Objectification is not a word that would be found in our normal course of conversation, but it is a word that we would be familiar with, given the right context. It means to treat a person as an object or a thing, to dehumanize or disavow another. Rather than value the worth of another, “created in the image of God”, that person becomes a means often to our end. We see this especially in human trafficking and porn, the dehumanizing of the worth of the individual for other nefarious deeds.
In Hosea 1:2 God instructs the prophet to marry a prostitute. Some would see her as merely an object lesson to the nation of Israel, of their infidelity to the God who made covenant with them. The prostitute’s name is Gomer, which means “completion”, from the lineage of Diblaim, meaning “a double lump of figs.” Gomer would not have been the “street corner” prostitute, known only to a few. Hosea 4:14 speaks of ritual prostitutes, or cultic brothels where sex becomes an act of worship to pagan gods, such as Ashtoreth. The context of Hosea is that the nation of Israel has prostituted itself with pagan gods. Gomer would have been known by those who came to the temple, as one who offered her body in ritualistic worship to these pagan gods.
By God asking Hosea to marry Gomer, are they both simply objectivizing this woman, seeking to use her only as a message on a billboard? Does she somehow get lost in the message God has for the nation?
Cultic prostitution was more than a physical act of pagan worship. It reflected a spiritual union with the harlot (“the two shall become one flesh”) and a spiritual union that goes deeper than with the idol she served. “Is an idol anything or what is offered to idols anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.”
Gomer was not merely an object lesson to the nation of Israel. She was a daughter of Abraham, a child of the covenant whom Satan had bound in pagan practices. God was calling her back to the One who had created her, to the covenant that He had bestowed upon the nation. Hosea, through marriage, was to love and cherish her as his wife. She needed to put aside her pagan past and embrace the person whom God had destined her to be. Together, she and Hosea then could declare God’s faithfulness to His promises and to His people.
You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Those words still ring as true today, as in Hosea’s day: forgiveness, grace, mercy and love. May you know the richness of His presence as you worship the God of covenant.
Blessings!
I Corinthians 6:18; 10:20; Luke 13:16; Nehemiah 9:17
Isn’t God wonderful? Loving everyone and always ready to forgive! Hosea, being human, must have found it very difficult to accept Gomer as she was. And she would probably be loaded with guilt. I didn’t know she was the daughter of Abraham, and will TRY to remember what ‘objectification’ means so that it’s not part of my life. Thanks for the info….