,
and they shall be mentioned by name no more.
And I will make for you, on that day
a covenant with the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and
the creeping things of the ground;
and I will abolish the bow, the sword,
and war from the land; I will make
you lie down in safety.
And I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you to me in righteousness
and in justice, in steadfast love
and in mercy. I will betroth you to me
in faithfulness;
and you shall know the Lord.
And in that day, says the Lord,
I will answer the Heavens
and they shall answer the Earth.
And the Earth shall answer
the grain, the wine, the oil
and they shall answer Jezreel--
[Jezreel == "Whom God Soweth" in my version of this from The Jewish Publication Society, 1955]
and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on "Not Pitied" [== "those I have not pitied"]
and I will say to my people: "You are
my people," and they
shall recognize their God.
1 comment:
To make what troubles people... the door to their hope? This seems a common way God operates.
No longer, "my Master," but "my Husband." I'm not familiar enough with Israelite households to sort this one out, except:
It's still (inevitably!) an unequal relationship. Well, it can hardly be equal when one partner has unbounded power!
But it's intimate & interactive. The Husband gets to be in charge, but then the wife (because she isn't in charge) generally has her wishes honored. Not because she has power, but because she's loved. (Yes, I know... but even in actual families this is often the way it is.)
Isn't this what "The Kingdom of God" is supposed to be about? Not called that here, but this is the gist. And when Jesus comes along, it seems that the first thing he did was to start showing compassion for those who had not been receiving it.
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