If you were to read the Bible through from Isaiah to Malachi you would discover that the major theme running through the prophets is Judah’s exile to Babylon and subsequent return. If the pattern we have seen so far continues in the prophets, what language would the prophets use to describe the Exile? The language of the Exodus, God’s mightiest act of deliverance from captivity. God would work in the captivity to Babylon as He had worked in the Egyptian captivity. So when the prophets write about the Exile, they write about it in terms of the Exodus. They describe the return from exile as a “New Exodus.” God plans to repeat the Exodus all over again. To put it another way, God is consistent.

Hosea. Let’s begin our study of this New Exodus with the earliest of these writing prophets. Hosea prophesied around 760 B.C. (Another biblical prophet who wrote during this time is the prophet Amos.) The Israel of David and Solomon had tragically divided, producing two nations–Israel and Judea–where there had formerly been only one. While the dual kingdoms never returned to the full glory of Solomon’s reign, the time of Hosea found both at the height of their prosperity. Jereboam II was king in Israel and of all the northern Israelite kings, he was probably the most powerful and successful (2 Kings 14:23-29). But when God’s people become prosperous they tend to forget that it is the blessing of God that enables people to get wealth. That’s what happened to Israel.
“‘She (meaning Israel) has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold–
which they used for Baal.
Hos 2:8 NIV

In her prosperity Israel forgot Who had provided that prosperity. Israel forgot who commanded the rain to water the earth. Israel forgot who provided the grain, the new wine, and the oil. Instead of serving God with the wealth He had provided, Israel used her wealth to turn away from Him. God decides to respond by removing the wealth that had become an obstacle to Israel’s relationship with Him.
Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her nakedness.
So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.
I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals,
her New Moons,
her Sabbath days–
all her appointed feasts.
I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,’
declares the LORD.”
Hosea 2:9-13 NIV

God here describes the future exile that Israel would experience. At that time He would take away the grain, new wine, oil, technology, everything–even their feasts, temple services, and worship. All these would be taken away when they went into exile. Because they had forsaken God, God does not intervene to stop the nation’s decline and fall. But there is good news mixed in with the bad. God sends them into exile, not as a final rejection, but in order to win them back.
“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.”
Hos 2:14-15

Notice the word “allure.” God seeks a relationship with Israel in terms of the eagerness with which a young man might court a young woman. What desert is he talking about here? The desert of Sinai. God is recalling the Exodus, an earlier stage in His relationship with Israel. Family counselors tell us that any time a marriage is in trouble, the best thing to do is to remember the early attentions–go back to the activities, conversations, and relationships that put you in love in the first place. As you renew the early attentions, love often returns in force. So God here is describing His relationship with Israel as a relationship between a husband and a wife. The Exodus from Egypt was like a courtship stage in which God fell in love with Israel and Israel fell in love with Him. So when the relationship comes to a crisis, as recounted in Hosea, God remembers the Exodus from Egypt, the time of courtship and first love.

If Israel wishes to turn away from Him, however, God will allow her to go her own way. He will agree to the divorce. But He won’t allow it to end there. Instead, God is going to start all over again and court her as if they were just meeting for the first time! He will bring her back to the place where they first fell in love–the wilderness of Sinai. And He will do everything in His power to restore the relationship to even better things than before.

Here’s the point that is significant for us. In Hosea’s prophecy of the Exile and the Return, he uses the language of the Exodus, the language of Egypt and the wilderness. There is no hint here of Babylon or the Euphrates River. In other words, God describes the exile to Babylon in terms of the Exodus from Egypt. He uses the language of the past to describe the future.

So we can add a sixth principle of prophetic interpretation to the five that we discovered earlier in this series. When the writing prophets of the Old Testament speak of the Exile and of the return from Babylon, they tend to use the language of the Exodus. But here the language of the past is not used to describe the present, but the future. God prophesies the Exile in the language of the Exodus. Or to put it more generally: Prophets use the language of the past to describe the future.