📖 Wahusika wa Biblia II — Sehemu ya 2: Hosea — Nabii Aliyempenda Mke Asiye Mwaminifu📖 Bible Characters II — Unit 2: Hosea — The Prophet Who Loved an Unfaithful Wife

Wakati mmoja Mungu alimwomba nabii afanye jambo lisilowazika: amwoe mwanamke ambaye angeuvunja moyo wake, na aendelee kumpenda hata baada ya kumsaliti. Ndoa yote ilikusudiwa kuwa picha hai, iliyoigizwa mbele ya macho ya taifa zima, ya jinsi Mungu anavyowapenda watu wasiotaka kuwa waaminifu kwake. Nabii huyo alikuwa Hosea, na ujumbe wake ni injili ya neema isiyokoma: upendo wa Mungu unawafuatilia wasio waaminifu na kusamehe yasiyosameheka.God once asked a prophet to do the unthinkable: to marry a woman who would break his heart, and to keep on loving her even after she betrayed him. The whole marriage was meant to be a living picture, acted out before the eyes of a nation, of how God loves a people who will not be faithful to Him. That prophet was Hosea, and his message is the gospel of relentless grace: God's love pursues the unfaithful and forgives the unforgivable.

Somo: Hosea — nabii aliyempenda mke asiye mwaminifu, picha hai ya upendo wa Mungu usiokata tamaa.Subject: Hosea — the prophet who loved an unfaithful wife, a living picture of God's unyielding love.

Hoja Kuu: Upendo wa Mungu unawafuatilia wasio waaminifu na kusamehe yasiyosameheka.Proposition: God's love pursues the unfaithful and forgives the unforgivable.

Tutafuata hatua tatu katika habari ya Hosea.We will follow three movements in Hosea's story.

I. AgizoI. The Command

Hosea alitabiri katika ufalme wa kaskazini wa Israeli wakati ambapo watu walikuwa wakiifuata miungu ya uongo. Hawakuwa wamemwacha BWANA kabisa; walitaka tu kumwabudu yeye na Baali pia, kuweka mkono mmoja mbinguni na mkono mmoja kwenye sanamu — jambo la kuwa na mawazo mapana sana, bila shaka walidhani, na jambo ovu sana. Katika hali hiyo Mungu alimpa Hosea agizo la ajabu na lenye maumivu:Hosea prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel at a time when the people were chasing after false gods. They had not entirely abandoned the LORD; they simply wanted to worship Him and Baal both, to keep one hand on heaven and one hand on the idols — a very open-minded thing to do, they no doubt thought, and a very wicked one. Into that situation God gave Hosea a strange and painful command:

Basi Hosea akamwoa Gomeri. Na watoto walipozaliwa, Mungu aliwapa majina yaliyohubiri hukumu yake inayokuja kwa taifa zima. Wa kwanza aliitwa Yezreeli, maana yake "Mungu atatawanya" — jina lililorudisha kumbukumbu ya damu ya Yezebeli na Yehu na mbwa katika uwanja wa Yezreeli. Wa pili, binti, aliitwa Lo-ruhama, "Hakuna Rehema," kwa maana Mungu alisema hatairehemu tena nyumba ya Israeli iliyoasi. Wa tatu aliitwa Lo-ami, "Si Watu Wangu," neno la kutisha kuliko yote — Mungu kuwaambia watu wake wa agano, "Ninyi si wangu." Kila mara Hosea alipowaita watoto wake waje kula chakula cha jioni, alikuwa akihubiri mahubiri.So Hosea married Gomer. And as children were born, God gave them names that preached His coming judgment to the whole nation. The first was called Jezreel, meaning "God will scatter" — a name that echoed with the bloody memory of Jezebel and Jehu and the dogs in the courtyard of Jezreel. The second, a daughter, was named Lo-Ruhamah, "No Mercy," for God said He would no longer have mercy on the rebellious house of Israel. The third was named Lo-Ammi, "Not My People," the most terrible word of all — for God to say to His covenant people, "You are not Mine." Every time Hosea called his children in for supper, he was preaching a sermon.

Tunapaswa kuelewa kwa nini Mungu anaiita ibada ya sanamu "uzinzi." Agano kati ya Mungu na Israeli lilikuwa kama ndoa, na Israeli alikuwa bibi arusi wake; kwa hiyo kumfuata Baali halikuwa tu jambo dogo la kupendelea dini fulani bali uzinzi wa kiroho, usaliti wa kifungo cha karibu kuliko vyote. Hata hivyo, hata katika kutaja majina ya hukumu, Mungu hakuweza kujizuia kudokeza rehema. Kwa maana aliongeza kwamba siku ingekuja ambapo, mahali pale pale ilipokuwa imesemwa "Ninyi si watu wangu," wangeitwa "wana wa Mungu aliye hai" (Hosea 1:10). Hukumu ilikuwa halisi, lakini haingekuwa na neno la mwisho.We should understand why God calls idolatry "harlotry." The covenant between God and Israel was like a marriage, and Israel was His bride; to run after Baal was therefore not a small religious preference but spiritual adultery, a betrayal of the most intimate bond. Yet even in the naming of judgment, God could not keep from hinting at mercy. For He added that the day would come when, in the very place where it was said "You are not My people," they would be called "sons of the living God" (Hosea 1:10). Judgment was real, but it would not have the last word.

II. UsalitiII. The Betrayal

Kwa muda fulani, labda, Gomeri alijaribu. Lakini imani yake ilikuwa ya juu juu, na baada ya muda mvuto wa zamani ukawa na nguvu mno. Alirudi polepole kwenye njia zake za zamani, na hatimaye akaondoka kabisa, akamwacha Hosea peke yake na watoto. Na hili ndilo jambo la ajabu: Hosea bado alimpenda. Hakuacha kumpenda kwa sababu yeye aliacha kumpenda.For a while, perhaps, Gomer tried. But her faith was shallow, and in time the old pull was too strong. She drifted back to her former ways, and at last she walked out altogether, leaving Hosea alone with the children. And here is the wonder of it: Hosea still loved her. He did not stop loving her because she stopped loving him.

Nimewahi kujua kitu fulani cha upendo wa aina hiyo wa upande mmoja. Katika miaka yangu ya shule ya sekondari nilimpenda msichana aitwaye Sharon kwa moyo wangu wote, naye alitaka tu kuwa rafiki yangu; nilijifunza maana ya kummwagia upendo mtu asiyeurudisha. Ninamkumbuka pia msichana mdogo aliyemjia mama yake akiwa amekumbatia mwanasesere katika kila mkono, akasema, "Mama, ninawapenda na ninawapenda, lakini hawanipendi kamwe." Jinsi hilo lilivyo kweli kwetu kuhusu Mungu! Katika habari hii sisi si Hosea mwaminifu; sisi ndio Gomeri asiye mwaminifu. Sisi ndio tunaochukua wema wake wote na kutangatanga tukifuata mapendo duni, na kuuvunja moyo wa Mungu ambaye ametupenda tangu mwanzo.I have known something of that kind of one-way love. In my high-school years I loved a girl named Sharon with all my heart, and she only ever wanted to be my friend; I learned what it is to pour out love on someone who will not return it. I think too of the little girl who came to her mother with a doll cradled in each arm and said, "Mama, I love them and I love them, but they never love me back." How true that is of us toward God. We are not the faithful Hosea in this story; we are the faithless Gomer. We are the ones who take all His goodness and wander off after lesser loves, and break the heart of the God who has loved us from the beginning.

Huu ndio hasa upumbavu wa Israeli. Waliwafuata "wapenzi" wao, Mabaali, wakidhani kwamba miungu hiyo ya uongo ndiyo iliyowapa nafaka yao na divai yao na sufu yao, wakati muda wote ni BWANA mwenyewe aliyekuwa amewapatia kila kitu chema walichofurahia (Hosea 2:5-8). Ni mara ngapi sisi tunafanya vivyo hivyo, tukichukua zawadi za Mungu na kuzihesabu kuwa zimetoka kwa kitu chochote na mtu yeyote isipokuwa Mtoaji. Tunatumia baraka zake katika kuzitumikia sanamu na hatusimami kamwe kuushukuru mkono uliozitoa.This was Israel's exact folly. They chased after their "lovers," the Baals, imagining that these false gods gave them their grain and their wine and their wool, when all along it was the LORD Himself who had provided every good thing they enjoyed (Hosea 2:5-8). How often we do the same, taking the gifts of God and crediting them to anything and anyone but the Giver. We spend His blessings in the service of idols and never stop to thank the hand that gave them.

III. UkomboziIII. The Redemption

Habari hii ingeweza kuishia hapo, mke akiwa ameondoka na moyo ukiwa umevunjika. Lakini Mungu alikuwa hajamaliza, kwa sababu upendo wa Mungu haumaliziki pale upendo wetu unaposhindwa. Gomeri alizama chini zaidi na zaidi, mpaka hakuwa tena kijana wala mrembo, akiwa na makovu ya dhambi yake, na hatimaye akauzwa utumwani kabisa. Kisha Mungu akanena na Hosea tena:The story could have ended there, with a wife gone and a heart broken. But God was not finished, because God's love is not finished when ours fails. Gomer sank lower and lower, until she was no longer young or beautiful, scarred by her sin, and finally sold into slavery itself. And then God spoke to Hosea again:

Basi Hosea akashuka mpaka soko la watumwa, na huko akamnunua tena mke wake mwenyewe — akalipa gharama ya kumkomboa mwanamke yule yule aliyekuwa amemwaibisha — akampeleka nyumbani na kumpenda tena kama mke wake.So Hosea went down to the slave market, and there he bought his own wife back — paid the price to redeem the very woman who had shamed him — and took her home and loved her as his wife again.

Maandiko yanaandika hata bei yake: vipande kumi na tano vya fedha na homeri moja na nusu ya shayiri (Hosea 3:2) — bei ya kawaida ya mtumwa, tena iliyo duni. Hosea alihesabu gharama kipande kwa kipande ili kumpata tena mke ambaye hakuwa amempa chochote ila huzuni. Na huo ndio hasa moyo wa Mungu kwa mtu aliyetangatanga; mapema katika kitabu alikuwa amesema, "Nitamshawishi, na kumleta jangwani, na kusema naye maneno ya kumtuliza moyo" (Hosea 2:14). Hampokei tu mwenye dhambi arudi; anambembeleza kwa upole.Scripture even records the price: fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley (Hosea 3:2) — the going price of a slave, and a humble one at that. Hosea counted out the cost coin by coin to win back a wife who had given him nothing but grief. And that is precisely the heart of God toward the wanderer; earlier in the book He had said, "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her" (Hosea 2:14). He does not merely take the sinner back; He woos her with tenderness.

Kuna msemo kwa jambo hilo: msamaha usiosameheka. Hauna maana kwa hesabu za ulimwengu. Na hilo ndilo hasa jambo lenyewe, kwa maana ni picha ya jinsi Mungu anavyompenda Israeli, na jinsi anavyotupenda sisi:There is a phrase for that: unforgivable forgiveness. It makes no sense by the arithmetic of the world. And that is exactly the point, for it is a picture of how God loves Israel, and how He loves us:

Anapenda kwa ukarimu. Anayaponya maasi yale yale yaliyomjeruhi. Anashuka hadi sokoni tulikojiuza na kulipa gharama ili kutununua tena.He loves freely. He heals the very backsliding that wounded Him. He goes down into the market where we have sold ourselves and pays the price to buy us back.

Na hivyo majina yale yale yaliyowahi kuhubiri hukumu yanageuzwa kabisa na neema. Mungu aliyekuwa amesema "Lo-ami, Si Watu Wangu" sasa anaahidi, "Nami nitawaambia wale waliokuwa si watu wangu, Ninyi ni watu wangu; nao watasema, Wewe u Mungu wangu" (Hosea 2:23). "Hakuna Rehema" inakuwa rehema; "Si Watu Wangu" inakuwa "Watu Wangu." Hivyo ndivyo upendo wa Mungu unaokomboa unavyofanya daima: haufuti tu hukumu, unaigeuza, na kuandika jina jipya juu ya yule aliyekuwa amepotea.And so the very names that once preached judgment are turned inside out by grace. The God who had said "Lo-Ammi, Not My People" now promises, "I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they shall say, 'You are my God!'" (Hosea 2:23). "No Mercy" becomes mercy; "Not My People" becomes "My People." That is what the redeeming love of God always does: it does not merely cancel the sentence, it reverses it, and writes a new name over the one who was lost.

Hii ndiyo aina ya neema inayoushtua ulimwengu. Kulikuwa na mchungaji Mjerumani aitwaye Uwe Holmer ambaye, wakati dikteta wa kikomunisti aliyeanguka Erich Honecker na mke wake walipokosa mahali pa kwenda na hakuna aliyekubali kuwapokea, aliwafungulia nyumba yake mwenyewe — watawala wale wale ambao serikali yao ilikuwa imewazuia watoto wa Holmer mwenyewe kuingia chuo kikuu. Alilipa upendo kwa ukatili, kwa sababu ndivyo neema inavyofanya. Tunamtazama mtu kama Jeffrey Dahmer na kumwita kuwa yuko nje kabisa ya msamaha; lakini ikiwa upendo wa Mungu uliweza kumfikia Gomeri katika soko la watumwa, hakuna mwenye dhambi aliyepotea mbali kiasi kwamba neema haiwezi kumpata.This is the kind of grace that startles the world. There was a German pastor named Uwe Holmer who, when the fallen communist dictator Erich Honecker and his wife had nowhere to go and no one would take them in, opened his own home to them — the very rulers whose government had barred Holmer's own children from the university. He returned love for cruelty, because that is what grace does. We look at a man like Jeffrey Dahmer and call him beyond all forgiveness; yet if the love of God could reach Gomer in the slave market, there is no sinner so far gone that grace cannot find him.

Na neema hii inatudai jambo. Mungu aliyesamehe yasiyosameheka anawaita watu wake wasamehe kwa namna ile ile. Kutoka msalabani Bwana wetu aliomba, "Baba, uwasamehe, kwa kuwa hawajui walitendalo" (Luka 23:34). Stefano, mawe yalipokuwa yakimponda hadi kufa, alilia, "Bwana, usiwahesabie dhambi hii" (Matendo 7:60). Na Petro alipouliza ni mara ngapi lazima asamehe, akidhani mara saba ni ukarimu, Yesu alijibu, "Sikuambii, Hata mara saba, bali, Hata saba mara sabini" (Mathayo 18:22). Waliosamehewa wanapaswa kuwa wenye kusamehe.And this grace makes a demand on us. The God who forgave the unforgivable calls His people to forgive in the same way. From the cross our Lord prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34). Stephen, as the stones crushed the life out of him, cried, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin" (Acts 7:60). And when Peter asked how often he must forgive, thinking seven times was generous, Jesus answered, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:22). The forgiven are to become the forgiving.

Huo ndio ujumbe wa Hosea. Upendo wa Mungu haukomi. Unamfuatilia mtangatangaji katika kila njia mbaya, unasamehe dhambi iliyopaswa kukomesha kila kitu, na unanunua tena kile kilichokuwa kimepotea bila tumaini. Ikiwa umetangatanga mbali, sikia moyo wa Mungu katika kitabu hiki kidogo: hajaacha kukupenda, na yuko tayari kuyaponya maasi yako na kukupenda kwa ukarimu. Na ikiwa mtu amekukosea kupita kile kinachoonekana kusameheka, mtazame Hosea katika soko la watumwa, mtazame Kristo msalabani, na usamehe kama ulivyosamehewa.That is the message of Hosea. God's love is relentless. It pursues the wanderer down every wrong road, it forgives the sin that should have ended everything, and it buys back what was hopelessly lost. If you have wandered far, hear the heart of God in this little book: He has not stopped loving you, and He stands ready to heal your backsliding and to love you freely. And if someone has wronged you beyond what seems forgivable, look at Hosea in the slave market, look at Christ upon the cross, and forgive as you have been forgiven.

Kwa maana kitabu chote hatimaye kinauhusu msalaba. Kila kipande cha fedha ambacho Hosea alilipa katika soko la watumwa kilikuwa kivuli hafifu cha gharama isiyo na kikomo ambayo Bwana Yesu angelipa ili kumkomboa bibi arusi wake mwenyewe asiye mwaminifu. Sisi ndio tuliokuwa tumeuzwa chini ya dhambi, wenye makovu na watumwa na tusioweza kujiweka huru, naye alishuka hadi sokoni kwetu akatununua kwa damu yake mwenyewe. Ndiyo sababu ndoa ya ajabu na yenye maumivu ya Hosea bado inanena katika karne zote: inatuwezesha kuona, katika moyo uliovunjika wa mtu mmoja, upendo ambao siku moja ungenyoosha mikono yake juu ya msalaba na kukataa kutuacha tuende.For the whole book is finally about the cross. Every shekel Hosea paid in the slave market was a faint shadow of the infinite price the Lord Jesus would pay to redeem His own unfaithful bride. We were the ones sold under sin, scarred and enslaved and unable to free ourselves, and He came down into our market and bought us with His own blood. That is why Hosea's strange and painful marriage still speaks across the centuries: it lets us see, in one man's broken heart, the love that would one day stretch out its arms upon a cross and refuse to let us go.