Hosea’s daughter is named Lo-ruhamah (1:6), and the Lord explains that her name signifies that He “will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel.” Lo-ruhamah means “no compassion.”
But the word ruhamah is linked to the Hebrew word for “womb”; as many have pointed out, Yahweh’s compassion is “wombliness,” the compassion of a mother for a child she has birthed. Yahweh removes His motherly compassion from Israel, and Hosea’s daughter is a sign of that.
Hosea 1:6 might also indicate some connection between the Lord’s withdrawal of compassion and Israel’s infertility. Yahweh’s compassion for Israel is shown when He opens the wombs of the daughters of Zion; His withdrawal of wombliness means that Israel will cease to be a mother with children; after the exile, the return of His compassion is signified by the multiplication of the children of Israel: “Rejoice, barren woman.” The great signifier of Yahweh’s wombly compassion for His people is that the wombs of the daughters of Israel and Judah are fertile like gardens.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Classroom Heals the Wounds of Generations
“Hope,” wrote the German-American polymath Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, “is the deity of youth.” Wholly dependent on adults, children…
Still Life, Still Sacred
Renaissance painters would use life-sized wooden dolls called manichini to study how drapery folds on the human…
Letters
I am writing not to address any particular article, but rather to register my concern about the…
