The durability, loyalty, and permanence of God’s love are portrayed in the Old Testament by the continual reference to His “steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is hesed, and it occurs 248 times in the Old Testament. It is particularly frequent in the Psalms, appearing twenty-six times in Psalm 136 alone.

Israel has forsaken the Lord. So through the prophet Hosea, they are about to learn just how things stand between them and God:“You have lost your way, and you’ve turned to other gods. There will be dark consequences for you; there always are. But that does not mean My love has changed one iota. I love you now; I will love you through the hard lessons you’ll be learning; and I will love you when you come back to My waiting arms.”

Hosea is charged to deliver this message in one of the strangest and most strikingly dramatic ways you can imagine. At the beginning of Hosea’s book, God gives His prophet this shocking command: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the LORD” (1:2).

What would it have been like to be a fly on the wall and hear God saying, “Hosea, I have a job for you. I want you to marry a woman who will be unfaithful to you. Let her dishonor your name, and when she does, I want you to hold fast to your marriage vow.”

“But, Lord…”

“Think of it as a living parable, Hosea.”

“A parable?”

“It’s like a play. You’ll be playing My part; your wife will represent Israel. I need to do something really dramatic that will mirror the wickedness of the people so they can see their unfaithfulness to Me.”

“But Lord, this is not really the kind of marriage I had envisioned.”

“Believe Me, Hosea; I know from experience what you’re getting into. But trust Me on this. When your wife keeps committing adultery and you don’t throw her out on the curb—when you love the unlovable and keep taking her back—your faithfulness will be so counterintuitive that the people will have to confront a truth they’ve lost about My unwavering faithfulness and love for them.”

In obedience to God, Hosea took the harlot Gomer to be his wife.

Was Gomer a harlot before her marriage to Hosea, or is she called a harlot because that is what she would become? Dr. Frederick A. Tatford believes that the effectiveness of the whole pageant depended upon the wife starting from a position of love and fidelity. Hosea’s grief would not have been genuine had he married someone he didn’t truly love and who didn’t initially love him.5

This human drama would accurately tell the whole tragic story of God and Israel, from a joyous exalted relationship to the bitter ashes of repeated infidelity. It was to be a lesson the hearers would never forget.