Did I mention these are lovely, Godly women I meet with every month? There was absolutely no way in my mind to make this a lesson worthy to present to sweet church ladies whose greatest vice was akin to a weekly bridge game, or maybe spending a little too much on a pair of shoes. It would seem that for Hosea, Gomer is a “wife of whoredom,” not because she is a prostitute, but because, according to the mores of Israel, she is blatantly licentious and wanton. Many commentators suggest that Gomer was a prostitute of some sort however, never is she referred to as a zonah (Hebrew term for prostitute) or a kedesha (term for “holy woman” associated with a cult, usually as a temple prostitute.) So, now we have a prophet named Salvation, ordered to marry a whore named Completion. Well, if that don’t put a spin on the story…. Hosea, from the Hebrew yahsa, means, “to save.” The word gamar occurs only five times in the scripture (all in the Psalms), and either references an end to wickedness, or the completion of God’s purpose. Gamar means to complete, end or come to an end, or accomplish (as it the Lord has accomplished it for me), but can also be used to indicate a sudden stop or termination.
I looked up Gomer and found that her name is a derivative of the Hebrew verb gamar. How many times in the Bible does he command that certain names be given? Names are important, and were especially important to God. I’ve found, for me, the best place to start is to learn what the names in the story mean.
There’s not a lot of information on Gomer (in case you didn’t know). I figured if I was going to have to find the “meat” of the lesson in this study of Gomer, perhaps I’d better learn a little more about Gomer herself – which proved to be less of an easy task than I’d hope. Certainly a prophet husband to a public promiscuous wife is far from “socially acceptable.” But, God rarely shows Himself greatly in the socially acceptable, common way. That seems a lot like a vicar walking into a “gentleman’s club” with the sole and express purpose of finding a spouse. Not only did Hosea have the misfortune of marrying a woman that had no scruples where her sexual chastity or faithfulness was concerned, he had the misfortune of being told by God to marry her in the first place. I can’t imagine why I’d think Hosea would be any different. I don’t think there was ever a time that Jeremiah wasn’t enduring some sort of sour ending because of something God told him to say.
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Or, Daniel, who spoke the word of the Lord, and then promptly found himself having a sleepover with a den full of huge, hungry wild cats. Prime example, of course would be Elijah, who spoke the word of the Lord to Ahab and Jezebel and them promptly found himself waiting out both a famine and an angry queen’s squad of hit-men next to a measly brook, being fed by ravens. Have you ever noticed that, almost always, when one of the Prophets speaks “the word of the Lord,” that it is almost always a warning, and that generally immediately thereafter, something bad happens to said “prophet”?
Maybe there’s something to the story after all. It’s a tricky path to walk, being a teacher just under 40 years of age, speaking to a bunch of nice church ladies about what a wanton whore can do to serve as an example of “Biblical womanhood.” As usual though, as I dug about in the concordances, rabbinical Hebrew texts, study guides and (well, obviously) the Book of Hosea, I found myself immersed in a rather deep lesson that did just that.
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Really, lesson plan? This is the “woman of the Bible” from whom we are to learn how to be more Godly women? Really?Īs I prepared the lesson for this meeting of Disciples Women, I was feeling at a loss for material, being that Gomer isn’t really one of the “nice” girls of the Bible, and my group of ladies, well, are.
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