"I desire mercy..."

We’re preaching through Hosea at our church, and studying it mid-week in our Bible studies and youth groups. My group and I grappled with Hosea 6:6. In the NIV it reads “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings”. 

Whatever desire the Israelites may have to return to the Lord is clearly superficial, since it does not express any repentance. In verses 4-5, God’s frustration with such fickle “morning mist” love is evident, as he promises fierce judgement on Ephraim and Judah.

In this context, beginning with “for”, Hosea 6:6 is supplying a reason for this judgement. Ritual sacrifice is useless without mercy.

But I couldn’t understand why God particularly desired mercy from the Israelites. Was he wanting them to be kinder to each other or their pagan neighbours? It didn't quite make sense. Surely these are people who need to receive mercy? 

Would Jesus’ reference of Hosea 6:6 in Matthew 9:13 help?

But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus has called tax collector Matthew to follow him, and in turn Matthew has thrown a party for his ‘partners-in-crime’ and other sinners. The Pharisees object to Jesus eating with the obviously impure. Jesus answers that the sick need a doctor, not the healthy, and verse 13 is the punchline.

But from whom does Jesus want the mercy? Towards whom ought the mercy be shown? The answer that seems to make sense is that Jesus wants the Pharisees to show mercy towards the sinners. Otherwise their lack of mercy will prove them self-righteous, and tragically place them out of reach of Jesus’ mission to those who know they need help.

But come back with me to Hosea 6:6. Does this mean what God desires from the erring Israelites is more mercy, better compassion towards those they consider outcast? Could that make some sense of the verses that follow, which accuse them all of violent marauding and murder?

That doesn’t sit right in the immediate poetry of the verse itself. The parallel to mercy (v. 6a) is directed God-wards: “acknowledgement of God” (v. 6b). And the lesser alternatives to these virtues are “sacrifice” and “burnt offerings”. The closeness in meaning of the alternative parallels implies a fairly close connection between mercy and acknowledgement of God.

But how can you show mercy to God? Are not these the very people who need to receive mercy from God?

The key to understanding comes from Hebrew—or from consulting other translations! The word translated here as mercy by the NIV (and KJV) is hesed. The ESV uses “steadfast love”; the HCSB uses “loyalty”. 

Hesed is God’s steadfast love, promised towards Israel, sealed by covenant agreement. Famously, it occurs twice in God’s self-revealing appearance to Moses in Exodus 34: “abounding in love… maintaining love to thousands” (vv. 6-7, NIV).

Hesed is also the word used for Israel’s fickle love in Hosea 6:4. Their love or loyalty—towards God!—is as brief as the vanishing morning mist or dew. In other words, God wants Israel to show him something of the same sort of hesed, loving-kindness, that he has shown to them.

The sacrifices themselves were not evil (being commanded by God’s law). But covenant disloyalty (v. 7) shows they lack the essential component: love towards God. In that unrepentant context, the sacrifices for sin were useless: “Any other view of sacrifices turns them into magical acts which try to manipulate Yahweh and, accordingly, are spurned by him”.¹

In Hosea 6:6, ‘mercy’ probably isn't the best translation. The sort of love God requires is loyalty, not a mere flicker of interest when troubles come. That attitude is like the Pharisees, whose lack of love showed they didn’t think they needed much love. 

Leon Morris helped me with Jesus’ use in Matthew 9:13:

Jesus proceeds to quote from Hosea 6:6, where the prophet looks for God’s people to show love and loyalty.² In the first instance this will mean that they should love the God who loves them so much. But this means also that they should love other people as God loves them.³

Application? I think I miss both Hosea’s and Jesus’ point if I think I fulfil the injunction by being generous to the poor, or seeking social justice for the outcast, if I fail to love with loyalty the Christ who loved me and gave himself for me. But if I am overwhelmed with that mercy, the mercy towards others cannot but flow.

1. DA Hubbard, Hosea, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1989, p. 127.

2. Morris’ footnote here reads: “I have examined Hosea’s word [hesed] in Testaments of Love… and point out that it “suggests loyalty and constancy as well as indicating love”... It is the attitude proper to partners in a covenant and thus should be manifested by the people who have made a covenant with God. This means those in the new covenant as well as the old. In LXX the word is translated by [eleos], a word that generally translated is “mercy” but that seems to have a wider meaning here.”

3. L Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1992, p. 222.

Photo credit: Flavio~