Hosea saw the folly of it all. He knew that neither the tribute to Assyria nor the proposed alliance with Egypt could help the corrupt, degraded people. He compares Menahem's double-dealing to the action of a silly dove, and concludes:
"Samaria shall bear her guilt,
For she has rebelled against her God.
Shall I deliver them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from death?
Come, on with thy plagues, O Death!
On with thy pestilence, O Sheol!
Repentance is forever hid from mine eyes."
This terrible pronouncement, almost a curse, brought Hosea back to his home all wrought up. Never had he spoken so harshly. Never had he felt so deeply the doom of Israel.
He found his children in the playroom, playing an old game called "Mother." After watching them for a moment in silence and in thought, his heart was almost crushed by a question his little girl put to him:
"When is our real mother coming home?"
For answer he drew Lo-ruhamah close to his heart—and wept. Hosea did not know; only God knew.
All the love he bore for Gomer came back in an overwhelming flood. She had strayed from him, but his love had never lessened. Would that he could find her! With all her faults he would forgive her, if she would repent and return. And yet, that morning, he had been so harsh. He preached that Israel must bear its guilt and that God had forever hid repentance from before Him.
If he, a man, could love so deeply and could be willing to forgive, how much the more so does God love His people; how much the more so will God have compassion and forgive, if Israel will repent and return to Him?
And that very night it seemed that God had ordained an ordeal for
Hosea to test him and inspire him in his further work as a prophet.
A message was brought to Hosea that his wife, Gomer, was to be sold as a slave at public auction, in the slave market of Samaria, on the morrow!