You Have Hewn the Man I Would Become
I have come to love the prophets. At first, I loved them because they contain some of God’s most wonderful expressions of love for his people and because they foreshadow Christ. But now, I love them for another reason. Actually, I love them now for something I used to dislike about them. I still love them for expressing God’s love and for foreshadowing Christ, and most deeply for those reasons, but now I love them because they lay the ax to the foot of a tree that must not grow–or if it has grown, it’s a tree that must be cut down. Against my natural inclinations, I love them now because in their writings, God expresses his sharp displeasure with the dark things threatening to grow in me.
This seed was planted recently while reading the prophet Hosea. In chapter 6, God tells Israel that their love “is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away” (v. 4). “Therefore,” he says, “I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (v. 5). How interesting–God’s own commentary on the harsh tones used in the prophetic writings.
I must admit, I had to look up the definition of the word “hewn.” According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, hew means “[to] chop or cut (something, especially wood or coal) with an axe, pick, or other tool.” That’s what God does through the prophets. Let me reiterate, I used to dislike this about them. I didn’t like to read through lengthy passages where God expresses his wrath to a wayward people. It often felt like overkill, or at least irrelevant to those who are earnestly seeking God. Yet, this picture of an ax cutting down a tree of evaporated love so that “love” and “knowledge of God” might grow in its place, changed my perspective.
I am a tree, and I want to bear good fruit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). I certainly don’t want my love for God and people to be like the fog and dew that evaporates by noon. I don’t want to become a tree of evaporated love that bears no fruit or sickly fruit. I want “love” and “knowledge of God.” Therefore, the harshest words of the prophets have become beautiful poetry to me, because the best poetry does something, shifts something inside us, by helping us see more clearly.
It was always obvious how the expressions of God’s love in the prophets changed me positively. Those words comfort me and help me feel the reality that God is kind. However, it's not always so obvious how spending a portion of my day reading expressions of God’s wrath toward sin changes me positively. But now I realize that as I read of God’s displeasure against the greedy, the ax falls on the root of selfishness growing in the soil of my heart before it can grasp at the throat of the vulnerable; as I read of God’s displeasure against drunkenness, the ax falls on the root of escapism during the first note of its siren song; as I read of God’s displeasure against adultery, the ax falls on the root of lust that ruins marriages.
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the words of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6). If you want to be loved by a true friend, read the prophets. In them, God will kiss you–yes, he will. But he will also wound you, because he loves you. If you are a tree of evaporated love, he will cut you down to let a healthy tree grow. If you are already seeking him, his ax will prune you. “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hos. 6:1).
