In the passage below, Hosea also follows the vision of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch in condemning all weapons and all war or bloodshed. Living amid the influence of the Jewish orthodoxy, with its animal sacrifices and its elitism and economic inequity, Hosea, like the other late prophets, sees the necessity of another vegetarian covenant, a restoration of the original vegetarian covenant of "Genesis," a covenant of peace for all creation.
"I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, and birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy." 2: l8-l9.
In the following scripture Hosea portrays God as condemning the inhabitants of Israel for their sins against each other and the rest of animal creation.)
"...for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away." 4:3.
Hosea constantly condemns the animal sacrifices.
"...they have left their God to play the harlot. They sacrifice on he mountains and make offerings upon the hills." 4: l2-l3.
"With their flocks and herds they shall
go to seek the
Lord, but they will not find him."
5:6.
"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings." 6:6.
"They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the Lord has no delight in them." 8: l3.
"...and they shall not please him with
their sacrifices."
9:4.
Thorns and Thistles are Associated with the Fall in Genesis
Hosea uses the imagery of the land after the fall in Genesis, cursed to bear thorn and thistle.
The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars. 10: 8.
Hosea's Name is a Form of Osseo, another Name of Shiva.
In order to understand the reference to the pillars here, a reference which is incidental to the militant vegetarianism Hosea preaches, we must realize that the scriptures of the late prophets were in parts no doubt revised just as the earliest scriptures in the Pentateuch were. It may be that the pillars are picked out here because Hosea's name, which is sometimes seen as Osea, Oshea and Osheah, and is related to Osee, is just another form of the name Sanskrit name Osseo, which is another name of Shiva, also known as Saba or Sheba, who is Lord of the Sabbath, i.e., the Jewish Shabbath.
"...Their heart is false; now they must
bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
and destroy their pillars." l0:2.
The significance of the pillars changes in Jewish history. At first erecting pillars to God, the original God of the Jews being Shiva, was completely natural, but after the cattleman cult overthrew those worshipping Asherah, who is Asura among the Hindus, and Ausur (or Osiris) among the Egyptians, the pillars became a symbol of the old vegetarian order and covenant, the memory of which the cattleman cult, profiting from animal sacrifices, wished to obliterate.
"The more I called to them the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals." ll :2.
"If there is iniquity in Gilead they
shall surely come to naught; if in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls their altars
shall be like stone heaps on the furrows of the field." Hosea
l2: ll.
The Days in the Sinai Wilderness:
The Dissatisfaction of Some Israelites
with Vegetarianism.
God Sacrifices Those who Sacrifice
Animals.
Like other later prophets, Hosea logically questions the early carnivorous history of the Hebrews. Forty years in the desert cattle raising? On what do they feed? It may well be that Hosea, like Amos and the others, conjectured that those forty years were in fact a great time of purity, in which the robust health and healing ways of vegetarianism manifested themselves with less hindrance, except to the nay-sayers following Moses and Aaron. Because it had been a time of innocence, Moses and the Jews living off plant life and manna in the wilderness, the carnivorous Jewish establishment, after having overthrown the vegetarians, knew they had to rewrite the occurrences.
From hindsight, the vegetarian prophets regard the constant oppression of the Hebrews by foreigners as God's punishment upon people living on slaughtered and enslaved flesh and blood. The vegetarian Jehovah's justice is to treat the animal sacrificing Hebrews as they treated their animal victims. He will be as a carnivore rending their flesh, just as they tore the flesh of their victims. (This, by the way, is a reiterated theme in the "Book of Job."
"I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.
It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; but when they had fed to the full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me.
So I will be to them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will tear open their breast, and there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild beast would rend them." 13: 4-8.
The Righteous Bough, the Root of Jesse
God is an Evergreen Cypress.
The Trees of the Book of Enoch
and the Jewish Feast Day,
The T'ub Shevat, or Feast of Trees.
Like the other prophets affirming vegetarianism Hosea sees vegetation as the only true food of humanity, eulogizes plant life, and like many writers uses the evergreen as a symbol for the life that springs from its eternal source.
"I will be as the dew to Israel; he
shall blossom as the lily, he shall strike root as the poplar; his shoots
shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance
like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they
shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom as the vine; their fragrance
shall be like the wine of Lebanon. O Ephraim, what have I to do with
idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen
cypress, from me
comes your fruit. Whoever is
wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know
them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them,
but transgressors stumble in them. 14: 5-9.
Just as Hosea saw weapons as evil, and in so doing echoed the values of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, so too does he echo that book in his reference to numerous tree. Whole chapters, and parts of chapters in the Book of Enoch deal with trees, trees for sustenance and spice, trees for shade. The Deity of the Book of Enoch is Shiva, who is known as Lord of the Trees, and to whom the Jewish Feast of Trees, the T'Ub Shevat, was originally dedicated, as we can see rather glaringly from the name of Shiva being in the very name of the feast.
Hosea Uses Vegetarian Animals to Describe Israel.
4: 16 Like a stubborn heifer, Israel
is stubborn; can the LORD now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture?
Hosea says that Adam Transgressed
God's Vegetarian Covenant of Gen. 1:
29.
6: 7 But at Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Here Hosea's vision is common to that
of virtually all the late prophets, to the original Ebionite followers
of Jesus, and to the Gospel of Philip which says that the Fall was
eating from the Tree of Animals. Hosea did not buy into the orthodox
absurdity that an Omniscient God could change His mind and command carnivorism
after first having commanded vegetarianism as the diet of humanity and
other creatures.
In Chapter 8
Hosea Portrays God as Condemning All
those Who Seek Wealth,
And Elitist Societies of Kings, Princes
and Followers.
Hosea portrays God as Condemning the
Absurd Rationale of "Leviticus,"
That Sacrificing Animals Expiates Sins.
4 They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction.
11 When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin, they became to him altars for sinning.
12 Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions, they are regarded as a strange thing.
13 Though they offer choice sacrifices, though they eat flesh, the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.
14 Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his strongholds.
Here once again Hosea's vision is consistent with that of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch: humans are not to build cities or industrial civilizations, but are to live harmoniously with creation as it is. In Chapter 12, this notion is reiterated. Humans are not to build buildings:
"I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again, as in the days of the appointed festival." 12: 9
The Pure Vision of Hosea: Animals Will Not be Enslaved.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; we will say no more, 'Our God,' to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy." 14: 3
Here animal slavery is not accepted.
Esdras Says that the Vegetarian Hosea
And the Original Jewish Patriarchs
All Believed the Same Thing.
Hosea, whose vegetarianism is only too obvious, was one of the prophets whom Esdras says taught the same values that were taught by the original Jewish patriarchs:
"...to them I will give as leaders Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Hosea and Amos and Micah and Joel and Obadiah and Jonah and Nahum and Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who is also called Malachi, who is also called messenger of the Lord." 2 Esdras l: 38-40.
Once again, we have in the words of Esdras dramatic evidence that the scriptures of the Torah were rewritten.