One of the most touching love stories in all the Bible is found in Hosea. A young prophet is just starting out and looking for a nice girl - a virgin if you will - to walk with him through his ministry...and the Word of the Lord comes to him and tells him to go and marry a PROSTITUTE. Of all the young girls to choose from in Judea, he's told to marry the worst kind of all. But, God has reasons, many of which He keeps to Himself.
So, he marries Gomer, and gives her his good name, and a good home, and the love of a good husband...despite the fact that he is keenly aware that tongues from the coasts of Lebanon to the mountains of Ararat were wagging. "Well, well,chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild....did you hear about that preacher who married a PROSTITUTE???!!!"
She settles down well and eventually bears him children...but after a while, she starts feeling the pull of her old life...and decides to turn her back on a good man like so many women do today, and turn back to her old trade in flesh. She goes back to her old lovers and leaves Hosea devastated with his heart all broken in pieces.
Read it in there. He tells his children to go to her, tell her that he still loves her and for her to come back home. And after a time, he hears that she's fallen on hard times and is to be sold as a slave at auction.
Now, if Hosea were anything like most men, he would have said, "
GOOD...SHE MADE HER BED HARD, NOW LET HER LIE IN IT." And while he was, perhaps, tempted with that, the Word of the Lord once again comes to him and says, "Hosea, I want you to go down to that auction...and when the bidding starts, I want you to bid on her...and no one must outbid you, so take PLENTY money with you." So, Hosea goes down to the auction and as the bidding starts, that miserable filthy woman in tattered soiled clothes with her dirty hair all fallen down to hide her shameful face hears a familiar voice...she brushes it aside and looks out in the crowd to see her faithful husband trying to outbid all those other men...men who would force themselves on her and abuse her terribly. Each time they raise the bid, Hosea voice is heard again and again. Eventually, the auctioneer says, "Going once.....going twice....SOLD TO THAT PREACHER OVER THERE."
And after payment is made and the transaction complete, Hosea walks up to Gomer and he reaches a hand out to her. He doesn't grab her roughly and drag her away in her shame...but with a smile, he puts a loving arm around her and gently leads her down off the auction block and they turn their steps and start back toward their home.
And then God says to Hosea,
"I WANT YOU TO TELL ISRAEL THAT THAT'S THE WAY I AM! TELL THEM I STILL LOVE THEM! TELL THEM TO TURN BACK UNTO ME, FOR I AM MARRIED UNTO YOU! TELL THEM TO TURN AWAY FROM THEIR SINS AND TURN BACK TO ME I WILL FORGIVE THEM FREELY!
(Yeah, sure, it's not word for word
but if you look with the eye of faith, you can see that every bit of it is right there in what is perhaps one of the most poignant love stories ever told.)