hosea 6-7

Read Hosea 6-7 at Bible Gateway.

Come, and let us return to the LORD;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the earth. Hos 6:1-3

We have just read in Hos 4-5, a list of Ephraim’s sins, one of which was that there was no knowledge of God throughout the whole land, because all Ephraim had forgotten the torah of God. If we continue on reading in Hos 6-7, the litany against Ephraim continues. God asks:

“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away.” Hos 6:4

The sin and unfaithfulness of Ephraim and Judah, that is the LORD’s problem.  But at the heart of the narrative of sinfulness and unfaithfulness, lies the prophecy of Messiah Yeshua in Hos 6:1-3. Messiah Yeshua was raised up on the third day, that He might live in YHVH’s sight, after He had been torn and stricken. The prophecy reads as if it was Ephraim and Judah that was torn and stricken (Hos 5:14). This is one of the witnesses that revealed to Paul that believers are crucified with Messiah, and buried with Messiah, and raised up with Messiah. This is the new birth, by which we receive a new heart that compels ua to return to the LORD, by which the LORD answers His question, of what He will do to purge the wickedness and unfaithfulness out of Ephraim and Judah.

The result of that new birth, is that Ephraim and Judah will pursue and know the knowledge of the LORD, which as we saw, begins with the torah of God as its foundation.

The He that will come to Ephraim and Judah, is YHVH, in Messiah Yeshua. He will come in two seasons, or two comings, in the season of the former rain, and in the season of the latter rain. In Israel, the former rain comes in the spring, to water the fields that have been sown; and the latter rain comes in the fall so that the fruit is finished for harvest. The summers are dry.

The LORD’s feast days come in two seasons, in the spring, and in the fall. The LORD’s feast days prophesy of Messiah Yeshua. In the spring, the time of the former rain, He was crucified on the feast day of Passover, and so became our Passover Lamb; He was raised from the dead on the feast day of First Fruits, and so became the firstfruit of those who will be raised from dead as He was. The spring feast days, the former rain, all correspond to events He accomplished and fulfilled in His first coming.

This is why most scholars who have pursued the knowledge of the LORD in torah, believe that just as the latter rains correspond to the fall feast days, the events of His second coming will be connected with and/ or fulfilled upon the fall feast days.

Yesterday was new moon day for the sixth biblical month. The very next new moon marks the beginning of the fall feast days, the Feast of Trumpets. The days of the latter rains are upon us! Look up, for our redemption draweth nigh!