Hosea 11:7: “And my people are bent to backsliding from me though they call them to the most high, none at all will exalt him.”
The syntax at the end of this verse is highly disputed. The KJV and other translations will render this as the people will not exalt God. However, on the other side, the NIV as well as some other translations will render this as God who will not exalt the people.
Now I know our eternal state does not depend upon how this verse is rendered. Whether man does not exalt God or God does not exalt man if they backslide doesn’t make a whole lot of difference when we look at the whole picture. After all both are right. Man does not exalt God when he is backslidden and God cannot exalt man in a backslidden state. I can see this going either way grammatically and I don’t think it matters how you translate this. In fact I think both the NIV and KJV are right.
The word exalt in Hebrew is rum which means to be high or to exalt. However, to narrow this down, this is an exaltation of rank or pride. It could mean that one who is backslidden cannot be held in high esteem or high rank with God. It could also mean that God cannot take pride in him. Then again if a man is in a backslidden state, it won’t matter too much to him if God holds him in high regard or not because he is not really thinking about his relationship with God.
This morning was one of those cloudy, overcast, rainy windswept romantic July type days. I had a half hour break so I parked my bus in a shopping mall parking lot and started to share my Egg McMuffin with some pigeons. My mind wandered back to another cloudy, overcast, rainy, windswept July day many years ago when I was twelve years old and enjoying my summer vacation. My idea of a good time was to go with my father to the Bible Rescue Mission down on Madison Avenue in Chicago. Today Urban renewal came through and tore down the mission and put up new hotels and apartment buildings. But back in the sixties this was a rundown skid row area where you would find men laying on the sidewalks or on the curbs, intoxicated, high on drugs and/or homeless. My father would go down to this mission where he would preach at the noon day service and I would attempt to play the hold hymns on the piano.
I recall one time he took a family friend with us and after the service showed him around the mission. I remember when we went to the basement where the men were eating lunch and this family friend sort of arrogantly turned his nose up to the men and remarked to my father “Do you honestly think you do any good here. Do you really think it is really worth it? These men could pull themselves up if they so desired, they are just selfish men who ended up here because of their own selfish pursuits.” My father pointed to some men who were eating and said: “Watch what some of these men do with that extra slice of bread they were given.” We looked up and saw that many were putting it into their pockets. My father asked his friend why they were doing this. His friend said, “Well, I imagine that this is the only meal they will get today so they are saving it for later when they get hungry.
My father did not say anything more. We just went upstairs where we chatted with the mission director and his assistant for a while. When we walked out of the mission to go home it was raining like it is today and we noticed some of the men that we saw in the mission basement who ate lunch and snuck out with an extra piece of bread. They were sitting in the rain on the street curb feeding the bread to pigeons. The city hates pigeons, they try to get rid of them but have been unsuccessful. They are call rats with wings. Yet, these men were feeding these birds with the only food they would have for the next twenty four hours. I will always remember what my father said to this friend who expressed his feelings that these men were of little value or worth. He said: “If a man will share his bread with the birds that not even the city wants, that must be worth something, his life must have some value.”
I began to think how proud I was of my father and the way he loved those men that no one else care about, how he prayed for them and wept for them. I have tried to live up to his legacy, but I know I have really fallen short. I wanted him to be proud of me. At least I know if I share my Egg McMuffin with the pigeons, and that alone will make him proud of me.
You know, it would not take much to make our Heavenly Father proud of us. He really doesn’t ask for much, He is just asking us to trust Him, that’s all. Whether Hosea 11:7 is speaking of us exalting God or God exalting us is not the issue that this verse is addressing, the issue is one of backsliding. As I said earlier, I think both the NIV and KJV have it right. When we are backslidden nobody gets exalted.
What is it to be backslidden? The word in Hebrew for backslidden is shuv in its root form. It means to return or withdraw. In its Semitic root it is actually the word for breathing. When you breathe you let air in and then you let air out. This idea of backsliding is to one moment trust in God and the next to not trust in him. It is like in James 1:6 where we are taught that we cannot expect anything from God if we are driven like the sea. When we go through a period of testing it is like one moment we are trusting God, praising Him, then the next moment we are worried and fretting. This is shuv which is rendered in the KJV as backsliding. By going back and forth on ice and stumbling we are going back and forth in our trust in God and we keep stumbling. In this we show that we are not proud of Him because in truth we are questioning His love for us.
My father never asked much from me, I was the one who put the weight upon myself to keep his legacy. All my father wanted from me was that I would love the Lord with all my heart soul and might. We put too much on ourselves to try and please God when He is so easy to please. When I stand before God I will not have many honors or accomplishments to present to Him. Actually, I will only have a lot of brokenness and failures to present to Him.
Yet, somehow, I get the feeling when I see Jesus face to face He is not going to rave about my books, my blog, my education, my studies or the sermons I preached. I think He is going to put his arm around me and ask: “Remember that cloudy, overcast, rainy windswept day when you shared your Egg McMuffin with my pigeons just resting in your love and trust in Me?”
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