How can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I set you like Zeboiim?

My heart churns within Me;

My sympathy is stirred.

I will not execute the fierceness of My anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim.

For I am God, and not man,

The Holy One in your midst;

And I will not come with terror.

—HOSEA 11:8–9

Here God expresses a moving wave of poignant love that reminds us of Jesus’ lament over the city He most loved: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).

Jesus’ unshakable devotion to the city that rejected Him should not surprise us. It is consistent with the heart of His Father, a heart filled with compassion for the rebellious nation of Israel. Hosea gives us four questions that display His agonized feelings:

• How can I give you up, Ephraim?
• How can I hand you over, Israel?
• How can I make you like Admah?
• How can I set you like Zeboiim?

What do these questions mean? Before we can answer, we need to understand the meaning of the four names mentioned.

Ephraim was a powerful Israelite tribe of the north, but it was often used as a synonym for Israel itself. Israel, of course, is the name of the ten northern tribes that split off from the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Admah and Zeboiim were the names of cities destroyed along with the wicked towns of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 10:19).

Here God asks whether He can really give His people what they truly deserve. He thinks of those times when the destruction of other wicked people was the only option, and His love cries out, “My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred” (Hosea 11:8).

What can this mean? D. A. Carson explains:

The passage as a whole means that the promised impending judgment will not be the last word. Exile will be followed by return from exile. In the entire context, when God declares that his heart is changed within him and all his compassion is aroused, he does not mean that he has changed his mind and Israel will be spared the punishment he decreed a few verses earlier. Rather, it is that any long-term threat of permanent judgment must be set aside. God will bring them back from Egypt and Assyria.11

Has God gone soft on sin? Is He pampering where discipline is called for? Absolutely not! He will allow the consequences of rebellion and He will not restrain His hand when punishment is required. But there will be no ultimate destruction of Israel as there was for Sodom and Gomorrah. The people will live to find their way back to God, who will wait patiently and lovingly.