I Will Betroth Thee unto Me Forever: Hosea, Joel, and the Covenant of Love

Come Follow Me 2026 — Week 46 (Nov 16–22) — Hosea 1–6; 10–14; Joel

Introduction: Two Prophets, One Message

Hosea and Joel are two of the most quoted prophets in the entire New Testament, yet they are rarely read at length or with the depth they deserve. Hosea gives us the most intimate covenant language in all the Old Testament — God speaking to Israel as a faithful husband to an unfaithful wife, not to condemn but to restore. Joel gives us one of the most foundational promises in prophetic literature — the universal outpouring of God’s Spirit — which Peter identifies as the defining event of Pentecost and the Latter-day Saint tradition connects directly to the spirit of Elijah and the work of the last days.

Together these two short books reveal that God’s covenant is not primarily a legal transaction. It is a relationship — one in which God pursues, woos, weeps, and finally pours Himself out into a world that has repeatedly turned away from Him.

Hosea 1–3: The Marriage as Theology

The book of Hosea begins with the most startling prophetic commission in the entire Old Testament. God does not tell Hosea to preach; He tells him to marry. Specifically, to marry a woman who will be unfaithful: “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD” (Hos 1:2). Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is not a lesson about romance — it is a living parable of Israel’s relationship with God, enacted in his own body and household.

Gomer leaves. She goes after other lovers. She reaches a point of such degradation that she is put up for sale in the slave market. And God commands Hosea to go and buy her back: “Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods” (Hos 3:1). The price Hosea pays — fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley — is the price of a slave. He redeems her. That is what God is doing with Israel.

What makes this more than a compelling story is the theology it embeds. Hosea’s love for Gomer — persistent, costly, undignified by human standards, redemptive — is the definition of the Hebrew word hesed: covenant love, lovingkindness, steadfast love. It is the same love God shows Israel. It is the same love that becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ, who pays the full price to redeem those who have gone after other loves.

Hosea 2:19–20

“And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.”

This is the most intimate covenant language in the entire Old Testament. Three times God says “I will betroth thee.” The repetition is not rhetorical flourish — it is the language of passionate commitment. The covenant is not a business arrangement; it is a marriage. And it is sealed with the attributes of God’s own character: righteousness, judgment, lovingkindness, mercies, faithfulness. The wedding ring God offers is made of His own nature.

The phrase “thou shalt know the LORD” is also highly significant. In Hebrew, “to know” (yada) is the deepest relational word in the language — used for both intimate human knowledge and the knowledge of God. The goal of the new betrothal is not compliance but knowing — genuine, intimate, mutual knowledge of God. This is Jeremiah 31’s new covenant (“they shall all know me”) anticipated by a generation.

Hosea 6: What God Actually Wants

One of the most quoted lines from Hosea comes in chapter 6, where God responds to Israel’s superficial repentance — a repentance that comes quickly and departs just as quickly, “like a morning cloud, like the early dew” (6:4) — with a statement that becomes foundational to Jesus’ entire critique of Pharisaic religion:

Hosea 6:6

“For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Jesus quotes this verse twice in Matthew (9:13 and 12:7) when defending His association with sinners and His Sabbath healings. In both cases His point is the same: external religious performance that lacks interior transformation and genuine love for God and neighbor has missed what God is actually after. Hesed — that same covenant love — is what God wants. Not performance. Not sacrifice as manipulation. Relationship.

New Testament Uses of Hosea

  • Matthew 2:15 — “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Hos 11:1) — applied to the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt
  • Matthew 9:13; 12:7 — “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6) — Jesus’ defense of eating with sinners and healing on the Sabbath
  • Romans 9:25–26 — Paul quotes Hosea 2:23 — “I will call them my people, which were not my people” — as the basis for Gentile inclusion in the covenant
  • 1 Corinthians 15:55 — “O death, where is thy sting?” (Hos 13:14) — Paul’s taunt over death at the resurrection

Hosea 11: The Father Who Cannot Let Go

Chapter 11 shifts the metaphor from husband and wife to parent and child, and the result is one of the most emotionally powerful passages in the Old Testament. God speaks of calling Israel out of Egypt as a child (“out of Egypt have I called my son,” quoted in Matthew of Christ’s flight from Herod), of teaching Israel to walk, of healing their diseases, of drawing them with cords of love. And then, after all that, Israel still turned away:

Hosea 11:8–9

“How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.”

This is God wrestling with His own justice and love, and love winning. The repetition — “how shall I give thee up...how shall I deliver thee...how shall I make thee...” — is the language of a parent who cannot bring themselves to abandon the child they love, even when the child has been undeserving of that love. “I am God, and not man” is the key: God’s love exceeds human capacity and human categories. He does not love as we love — conditionally, transactionally, with limits. His love has no floor.

Joel 2: The Great Outpouring

The book of Joel centers on two events: a devastating locust plague that strips the land bare and serves as a symbol of divine judgment, and the promised outpouring of the Spirit that will follow covenant repentance. The second of these is what has shaped the course of world history:

Joel 2:28–29

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.”

When Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection, and the crowd sees 120 people speaking in other languages and asks “What does this mean?” — Peter’s answer is Joel 2. This is that. The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh. The sons and daughters prophesy. The servants and handmaids receive the Spirit. The ancient promise is being fulfilled in real time on the streets of Jerusalem.

For Latter-day Saints, Joel 2 carries a second layer of fulfillment. The Moroni’s visit to Joseph Smith in 1823 included the specific declaration that Joel 2:28–32 “was not yet fulfilled, but was soon to be.” The Restoration — with its outpouring of gifts of the Spirit, its visions, its revelations to young and old, male and female, and the sealing of families across generations — is understood as a continuing fulfillment of Joel’s promise.

Restoration Connections

  • Acts 2:16–21 — Peter declares Joel 2 fulfilled at Pentecost: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel”
  • Joseph Smith — History 1:41 — Moroni quotes Joel 2:28–32 and says its fulfillment is “soon to be”
  • D&C 110:13–16 — Elijah’s appearance in the Kirtland Temple — the spirit of Elijah and the turning of hearts is Joel 2 worked out in family history
  • Malachi 4:5–6 — Elijah to be sent before the great and dreadful day — the spirit of Joel’s outpouring focused on family sealing

Joel 2: The Call to Return

Before the outpouring comes, Joel calls the people to repentance — but with one of the most remarkable qualifications in the entire prophetic tradition:

Joel 2:13

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”

The tearing of garments was the standard external sign of mourning in Israelite culture. Joel forbids the external while demanding the internal: rend your heart, not your garments. This is Hosea’s “I desired mercy and not sacrifice” in another form — the consistent prophetic insistence that God is after the interior reality, not its external performance.

The motivation for returning is also striking: God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness. This is a direct echo of the great covenant declaration of Exodus 34:6–7, where God reveals His own name and character to Moses on Sinai. The prophets know who God is, and they use that knowledge to call the people back. Return to God not because He is fearful — though He is mighty — but because He is good.

Conclusion: Covenant Love That Will Not Let Go

Hosea and Joel together paint a portrait of God that directly challenges every reduced or transactional theology. God is not a vending machine that dispenses blessings in exchange for correct ritual performance. He is a husband who redeems his wife from the slave market. He is a father who cannot bring himself to give up his wayward child. He is a God who pours out His very Spirit — His own life — on sons and daughters, old men and young men, servants and handmaids alike.

The covenant is not primarily an obligation. It is a relationship. And the relationship, as these two prophets insist with every word they write, is one that God initiates, God sustains, and God will ultimately complete — even when every human effort at faithfulness falls short of what love requires.

I will betroth thee unto me forever. And I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. These two promises — one intimate, one universal — are the heart of what Hosea and Joel have to tell us.