I am fascinated by the way the way the Hebrew Bible correlates the relationship between God and the Jews with the relationship between a man and a woman. Setting aside the fact God often exhibits female qualities, it usually is depicted as a stern but loving father figure. At the same time, the Jews often are depicted as the subordinate females who only get it right half the time and often are beaten up by God for no apparently good reason. Even the “strong” women in the Hebrew Bible find themselves as second-class citizens, as in Ruth.
On the positive side there is Song of Solomon, which, if it is indeed about the relationship between God and his people, makes the relationship sound salaciously attractive.
The male-female relationship in Hosea curiously parallels the relationship between God and the Jews in Isaiah in that the masculine character suddenly turns from abusive to forgiving in a seemingly capricious manner.
Isaiah starts by lambasting Judah with statements like:
Instead of perfume there will be a stench;
and instead of a sash, a rope;
and instead of well-set hair, baldness;
and instead of a rich robe, a binding of sackcloth;
instead of beauty, shame.
Then, Chapter 4 starts with one very brief request that God take away the disgrace he, himself, had heaped upon them:
Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying,
"We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes;
just let us be called by your name;
take away our disgrace.”
And the reply is immediately affirmative:
On that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel.
In Hosea, which ostensibly is about the relationship between a man and a woman, there is this odd and transition between Verses 13 and 14 in Chapter 2. Between these two verses the man moves from disdaining his whore of a wife to being forgiving and loving:
I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
when she offered incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the LORD.
Therefore, I will now allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
The fact he can be a cruel disciplinarian one moment and a lover the next is disconcerting. He doesn’t sound like good husband material to me.
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