Hosea 5 talks about judgement as does Hosea 6:4 ff. Hosea 6:1-3 is a call to confession, which seems a bit oddly placed, especially since the judgment in chapter 5 is more in the future, 6:1-3 talks about being injured by God, and 6:4ff talks about judgment having already happened. So did the confession even make a difference? And shouldn´t there have been some kind of time or indication in the text that the people really did choose to reject God - and that the Confession wasn´t really sincere?
After doing research (and helping lead a class discussion on it), a couple of things came out:
1. the judgement throughout the passage is kind of an already but not yet thing - shown by the various verbal forms in each section.
2. perhaps the Confession was merely Hosea or the LORD´s putting words into the mouth of the people - saying this is what they should do.
3. perhaps the Confession is not really sincere - that it stinks a bit of pagan fertility religion or was only about sacrifices, as seem to be Hosea´s complaints throughout the book - and in the response of 6:6.
it was fascinating to look at it more closely - and to wonder about the connections between restoration, repentance, and judgement. and to see how Christ´s death and resurrection (the phrase, rising in 3 days, is in Hosea 6:2) helps us see how restoration, judgment and repentance can fit together.
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