Hosea 4:16 Study Bible: For Israel has behaved extremely stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. Then how will the LORD feed them like a lamb in a meadow.

◄ Hosea 4:16 ►

For Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer. Can the LORD now shepherd them like lambs in an open meadow?

For Israel
The term "Israel" refers to the Northern Kingdom, which had separated from Judah after the reign of Solomon. Historically, Israel often fell into idolatry and disobedience, despite being chosen by God as His people. The name "Israel" itself, meaning "God prevails," is a reminder of the nation's covenant relationship with God, which they frequently violated.

is as obstinate
The Hebrew word for "obstinate" conveys a sense of being unyielding or stubborn. This reflects Israel's persistent rebellion against God's commandments. In a spiritual context, obstinacy is a refusal to submit to God's will, which is a recurring theme in the prophetic books, highlighting the need for repentance and humility.

as a stubborn heifer
A "stubborn heifer" is an agricultural metaphor that would have been familiar to Hosea's audience. A heifer that refuses to be led or yoked is useless to a farmer. This imagery underscores Israel's resistance to divine guidance and discipline. In the ancient Near East, a heifer was often used in sacrificial contexts, adding a layer of irony to Israel's refusal to be led by God.

Can the LORD now shepherd them
The role of a shepherd is to guide, protect, and provide for the flock. The rhetorical question here implies that Israel's stubbornness has made it difficult for God to fulfill His role as their shepherd. This reflects a broader biblical theme where God desires to lead His people, but their disobedience hinders His ability to do so.

like lambs in an open meadow?
"Lambs" are often used in Scripture to symbolize innocence and vulnerability, requiring guidance and protection. An "open meadow" suggests a place of safety and abundance. The contrast between the stubborn heifer and the lambs highlights the potential blessings of obedience and the peace that comes from following God's guidance. This imagery calls Israel to return to a state of trust and dependence on God, akin to lambs under the care of a shepherd.

Persons / Places / Events

1. Israel
The northern kingdom, often referred to as Ephraim, representing the people of God who have turned away from Him.

2. The LORD (Yahweh)
The covenant God of Israel, who desires to shepherd His people but faces their resistance.

3. Hosea
The prophet through whom God delivers His message of judgment and hope to Israel.

4. Stubborn Heifer
A metaphor for Israel's obstinacy and unwillingness to follow God's guidance.

5. Open Meadow
Symbolizes a place of peace and provision where God desires to lead His people.

Teaching Points

Understanding Stubbornness
Recognize that spiritual stubbornness is a refusal to submit to God's will, akin to a heifer resisting guidance. Reflect on areas in your life where you may be resisting God's leading.

God's Desire to Shepherd
Despite Israel's obstinacy, God's desire is to shepherd His people lovingly. Consider how God is calling you to trust Him as your shepherd in your daily life.

Consequences of Rebellion
Israel's stubbornness leads to separation from God's blessings. Understand that rebellion against God can lead to spiritual dryness and missed opportunities for His provision.

Repentance and Restoration
God offers hope for restoration if His people turn back to Him. Embrace the opportunity for repentance and the promise of being led to spiritual abundance.

Living as Obedient Sheep
Strive to be like obedient sheep, willing to follow the Good Shepherd. Reflect on how you can cultivate a heart of obedience and trust in God's guidance.

Bible Study Questions

1. In what ways do you see the metaphor of a "stubborn heifer" reflected in your own spiritual journey?

2. How does the image of God as a shepherd in Psalm 23 contrast with Israel's behavior in Hosea 4:16?

3. What are some practical steps you can take to overcome spiritual stubbornness and become more receptive to God's guidance?

4. How do the promises in Ezekiel 34:11-16 encourage you in times when you feel lost or distant from God?

5. Reflect on a time when you experienced God's shepherding in your life. How can this experience strengthen your faith and trust in Him?

Connections to Other Scriptures

Jeremiah 7:24
This verse highlights the theme of Israel's stubbornness and refusal to listen to God's voice, similar to Hosea's depiction of a stubborn heifer.

Psalm 23
Contrasts the image of a stubborn heifer with the ideal of God as a shepherd leading His obedient sheep to green pastures.

Isaiah 1:3
Compares Israel's lack of understanding and rebellion to that of an ox and donkey, emphasizing their failure to recognize God's care.

Ezekiel 34:11-16
God promises to shepherd His people Himself, seeking out the lost and bringing them to good pasture, contrasting with Israel's current state.

Matthew 9:36
Jesus sees the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, reflecting God's heart for His people despite their stubbornness.

Sermons

A Backslider		Hosea 4:16
The Evil and Danger of Backsliding	O. Simeon, M. A.	Hosea 4:16
The Stubborn Heifer	Joseph Parker, D. D.	Hosea 4:16
Ephraim and Judah	C. Jerdan	Hosea 4:15-19
Warning to Judah	J. Orr	Hosea 4:15-19

People

Hosea

Places

Beth-aven, Gilgal, Jezreel

Topics

Aside, Backsliding, Behaved, Broad, Controlled, Cow, Extremely, Feed, Field, Heifer, Lamb, Lambs, Large, Meadow, Pasture, Refractory, Slideth, Stubborn, Stubbornly, Uncontrolled, Untractable, Wide

Dictionary of Bible Themes

Hosea 4:16

1220 God, as shepherd
6245 stubbornness

Hosea 4:10-19

8705 apostasy, in OT

Library

'Let Him Alone'
'Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.'--HOSEA iv. 17. The tribe of Ephraim was the most important member of the kingdom of Israel; consequently its name was not unnaturally sometimes used in a wider application for the whole of the kingdom, of which it was the principal part. Being the 'predominant partner,' its name was used alone for that of the whole firm, just as in our own empire, we often say 'England,' meaning thereby the three kingdoms: England, Scotland, and Ireland. So 'Ephraim' here …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Life, as Amplified by Mediaeval Biographers.
1. His Early Years.--Ephraim, according to this biography, was a Syrian of Mesopotamia, by birth, and by parentage on both sides. His mother was of Amid (now Diarbekr) a central city of that region; his father belonged to the older and more famous City of Nisibis, not far from Amid but near the Persian frontier, where he was priest of an idol named Abnil (or Abizal) in the days of Constantine the Great (306-337). This idol was afterwards destroyed by Jovian (who became Emperor in 363 after the …
Ephraim the Syrian—Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian

Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Beth-El. Beth-Aven.
Josephus thus describes the land of Benjamin; "The Benjamites' portion of land was from the river Jordan to the sea, in length: in breadth, it was bounded by Jerusalem and Beth-el." Let these last words be marked, "The breadth of the land of Benjamin was bounded by Jerusalem and Beth-el." May we not justly conclude, from these words, that Jerusalem and Beth-el were opposite, as it were, in a right line? But if you look upon the maps, there are some that separate these by a very large tract of land, …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Of Orders.
Of this sacrament the Church of Christ knows nothing; it was invented by the church of the Pope. It not only has no promise of grace, anywhere declared, but not a word is said about it in the whole of the New Testament. Now it is ridiculous to set up as a sacrament of God that which can nowhere be proved to have been instituted by God. Not that I consider that a rite practised for so many ages is to be condemned; but I would not have human inventions established in sacred things, nor should it be …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

"For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus Hath Made Me Free from the Law of Sin and Death. "
Rom. viii. 2.--"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." You know there are two principal things in the preceding verse,--the privilege of a Christian, and the property or character of a Christian. He is one that never enters into condemnation; He that believeth shall not perish, John iii. 15. And then he is one that walks not after the flesh, though he be in the flesh, but in a more elevate way above men, after the guiding and leading …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Epistle cxxi. To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville).
To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville). Gregory to Leander, Bishop of Spain. I have the epistle of thy Holiness, written with the pen of charity alone. For what the tongue transferred to the paper had got its tincture from the heart. Good and wise men were present when it was read, and at once their bowels were stirred with emotion. Everyone began to seize thee in his heart with the hand of love, for that in that epistle the sweetness of thy disposition was not to be heard, but seen. All severally …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

That the Ruler Relax not his Care for the Things that are Within in his Occupation among the Things that are Without, nor Neglect to Provide
The ruler should not relax his care for the things that are within in his occupation among the things that are without, nor neglect to provide for the things that are without in his solicitude for the things that are within; lest either, given up to the things that are without, he fall away from his inmost concerns, or, occupied only with the things that are within bestow not on his neighbours outside himself what he owes them. For it is often the case that some, as if forgetting that they have …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Prophet Amos.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. It will not be necessary to extend our preliminary remarks on the prophet Amos, since on the main point--viz., the circumstances under which he appeared as a prophet--the introduction to the prophecies of Hosea may be regarded as having been written for those of Amos also. For, according to the inscription, they belong to the same period at which Hosea's prophetic ministry began, viz., the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam II., and after Uzziah had ascended the …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Seasonable Counsel: Or, Advice to Sufferers.
BY JOHN BUNYAN. London: Printed for Benjamin Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1684. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. THIS valuable treatise was first published in a pocket volume in 1684, and has only been reprinted in Whitfield's edition of Bunyan's works, 2 vols. folio, 1767. No man could have been better qualified to give advice to sufferers for righteousness' sake, than John Bunyan: and this work is exclusively devoted to that object. Shut up in a noisome jail, under the iron hand of …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Third Commandment
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.' Exod 20: 7. This commandment has two parts: 1. A negative expressed, that we must not take God's name in vain; that is, cast any reflections and dishonour on his name. 2. An affirmative implied. That we should take care to reverence and honour his name. Of this latter I shall speak more fully, under the first petition in the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be thy name.' I shall …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

The Doctrine
OF THE LAW AND GRACE UNFOLDED; OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE LAW AND GRACE; THE NATURE OF THE ONE, AND THE NATURE OF THE OTHER; SHOWING WHAT THEY ARE, AS THEY ARE THE TWO COVENANTS; AND LIKEWISE, WHO THEY BE, AND WHAT THEIR CONDITIONS ARE, THAT BE UNDER EITHER OF THESE TWO COVENANTS: Wherein, for the better understanding of the reader, there are several questions answered touching the law and grace, very easy to be read, and as easy to be understood, by those that are the sons of wisdom, the children …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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