Today's reading continues the theme of God's judgment. It begins by mentioning the turning to God of those who had not thought of Him before and were ready to rely on anything at all except Him (vv. 1-3). But on closer inspection, this turning, as we see, proved rather superficial (vv. 3-5). In principle the situation described can be considered typical: many remember God only when it becomes clear to them that no one and nothing else is able to help. And when help is received, they just as easily forget God, hoping that they will never again have to find themselves in such a position, that what happened to them was something exceptional, the kind of thing that happens to a person once in a lifetime, and even then not to everyone, but only to those especially unlucky.
But such an attitude toward God is usually characteristic of unbelieving people, or of people who do not think about God, those who in days of prosperity hardly remember Him. In Hosea's preaching, however, the matter concerns believers, or at any rate those who considered themselves such. They, at least, should in no way have forgotten God; they should not have waited for a critical situation in order to remember Him.
Why, then, do these religious people in practice behave the same way as unbelievers? The prophet's reminder of the priorities of spiritual life can serve as an answer to the question (v. 6). Hosea, of course, is not speaking here against sacrifice as such. He only reminds them that if there is no mercy in that capacious sense in which the prophet uses the corresponding Hebrew word, sacrifice loses its spiritual meaning. For originally sacrifice was nothing other than a form of communion with God, a shared meal of God and people, which is impossible without mercy, and therefore without the fullness of trust in the Most High. Spiritual life presupposes relationship above all, whether a person's relationship with God or with neighbor. If there is no trust in God, sacrifice ceases to be a spiritual event and becomes only a religious obligation, which, like any religious obligation, can be performed purely mechanically.
Moreover, sacrifice understood in this way easily turned into a kind of tribute that the people paid to God, expecting in return something which, as it seemed to them, they now had the right to demand according to the covenant they had made, and above all, of course, earthly prosperity. And when it disappeared, interest in God disappeared with it, in the God who could not or would not provide such prosperity. Then began the search for something or someone that could guarantee this prosperity independently of God, on whom, as it seemed to the seekers, one could not rely. Thus distrust of God destroys relationship with Him and leads a person first to religious formalism, and then to open paganism.
