July 24, Ordinary 17C (Hosea 1:2-10)
If Hosea is a factual account, it’s horrific. If it’s an allegory, it’s still horrific.
“Every day some woman somewhere is being called a whore,” Wil Gafney wrote in 2018, explaining why she preaches on biblical texts some of us would rather avoid, like Hosea. Let that be my content warning. I can’t write about Hosea without talking about what it feels like to be called a whore.
I won’t try to redeem a noxious text that has for so long hurt women, but neither do I want to pretend it doesn’t exist, that it hasn’t formed our religious imaginations, that it doesn’t carry the authority of scripture.
Hosea tells us that the Lord spoke and told him to marry a whore. Though the word is often translated prostitute, the Hebrew is closer to “promiscuous woman” than “sex worker.” Either way, this was a woman whom Hosea would hold in the most disgusted contempt, even if he desired her—and he is told to have children with her.
