For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without statue, and without ephod and teraphim.
Hosea 3:4 sets out a strange in-between condition. Israel is kept alive, yet stripped of the worship God gave them and of the idols they had chased. It names six things they would lack. Commentators read it as a photograph of a nation you can still recognise today. It leaves two questions open: how long "many days" lasts, and what comes after.
One writer sums up the verse in a sentence, then points past it:
They shall have neither the true God nor a false god (so it is with them now); but after that they shall seek Jehovah and David — the well-beloved, that is, Christ.
The six items fall into three areas of national life. Two of the words need explaining:
Here we have direct prophecy, a very remarkable one, about Israel's present condition. This is to be their state for "many days." These "many days" are not counted out; they are the days of this present age... Their condition is to be threefold. First, no civil order: no king or prince. Second, no appointed Levitical worship: no sacrifice. Third, no practice of idolatry, which they had given themselves to: no image, ephod or teraphim. The ephod was the priestly garment; the teraphim were the household gods they used before the captivity. Before the captivity they had kings; now they have none. After the captivity Judah had princes; during the "many days" there are no princes. They cannot present a sacrifice, because they have no temple and no priesthood any more.
The terms alternate: one belongs to God, the next to idols, right down to the two ways of asking about the future. The older word "teraphim" is what the ESV calls "household gods."
Here is a condition altogether unique: a religion neither divine nor idolatrous, but a wretched emptiness — "without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod and teraphim." Even D. Kimchi explains it rightly enough, if not fully. He says: "Without sacrifice refers to God, without pillar refers to idols, without ephod refers to God who declares the future by Urim and Thummim, without teraphim refers to idols who declare the future according to the opinions of those who believe in them."
You can check the verse against history:
To this day (many days indeed) they remain a people living among other peoples, yet not absorbed. They are a people without the ties that hold a nation together, for they are "without a king, and without a prince."... So they are in the strange position of a people who are no people. Somehow they cannot worship truly, yet they are not idolaters. They stand in contrast to all other nations, and most of all to their own past.
One writer ties the loss of king and prince to a choice the nation made for itself:
The two tribes had had kings of the God-appointed line, and the ten tribes princes of their own choosing. Hosea declared that soon they should have neither. But as if that were not enough for these evil men, they now deliberately accepted Gentile tyranny. They appealed to Caesar, and God has seen fit to leave them under the crushing rule of one tyrant after another.
This verse gives only the negative side of the picture. There is a positive side too:
That God should use this time of Israel's recess to bring in other purposes is the simplest thing possible, and we can all understand it... The Jew had here at least the negative side of the picture: his own puzzling state, the people of God who are not His people, a nation without a government. Stranger still, he has no false god and yet not the true one, and neither priest nor sacrifice. The Spirit of God gives the positive side in the New Testament. There we have the call of the Gentiles meanwhile, and within it the gathering of the faithful into the church — Christ's body.
One writer warns that this empty state will not last, and that what fills it later is worse:
"The unclean spirit of idolatry has gone out of them" during these "many days." It will return later with "seven other spirits more wicked than himself" — the very perfection of spiritual wickedness. Then will come days of tribulation like no other on that long misguided and deeply rebellious people — "the time of Jacob's trouble."
- Without. The verse works by subtraction: no king or prince, no sacrifice, no ephod — and no idols either. Neither the true God nor a false one.
- Without a government. Israel had kings before the captivity and princes after it. They lost both, and sealed the loss themselves by appealing to Caesar.
- Without worship, without idols. The pairs alternate between God and idols, leaving a religion that is neither — a state no other nation has ever occupied.
- Many days. No one is told how long the wait runs. Meanwhile God is doing something else: calling the Gentiles and gathering the church.
- Afterward. The empty condition is not the end. Commentators expect a darker phase first, then Israel seeking the Lord and David their king.
Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king; and shall turn with fear toward Jehovah and toward his goodness, at the end of the days.
Hosea has just been told to buy back an unfaithful woman and keep her apart, neither cast off nor restored. She pictures Israel left without king, sacrifice or idol. Verse 5 is the turn: after that long emptiness, Israel returns and seeks two things — the LORD their God, and David their king.
Verse 4 and verse 5 are not two halves of one experience. One is a present fact, the other a promise still waiting.
Here we have facts so surprising that no human mind could have guessed them beforehand, and they are given in the most precise terms. Verse 4 is being fulfilled to this day. Verse 5 awaits its fulfilment in that welcome day which all the prophets hailed, and which all saints of the Old Testament or the New ought to expect.
The gap between them is not a pause in God's work. He is busy with something else in it.
It is the simplest thing possible, and we can all understand it, that God should use this time when Israel is set aside to bring in other purposes... The Spirit of God gives the positive side in the New Testament. There we have the call of the Gentiles in the meantime, and within it the gathering of the faithful into the church — Christ's body.
The verse names David. Commentators say the one meant is not David himself.
Their future is returning and seeking the Lord their God and David their king. This is Christ. Nearly all the rabbinical writers and expositors explain it in this way. This could not be David himself. It is He who is David's Son and David's Lord, our Lord (Ezek. 37:23, 24). Here we have the prediction that Israel will be converted to the Lord in the latter days, the days of His coming again.
The title also settles what is promised — a kingdom on earth.
How utterly meaningless it is to apply this title of Christ to the Church. How perfectly and beautifully fitting it is when predicting the setting up of that kingdom, which is the central thought in God's plan for governing the earth.
The verb describes a people coming back to a relationship they once had, not people joining something new.
Verse 5 says that afterwards they will not turn but "return," and seek Jehovah their God. This is not a description of becoming members of Christ, or of receiving the new and deeper revelations of the New Testament... God will save them by His grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. But it will be in the measure given to their fathers rather than to us now, with this difference: the Lord will reign openly.
What they seek is the kingship God gave them at the start, and the goodness of the LORD Himself.
Afterwards they should return, and should seek Jehovah their God, and David their king. That is to say, all Israel should seek the true kingship God gave at the start, of which Christ is the fulfilment. They should bow their heart before Jehovah and His goodness in the latter days.
Israel's long emptiness does not mean God has changed His mind. He keeps His promises, and that explains both the delay and its end.
"The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable." He made promises to Abraham for his descendants. He keeps them, despite all Israel's present unwillingness and stubbornness... They were unwilling in the day of the Lord Jesus' grace. Then He said, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." They were too proud to understand such divine condescension. But they shall be willing in the day of His power, after they have passed through the burning fiery furnace.
Their blessing then rests on a different footing from the one that failed.
In the past, all failed under law. In the future, all will be re-established under grace. In the past, they were on the ground of the conditional part of the covenant. In the future, they will be on the ground of the unconditional grace of God. The value of the sacrifice of their once-rejected Messiah, and the fulness of the love of God, will be the measure of their blessing.
This return is national, and it lands where the apostle lands in Romans.
They shall return as a people — not merely to their land (though all Scripture makes that certain), but to Jehovah their God and to David their king. The context shows He can be none other than the Messiah. "And in this way," says the great apostle, "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26).
- Emptiness first. Verse 4 is being fulfilled now — a people with neither true worship nor idols; verse 5 has not yet begun.
- Afterward, not instead. The call of the Gentiles and the gathering of the church fill the gap; then Israel's own story resumes.
- Two objects sought. They come back to Jehovah their God and to David their king — the Messiah, David's Son and David's Lord.
- Return, not convert. The verb points to an old relationship restored. It rests on unconditional grace, not the conditional covenant that failed.
- Willing at last. Unwilling in the day of His grace, they will be willing in the day of His power — and so all Israel will be saved.