door of hopeIn Hosea 2:14-23 here at the end of this chapter we see God’s Gracious Lovingkindness. There we read, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. 15 I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

 We have moved from a scene in the court house to courtship! He says He will allure, or persuade her. The word is translated elsewhere as “seduce.” God is talking about wooing, about romancing His people so that they will come back to Him.

He refers here to giving her vineyards in the Valley of Achor. The word “Achor” means “trouble.” It is known as the “Valley of Being Troubled.” Who wants to live in that valley? Who thinks they DO live there?  The Valley of Achor appears three times in the Scripture.

It is given its name in Joshua 7:26, “Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.” This is where Achan and his family were buried. Remember the story? As the people conquered Jericho God told them not to take any spoils but to leave it all there. But Achan took things and hid them under his bed in his tent. When the people went to attack the next city, the small little town of Ai, Joshua did not even send the whole army. He only sent 3000 men, and yet that little city defeated Israel and killed 36 men as they were retreating from the battle.

As Joshua went before the Lord and pleaded to know why this had happened, Achan’s sin was revealed. He and his family were taken into a valley and stoned and that valley became known from then on as “The Valley of Being Troubled.”

This valley next appears in Isaiah 65:10, “Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, for My people who have sought Me.” What once was a place of trouble was now going to be a place of peace and provision after the peope return to God from their unfaithfulness.
Finally we read about the Valley of Achor here in Hosea, and here it is going to be a “door of hope.”

It was a heap, then it was for the herds, and now it is a door of hope. It reminds us that there is deliverance from sin, there is salvation from the Lord. Jesus, the One Who is our Hope, He was troubled so that we do not have to be. In John 12:27 Jesus said, “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” And in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” We need not be troubled. He faced the Trouble of the Cross so that we can live a life free of trouble – not free of trials and tribulation, but free of the trouble of facing a holy God with our own righteousness, which is none. We have hope because we have been redeemed.

Hosea continues, 16 “And it shall be, in that day,” says the Lord, “That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master,’ – before this Gomer in her enslavement had to refer to her “lover” as her master. And as we will see that eventually Hosea buys her back at the slave auction, he does not bring her home as a slave, but restores her as his wife.

17 For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more. 18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, to make them lie down safely.

There is a promise here that God is going to come after His people, to court them, to draw them to Himself so that they might partake of His salvation.