Bought Back for Fifteen Pieces
“Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:”Hosea 3:1–2 (KJV)
God gave the prophet Hosea one of the hardest assignments in Scripture. Marry a woman who would be unfaithful. And after she left, go and get her back. “Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel.”
So Hosea did. “So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley.” He paid to bring home the wife who had betrayed him.
Hosea’s marriage was a living sermon. God’s people had chased other gods, and God still said, “I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people.” Paul quotes those words about the church: “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”
That is us. We wandered, and God came after us. He paid a far greater price than silver and barley to bring us home.
Read it yourself
Read Hosea 3:1–5. What does Hosea tell his wife in verse 3, and what does verse 5 say Israel will do afterward?
When you think of God coming after you while you were wandering, what does that stir in you?
Lord, thank you that you came after me when I wandered, and paid the price to bring me home. Amen.