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many days, you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I

with you (Hos. 3:3; cf. 2:14). Grace has its own law, its torah. Out of the divine-human

bonding with its conjoined interhuman bonding, authentic faith produces its work. This

discipline is not arbitrary and punitive, but is rehabilitative, relevant to Gomer’s (and

Hosea’s) attempt to rebuild their marriage on more than a mere physical relationship.

After many days, sexual intercourse will then consummate their bonded relationship.

But grace has its risks. After Hosea has spent all and done all, will bonding

happen? Yahweh will somehow win Israel’s heartfelt response: afterward the Israelites

shall return and seek Yahweh their God... (Hos. 3:5). But what about Gomer? The text

leaves the case open as to whether or not Hosea succeeds. Hosea himself can only

respond to the command of God in faith, believing that what Yahweh commands Yahweh

will achieve. But how? Perhaps only by a profound emotional struggle in the hearts of

Gomer and Hosea—and perhaps at the heart of the universe, in the heart of Yahweh?

Hosea shares this risk—and this agony—with his God (cf. Hos. 11:8-9). But the point is

that Yahweh’s act of grace toward rebellious Israel has become the model for healing in a

broken human relationship. Retribution and death, still a characteristic of Sinai technique

law (Exod. 20:22—23:19), is replaced by God’s covenant love and forgiveness,

characteristic of Sinai covenant and policy law (19:4: 20:6). A new law of grace is

effected; for Gomer, the death penalty is over!.

The Prophets of the Exile: Beyond Retribution to Forgiveness and Fulfillment

Beyond retribution and the threat of the end, Jeremiah projects with Hosea that

there will be a new beginning, this time a new act of covenant. Filling the promise of the

Sinai covenant, law will be written upon the heart (Jer. 32: 31-34;cf. Exod. 20:17).

Ezekiel revises biblical covenant law in Babylon by limiting retribution to the first

generation: It is only the person who sins that shall die (18:4; cf. Exod. 20:5). Even then,

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this wicked person will not die if he repents (18:21). One of the catalogues of sins for

which a person will not die if he repents includes the sin of murder:a son who is violent,

a shedder of blood (18:10). Yahweh ends the chapter: for I have no pleasure in the death

of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn then, and live (18:32).

Beyond the end threatened by Amos, Ezekiel promises resurrection. Out of divine

integrity, God will gather Israel from the nations, return them to their own land, cleanse

them from their rebellion, and put within them a new heart and spirit so that they will

obey covenant law (Ezek. 36:26). Covenant love rather than retribution is Yahweh’slast

word (cf. Jer. 31:27-30)!

A later prophet of the exile, Isaiah 40—55, is perhaps the most creative of the

prophets in portraying covenant justice as the exchange of Yahweh’s love for retribution

and death. He prophesies that the Creator of Israel who, as in the redemption from Egypt,

makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,will make a new thing, a way in the

wilderness to lead Israel back home from exile (Isa. 43:15-19). Retribution is over!

Relating to our subject, the law and the prophets, the climax of Isaiah 40—55 is found in

the four traditional servant poems (42:1-6; 49:1-5; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12; cf. Oswalt:3-19).

Together the poems form a biography of a public servant, the first presenting his

installation into public life, the last reviewing his end and reflecting on the meaning of his

public service (cf. Lind, Monotheism:153-163). I present five themes of these poems:

∑

The servant is commissioned to establish Yahweh’s justice in the nations (42:1--4).

∑

The servant is equipped with Yahweh’s Spirit, and is to effect Yahweh’s justice

nonviolently, by means of Yahweh’s word (42:2-3; 49:2; 50:4-5).

∑

The servant encounters mounting opposition to his message of Yahweh’s justice,

opposition which issues in his death. All this he patiently accepts in pursuit of his task

(42:4; 49:4; 50:6-9; 52:13-53:12).

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∑

The servant achieves his purpose of establishing Yahweh’s justice in the nations only

by Yahweh’s intervention, who reverses the judgment of the nations by elevating the

rejected servant to a place of rule(52:13-15; 53:12).

∑

The kings and nations confess their rebellion against Yahweh and acknowledge that

the suffering of the servant is on their behalf, that by his bruisesthey are healed

(53:1-10).

The nonviolent ministry of this servant contrasts with the work of Cyrus who,

though anointed as shepherd king by Yahweh to rebuild Jerusalem and return Israel to

that city, does so by violence and does not know Yahweh (Isa. 44:28-45:5; cf. 46:11).

This violent Cyrus never becomes Yahweh’s “king of justice;” rather, Yahweh’s justice

for the nations is the task of the nonviolent prophet of the Servant Poems. As in the

Pentateuch all law codes are prophetic covenant codes rather than kingship codes

undergirded by violent human power, so this prophetic figure rather than the violent

emperor Cyrus is Servant of Yahweh’s covenant law to the nations! It is the covenant

war God, Yahweh—unlike the baalistic war god of the emperor Cyrus who speaks

through violent storm and fire—who establishes covenant justice in the nations by the

still small voiceof God and/or sheer silence of a receptive, suffering prophet!

Summary and Prospect

Elijah, traditionally the greatest of the prophets, makes a pilgrimage to

Sinai/Horeb to discover why he is ineffective in his conflict against the baalistic apostasy

ofOmri’s dynasty and Queen Jezebel. There it is clarified that the prophets’ Warrior

God Yahweh, unlike the kingship warrior god Baal, is identified not with the storm but

with the “still small voice” ofprophetic communication. This clarification at the Center

of the Sinai/Horeb experience is yet to work itself out, however, in its tension with Sinai

technique law, law as it is applied at the city gate and elsewhere. There follows the blood