God’s Pets

God’s Pets February 9, 2015

Hosea 2 offers a lovely evocation of a new exodus and new covenant. After Yahweh threatens to destroy Israel’s vines and fig trees because she has prostituted herself with the Baal’s (2:9-13), He promises to lure her into the wilderness, take her to the vineyards where she will sing the song of Exodus again (2:14-15). Then, she won’t call out to Baal; Yahweh will be the only name on her lips.

In this new marriage, Yahweh promises to “betroth you to me forever . . . betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion. And I will betroth you to me in faithfulness” (2:19-20). As Adam once knew his wife in the original vineyard of God, so Eve will come to know Yahweh.

In the midst of this marital allegory, Yahweh promises to cut a new covenant (v. 18). We expect that the covenant will be with His bride, but the parties are not what we think: “I will also cut a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the creeping things of the ground.” Like the covenant with Noah, it’s a cosmic covenant with the inhabitants of heaven (birds), of earth (creepers), and those in between (beasts of the field). These aren’t domesticated animals; they aren’t human pets. These are God’s pets, and He has committed Himself to them by covenant.

This covenant of creatures is also a covenant with Israel, because the specific promise is that the beasts, birds, and creepers will be safe because Yahweh “will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land.” (There’s a neat little structure here:

A. I will cut for them a covenant in that day

B. With three categories of creatures: beasts of the field, birds of heaven, creepers on the land (adamah).

B’. Three things: bow, sword, and war

A’. I will abolish.)

Animals fight, but they don’t make war, and don’t use bow and sword. Yahweh promises that the animals will be safe because Yahweh plans to stop the wars that devastate the land, destroy the food supplies of wild animals, and leave them nowhere to live or hide. Yahweh stops war as part of His renewed marriage with Israel, but in verse 18, the aim of stopping war is to protect the creatures of the earth.

Jonah famously ends with the word “cattle” (behemah): Yahweh rebukes Jonah for not having compassion on a great city with many people, and much cattle. Yahweh has such compassion for sinless creatures, and He expects the same from His prophet. Yahweh’s compassion for wild animals is so great that He pacifies human conflicts for their sake. 

There are other reasons to abolish the bow and the sword, but in Hosea 2:18, Yahweh says He does it because He loves tigers and Canada geese, bunnies and grasshoppers.


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