Commentary on Hosea 5:15-6:6
Commentators have long puzzled over the interpretation of this passage for several reasons.1 First, they suggest various understandings of the language of being raised up on the third day in 6:2, and second, they differ on how to interpret YHWH’s response in Hosea 6:4–6 to the people’s preceding speech in 6:1–3. Interpretive difficulties ought not to dissuade readers from engaging this passage because of its vital teachings for the Christian life. This is evident from the fact that Jesus quotes from this passage on more than one occasion (see Matthew 9:13; 12:7). I will first address these interpretive difficulties and then provide an explanation for the entire passage.
Hosea 6:2 has been interpreted in a myriad of ways. For example, the early church fathers cited this verse as a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection, and some scholars suggested that it contained Canaanite ideology of a dying and rising God. Rather than describe the resurrection of a deity on the third day, the passage describes healing from severe illness. The language of “revive,” “on the third day,” “he will raise/go up,” and “that we may live” has parallels with 2 Kings 20, a passage that describes the recovery, not the resurrection, of Hezekiah from near death.
In 2 Kings 20, Isaiah initially announces to Hezekiah, “You shall die; you shall not live” (verse 1), but later, he communicates to him the words of YHWH: “I will heal you [see also Hosea 6:1]; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD” (verse 5). Hosea 6:1–2 expresses the people’s belief that they would soon recover from the critical injuries they had experienced.
The other interpretive difficulty is how to understand the penitential speech of the people in Hosea 6:1–3, given YHWH’s clear rejection of the people’s worship in 6:4–6. The opening summons to worship, “Come, let us return to the LORD,” appears in liturgical texts such as Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2; and Psalm 95:1, and the passage resembles calls to communal laments of repentance such as Lamentations 3:40, “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD.” There is nothing unorthodox in the people’s speech in Hosea 6:1–3, and there is nothing to indicate that the people are insincere. Why then does YHWH reject the people’s worship?
Israel does not lack in orthodoxy or sincerity but, rather, orthopraxy. In Hosea 6:3 the people declare that YHWH’s appearance and return are as sure as the dawn, showers, and spring rain. In Hosea 6:4 YHWH continues this metaphor of precipitation to describe how Israel’s love is like the morning cloud and dew. The people expect a flood of healing from God, but in contrast, God finds their love to be a mere vapor. Their confession lacks substance and commitment.
What more does God require from Israel? Hosea 6:6 ought not be read as a wholesale rejection of the institution of the cult but, rather, the recognition of its insufficiency. Prior to chapter 6, the word “steadfast love” (ḥesed) appears two times. In Hosea 2:19–20 [2:21–22], the word is collocated with the terms “righteousness,” “justice,” “compassion,” “faithfulness” and “know[ing] YHWH.” In Hosea 4:1 it is combined with “faithfulness” and “knowledge of God,” and the verses to follow describe how, because Israel lacks these qualities, social injustice is rampant in the land.
True knowledge and loyalty involve a commitment to a politics of peace rather than one of violence and oppression. Although many Christians quote Hosea 6:6 as if the verse condemns cultic religion and extols inward piety, such is a misreading of this verse within the context of Hosea, as well as Jesus’s citations of it in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7.
One finds the teaching of this passage consistent among the eighth-century Israelite prophets. In Amos, God declares that he hates Israel’s worship gatherings (Amos 5:21) and rejects burnt offerings (Amos 5:22) and sacrifices (Amos 5:25), and instead calls out, “But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). Micah wonders whether God requires of him burnt offerings (Micah 6:6) and the sacrifice of calves and rams (Micah 6:6–7) but instead concludes, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”” (Micah 6:8).
Similarly, God’s declaration, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6), is a call for justice and righteousness.
This passage opens with God declaring that he will return to his place until the people acknowledge their guilt and seek God (Hosea 5:15). The people are in distress because God, through the destructive power of the Assyrians, has wounded and torn Israel (5:13–14). Hosea 6:1–3 captures the words of the people as they express their belief that God will heal and restore them. Hosea 6:4–6 describes God heartbroken over his people and his decision to judge them and reject their false hope for restoration.
This passage is unsettling for Christians because 1 John 1:9 teaches, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Is there ever an instance where God did not forgive his people when they confessed their sin?
First Samuel 15 tells the story of God’s rejection of Saul as king even after he confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness (1 Samuel 15:24–25). This passage has several similarities to that of Hosea 5:15–6:6, including the prophet Samuel’s rebuke of Saul: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the voice of the LORD? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22; see also Hosea 6:6). In addition, the language of Saul’s request for Samuel to “return” with him and Samuel’s refusal to do so (1 Samuel 15:25–26) is similar to Hosea 6:1.
These similarities are not coincidental since the Scriptures teach that “[God] rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim” (Psalm 78:67), and scholars have observed that “Saul stands for the northern kingdom of Israel, in both its choice and its rejection.”2 Both Saul and eighth-century Israel cannot avert the judgment announced in Hosea 6:5, “Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.”
The book of Hosea provides a cautionary warning to the church. True repentance involves justice and righteousness and not merely liturgical penitence. The good news of Hosea is that chapter 6 is not the end of the prophecy. In the conclusion to the book, God invites Israel to return to him in penitence (Hosea 14:1–2 [14:2–3]; see also Hosea 6:1), and this time God declares that he will heal (Hosea 14:4 [14:5]; see also Hosea 6:1) their disloyalty.
Saul and the Assyrian conquest of 722 BCE are not the end of the story for God’s people. God will answer the people’s prayer that he come to them like the spring rains (Hosea 6:3) so that, in the end, “they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom like the vine; their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (Hosea 14:7 [14:8]).
Notes
- Davies catalogues five different interpretations of this passage. See G. I. Davies, Hosea, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 150–151. Much of what follows can be found in Bo H. Lim, and Daniel Castelo, Hosea (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 109–112.
- Ellen F. Davis, Opening Israel’s Scriptures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 183.
June 7, 2026