Hosea 5:15

"I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me earnestly."

"I will return to my place ..." This actually continues the metaphor of the lion returning to his den with the prey, after he has made the kill; and it is used here to indicate that God will leave Israel, that is, hide his face from them, instead of protecting and blessing them as previously. It is wrong to interpret this verse as if it taught that God was, in any sense, restricted to some particular location. The continuation of the metaphor in this verse (from Hosea 5:14) also nullifies the findings of those scholars who would like to disconnect it from Hosea 5, and put it in Hosea 6. It is exactly where it belongs. McKeating objected, saying, "Hosea 15 does not follow naturally on Hosea 5:14, but makes a good introduction to the little psalm in Hosea 6:1-3."[33] Harper also failed to see the lion returning to his den here, stating that, "This is not the figure of the lion returning to his den";[34] significantly, however, he supported the assertion with no proof.

The failure to see the metaphor of the lion going back to his den in this passage leads to all kinds of erroneous and bizarre notions about alleged beliefs of the Hebrew prophets who are accused of believing that God actually had some place, or location, where he could "hide" from men, and that men could actually "search" for him in some literal sense. No! God's going away, and "returning" to "his place" must be explained metaphorically; and that metaphor begins in Hosea 5:14 and is continued here in the sense of the lion going back to his lair.

"In their affliction, they will seek me earnestly ..." This prophecy was surely fulfilled upon the ultimate return of some of the captives following the end of the southern Israel's captivity; but, as regards the northern Israel, there is no promise here that their entreaties would be heard. As a matter of fact, they were not heard; and the whole people disappeared forever. Significantly, the promise that God would hear those earnest entreaties is conspicuously absent from this verse.

"I will return ... till ..." The dual use of the term "till" in the Bible should be carefully observed. It is used in two senses: (1) to indicate duration without regard to any sense of termination, as when Jacob said, "Thy servants have been keepers of cattle till this day," meaning not at all that the Jews were that day going out of the cattle business; and (2) in the sense of duration with an implied termination of it, as when Matthew wrote concerning Joseph and Mary that, "He knew her not till she brought forth a son, and called his name Jesus" (Matthew 1:25). The passage before us, like the one in Romans 11:25, is enigmatical, in the sense that men cannot tell which usage of the word "till" appears in either passage.