Hosea 8:12 Commentary: God’s Law Regarded as Foreign

Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BC, a time of political turmoil and spiritual decay. The people had multiplied altars for sinning (v. 11), turning worship into an occasion for rebellion. They had made alliances with Assyria (v. 9), trusting foreign powers instead of their God. In this climate, the law of Moses, given at Sinai and preserved in the Torah, was well known, but it had become unwelcome.

The phrase 'I wrote for him the many things of my law' echoes the giving of the law through Moses. But as the surrounding context shows, Israel treated God’s covenant instruction as zar, a 'strange' or 'foreign' thing. The word appears elsewhere for something alien, a different nation, a strange god. They looked at the law and said, in effect, 'That does not apply to us.' The cross-reference in 2 Kings 17:15, 16 describes exactly this attitude: 'They rejected his statutes and his covenant… and followed the nations that were around them.'

The law was not just a legal code; it was the charter of God’s relationship with Israel. To call it 'strange' was to disown the covenant itself. The people wanted to worship Yahweh on their own terms, mixing calf worship (v. 5, 6) with the worship of Baal and the hosts of heaven. The multiple altars (v. 11) became opportunities for sin rather than for atonement. Hosea charges that God’s own instruction, precious, manifold, given in love, was treated with contempt.

This historical picture reminds us that familiarity with Scripture does not guarantee obedience. Israel knew the law; they simply decided it did not belong to them.

The supplied sources note a significant textual variation in the Hebrew. The consonantal text (chethib) reads rubbey, which means 'myriads' (ten thousands) of commands, a hyperbolical expression. The Masoretic reading (qere) substitutes rabbey ('multitudes'), perhaps because the number seemed too large. The Cambridge Commentary suggests a possible original reading 'the words of my law' (missing a letter and transposition), but this is a conjecture. The Septuagint and Vulgate give a future tense ('I will write'), whereas the Hebrew imperfect can refer to past or present. No other significant variants are noted in the consulted sources.

This verse has been cited across Christian history as a warning against treating God’s commands as obsolete. Early church writers used it to argue that the law is not opposed to grace but reveals the seriousness of sin. In the Reformation, Calvin appealed to it to support the third use of the law, its role as a guide for believers. Lutheran and Reformed traditions both read it as a call to take the whole moral law seriously, not just the parts that feel comfortable. Methodist and Wesleyan commentators (Adam Clarke, Wesley) stressed that the law remains a lens for understanding both sin and holiness. In modern preaching, Hosea 8:12 often appears in sermons about biblical authority, challenging congregations to see the Old Testament not as an optional appendix but as the living word of the same God who speaks in Christ. It has also been used to caution against antinomian tendencies that dismiss ethical commands as 'old covenant' and therefore irrelevant to the Christian life.

Three-point outline

1. God’s abundant revelation. The 'many things of my law', countless commands, repeated through prophets, written down for all generations. Israel had no shortage of truth.
2. Israel’s willful rejection. They 'regarded' the law as strange. The Niphal verb suggests a passive letting-go: they allowed it to become foreign to them. The decision was their own.
3. The cost of disowning God’s word. What follows in vv. 13, 14: sacrifices not accepted, iniquity remembered, fire on cities. Treating God’s commands as irrelevant does not make them disappear.

Five-point outline

1. Who writes? God himself is the author. The law carries divine authority.
2. What did He write? 'The many things', an abundant, detailed instruction for life.
3. To whom? 'For him', for Israel, personally and covenantally.
4. How did they respond? They counted it as a strange thing. The language of valuing: they assigned it zero worth in their lives.
5. What does this produce? Judgment (v. 13, 14). Rejecting the law leads to losing even the worship they valued.

Illustration hooks

• A person receives a detailed medical plan from a specialist but ignores it because the instructions feel foreign to their lifestyle. The prescription is for someone else, other patients, not them.
• A student buys a textbook for a course but never opens it. It sits on the shelf, treated as if it were in a language they don’t speak. The knowledge is available; the choice is to disregard it.
• An employee ignores the company handbook because they assume the rules apply only to new hires or problem cases. The same handbook, however, governs everyone, including them.

Questions your congregation is asking

• Did God give the Old Testament law only for ancient Israel, or does it still bind us today?
• What does it look like to treat Scripture as 'foreign' in practice, skipping parts we don’t like?
• How can we tell when we have stopped letting God’s law shape our lives without even noticing?

This verse confronts an uncomfortable truth: it is possible to own a Bible, know its words, and still treat it as something that has nothing to do with you. Israel had the law, written by God, rich with instruction, and they called it 'strange.' As you work through these questions, keep the main interpretive question in view: Why did they reject what God had given them?

Discussion questions

1. What does the phrase 'I wrote for him' tell us about God’s intentions for His people? Why does God choose to write rather than simply speak?
2. The Hebrew word rubbey means 'abundance, multitude.' Why might Hosea emphasize the quantity of God’s commands rather than just their quality?
3. What does it mean to 'regard' something as a 'strange thing'? In what ways do we mentally or practically distance ourselves from parts of Scripture?
4. Look at the cross-references: Deuteronomy 4:6, 8 and Nehemiah 9:13, 14 describe the law as 'righteous' and 'true.' How did Israel go from celebrating the law to treating it as alien?
5. Verse 11 mentions 'multiplying altars for sinning.' How does adding to God’s instructions (with our own rules or excuses) become a way of rejecting the instructions He already gave?
6. In what areas of life do you most feel tempted to treat God’s commands as if they apply to other people but not to you?
7. If someone in your group said, 'I feel distant from the Old Testament, it doesn’t seem like my story,' how would you gently point them back to this verse’s warning?