Oh hi it’s me again, two days in a row.  I realized last weekend that Christmas was a little over a week away, and I really, really wanted to finish the book of Hosea before Christmas.  When I started Hosea,I thought I’d have plenty of time, maybe be able to get back up to three postings a week with a few skipped, probably even have time to throw in a nice psalm or two…and here I am in crunch mode.  But seriously, I want to finish Hosea before Christmas, so a post a day, here we go!

Also, I am not ignoring the horrible imagery of mothers dashed to the ground with their children.  It is, unfortunately, a motif found in several places in the Bible.  So when we get to another one, we can sit with it for a while, if need be.  But today I wanted to focus briefly on something else.

Throughout the book of Hosea I’ve been paying attention to pronouns, and how they shift.  Of course, this chapter is a metaphor (as is much of this entire book), and not about a singular person, so we can only assign so much weight to pronoun inclusivity.  In other words, I don’t think 7th century BC Israel was a place known for it’s progressive views on gender.  But even taking that into account, the two kingdoms of Israel (Ephraim and Judah) are referred to in singular and plural pronouns, as well as male and female pronouns – all in this one chapter.  From he to they to it to you to her to them it’s difficult to follow exactly whom is being discussed, honestly.  I don’t know ancient Hebrew, but I would be interested to know how some of those pronouns translated.

I’ve been thinking a lot about pronouns lately because I have a two-and-a-half year old at the (very normal) developmental age of getting pronouns wrong.  She refers to herself as “him” often and tends to call anyone whose name she does not know a “little boy” regardless of age or gender.  As she masters language this will change, but I have to say I find it kind of sweet.  She’s just trying to figure out people at a person by person level, and broad gender generalizations (as well as many other generalizations) don’t exist yet.  And those generalizations that do exist are still – for now – free from bias and based strictly based on observation.  For example, to her, Mommy is pink and Daddy is brown.  We are not “white” or “black” yet.  I know the day will soon come when we morph from pink and brown to white and black, but for now I’m enjoying her innocence.

A few years back I heard a pastor use female pronouns for God in a sermon for the first time.  And even though I liked it, it was jarring.  It was jarring simply because it was something I wasn’t used to hearing.  But I’m hoping that’s different with my girls.  I’m hoping any pronoun used for God will sound normal to them, because God is all-inclusive of pronouns, bigger than pronouns, if we’re honest.  Perhaps one day, Hosea will be seen as a more progressive book than it is viewed today, in part because it has these fluid pronouns. As an aside, it’s funny how popular opinions in Biblical studies can shift and sway – such as potential future views on Hosea. It’s something many see as a fault in the Bible, but I see it as proof that it is an ever-evolving text that always has some new and deeper meaning to reveal to us.

Hosea’s search for the right metaphor for his relationship with his God – whether it through his marriage with Gomer, or the constantly evolving imagery of Ephraim and Judah, or a parent-child relationship, has, I think, stumbled upon one of the greater truths that he didn’t know he was looking for: that God is inclusive of all.  Of the prophet and the prostitute, of every gender, of every person.  Hosea lacked the cultural vocabulary to describe it directly, but we can see it.  It is a message refined by Jesus hundreds of years later: everyone is a child of God, God loves us all, and therefore we should love our neighbor as ourselves – regardless of what pronoun they use.

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