Angel and Gomer: grace in Francine Rivers's Redeeming Love
Francine Rivers is a Christian novelist best known for her novel Redeeming Love. It's a hefty volume based on the story of the prophet Hosea, who God called to marry 'a wife of harlotry' (NKJV), in modern terms a prostitute. Set in the California gold rush, the novel is a redemption tale of a woman whose only role and purpose has been to satisfy the sexual cravings of men and line the pockets of her employers. As the title suggests, the love, honour and commitment shown to her by Michael Hosea, the man she marries, in spite of her shameful status within society, is the source of that redemption, and gradually leads her to a place of restoration and healing from the wounds she has suffered. The story is a parable of God's grace to us, lifting us out of the mire of our own brokenness and showering us with undeserved, unconditional love until we learn to see in ourselves the value He places on us.
The basic story is at odds with many of our modern sensibilities around the status of women in society - should the status of wife or the fact that we are recipients of a man's love be the source of our value, rather than something inherent? Conversely, should the status of sex worker be a source of shame, particularly but not only when it is unchosen? These are topics that are valuable to explore elsewhere; but we should not look so closely at this as to lose sight of the driving point of the story, that God's commitment to us and to our restoration are regardless of whether we are good enough.
The reason I'm writing this post, however, is to highlight some differences between Rivers's portrayal of Angel the fallen girl, and Gomer the adulterous wife as portrayed in the book of Hosea.
Angel is orphaned at a young age, taken in by a vile abuser who uses and sells her for sex. By the time we meet her she is many miles away, working for a selfish madam who pockets all the profits of her girls' work and has them beaten when they refuse or fail to perform, but whose patronage is an escape for Angel from the horrors that went before. Despite her harsh life, Angel is a beauty and her services are sought after. She ridicules Michael's offer of marriage, seeing neither a benefit to him, since her services can be obtained without the delicacy of marriage, nor to herself. Once they are married, however, the story focuses on the gradual growth of their relationship as Angel learns to trust that he is 'for real' and to love him in return. Through this relationship, she learns also to love and rely on herself and is empowered to make her own way in the world.
Rivers has supplied Angel with a lot of backstory that we don't get in the original story of Hosea. In fact, we get hardly any introduction:
What we do know, however, is that their relationship progressed quite differently from Angel and Michael's unfolding love story. In the next few verses, we see that Gomer, having borne Hosea a son named Jezreel, goes on to bear two more children. Neither of these are described as having been born to Hosea; and if that wasn't enough, the names Hosea gives them give away that they aren't his kids: Lo-Ruhamah (No Mercy) and Lo-Ammi (Not My People). In other words, whatever she may have been doing before her marriage, Gomer is certainly not being faithful to Hosea now they are married, nor does she seem to be making any pretense of faithfulness. In fact, when we next come across her in chapter 3, Hosea literally has to pay - whether he's paying her or paying off a lover isn't quite clear - to have her return to him (and even then he tells her to stay 'for many days', as though he isn't really assuming he'll be able to keep her there).
This isn't the burgeoning love relationship, the gradual healing and restoration that we see in Redeeming Love. This seems more of a crazy act on Hosea's part, seeking out a wife who has clearly spurned him, who hasn't valued what he had to offer. Other translations of the passage render the original 'wife of harlotry' as 'a promiscuous woman' (NIV), and the NLT even puts it 'Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution'; in other words, Hosea has gone into this relationship with his eyes open, knowing that Gomer won't even be trying to be faithful to him.
Philip Yancey writes of Hosea,
We don't hear anything more from Hosea and from Gomer, and I think that's intentional. As we saw at the beginning of the story, their relationship is intended to mirror the relationship between God and His people, Israel, who throughout the history books of Scripture are continually running after other gods. The focus of the story is not on the outcome but on the risk that God is willing to take in pouring out His love anyway on a people who have an abysmal track record of returning it.
Rivers's tale tells us what it could look like if we choose to accept God's love and learn to return it, and it is a wonderful read that I would recommend widely as much for this as because it's simply a pretty good novel. Ultimately, however, Hosea's story is not one of a successful happy ending but a celebration of the God who is willing to risk everything against the odds for the people He loves.
Disclaimer: It's several years since I read Redeeming Love. It has stuck in my mind pretty clearly but I do apologise if any mistakes have snuck into my description of it!
The basic story is at odds with many of our modern sensibilities around the status of women in society - should the status of wife or the fact that we are recipients of a man's love be the source of our value, rather than something inherent? Conversely, should the status of sex worker be a source of shame, particularly but not only when it is unchosen? These are topics that are valuable to explore elsewhere; but we should not look so closely at this as to lose sight of the driving point of the story, that God's commitment to us and to our restoration are regardless of whether we are good enough.
The reason I'm writing this post, however, is to highlight some differences between Rivers's portrayal of Angel the fallen girl, and Gomer the adulterous wife as portrayed in the book of Hosea.
Angel is orphaned at a young age, taken in by a vile abuser who uses and sells her for sex. By the time we meet her she is many miles away, working for a selfish madam who pockets all the profits of her girls' work and has them beaten when they refuse or fail to perform, but whose patronage is an escape for Angel from the horrors that went before. Despite her harsh life, Angel is a beauty and her services are sought after. She ridicules Michael's offer of marriage, seeing neither a benefit to him, since her services can be obtained without the delicacy of marriage, nor to herself. Once they are married, however, the story focuses on the gradual growth of their relationship as Angel learns to trust that he is 'for real' and to love him in return. Through this relationship, she learns also to love and rely on herself and is empowered to make her own way in the world.
Rivers has supplied Angel with a lot of backstory that we don't get in the original story of Hosea. In fact, we get hardly any introduction:
2 When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea:All we really know about Hosea's wife, then, is that her name was Gomer, her dad's name was Diblaim, and that she was the sort of person Hosea thought of when he was told to go looking for a harlot.
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
For the land has committed great harlotry
By departing from the Lord.”
Hosea 1v2-3
What we do know, however, is that their relationship progressed quite differently from Angel and Michael's unfolding love story. In the next few verses, we see that Gomer, having borne Hosea a son named Jezreel, goes on to bear two more children. Neither of these are described as having been born to Hosea; and if that wasn't enough, the names Hosea gives them give away that they aren't his kids: Lo-Ruhamah (No Mercy) and Lo-Ammi (Not My People). In other words, whatever she may have been doing before her marriage, Gomer is certainly not being faithful to Hosea now they are married, nor does she seem to be making any pretense of faithfulness. In fact, when we next come across her in chapter 3, Hosea literally has to pay - whether he's paying her or paying off a lover isn't quite clear - to have her return to him (and even then he tells her to stay 'for many days', as though he isn't really assuming he'll be able to keep her there).
This isn't the burgeoning love relationship, the gradual healing and restoration that we see in Redeeming Love. This seems more of a crazy act on Hosea's part, seeking out a wife who has clearly spurned him, who hasn't valued what he had to offer. Other translations of the passage render the original 'wife of harlotry' as 'a promiscuous woman' (NIV), and the NLT even puts it 'Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution'; in other words, Hosea has gone into this relationship with his eyes open, knowing that Gomer won't even be trying to be faithful to him.
Philip Yancey writes of Hosea,
What goes through a man's mind when his wife treats him as Gomer treated Hosea? He wanted to kill her, he wanted to forgive her. [...] Absurdly, against all odds, the irresistable power of love won out. Hosea the cuckold, joke of the community, welcomed his wife back home.1Unlike Michael's case, there is not really much honour for Hosea in following God's instructions here. He's much more likely to be labelled stupid than generous, and there's no evidence that he ever gets much of a relationship with Gomer out of the whole thing. The beautiful ending is one possibility, but another possibility is that he loses everything he's put in.
We don't hear anything more from Hosea and from Gomer, and I think that's intentional. As we saw at the beginning of the story, their relationship is intended to mirror the relationship between God and His people, Israel, who throughout the history books of Scripture are continually running after other gods. The focus of the story is not on the outcome but on the risk that God is willing to take in pouring out His love anyway on a people who have an abysmal track record of returning it.
Rivers's tale tells us what it could look like if we choose to accept God's love and learn to return it, and it is a wonderful read that I would recommend widely as much for this as because it's simply a pretty good novel. Ultimately, however, Hosea's story is not one of a successful happy ending but a celebration of the God who is willing to risk everything against the odds for the people He loves.
Disclaimer: It's several years since I read Redeeming Love. It has stuck in my mind pretty clearly but I do apologise if any mistakes have snuck into my description of it!
1 Philip Yancey, What's so amazing about Grace, p66↩
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