Gomer

Gomer

Her name means completion

Her Character : Though a married woman, she carried on numerous love affairs, crediting her lovers for the gifts her husband had given her.

Key Scriptures : Hosea 1-3
Day 2


Her Sorrow: To have become the symbol of spiritual adultery - a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

Her Joy: That her husband continued to love her despite her unfaithfulness.

The Story of Gomer and Hosea portrays God’s Jealousy for his people. For the first time, a prophet dared to speak of God as a husband and Israel as his bride. But this is a tangled love story, one in which God’s heart is repeatedly broken. Despite his pleas, regardless of his threats, Israel would not turn back to him until after the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria a few years later. Still, the knit-together lives of Hosea and Gomer were a living reminder to the Israelites of both God’s judgment and his love. Hosea’s beautiful words still move us as we think about the church today, about our own unfaithfulness and God’s forgiveness:” I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.

No longer Lo-Ruhamah, we are Ruhamah (“Loved”), and no longer Lo-Ammi but Ammi (“My People”). For our Maker has become our Husband, the one who punishes our sin but loves us still.