Wickedness in Gilgal – Hosea 9:15a

All their wickedness is in Gilgal:
Hosea 9:15a

When Israel first entered into the Promised Land, they would pitch at a place which would take it’s name from what happened there as a result: Gilgal. It was here in Gilgal that all the men who had not been circumcised as a result of the wilderness journey and rebellion, thus theoretically not part of the Abrahamic covenant, would be circumcised. It was a pivotal and critical point in the history of the nation as they prepared to take on their enemies round about.

The name Gilgal would come from this renewal of the covenant, meaning, ‘a wheel, rolling’, that is, to roll away, for in the renewal of the covenant, there was a rolling away of the reproach of Egypt (figuratively, the world). (Joshua 5:9)

Flash forward several hundred years, and as God looks upon the state of the nation, He decries the evil with this statement: All their wickedness is in Gilgal.

In the place that there was meant to be revival, instead, evil. Where the reproach was rolled away, it had now returned with far more than was there before. Oh the tragedy, that the place that was named for the rolling away of reproach would instead become a place of great reproach.

Is it possible that there are places in our lives that ought to be holy places, but instead, they become unholy? Is it possible that in the places of our lives that we ought to be cleansing ourselves, we instead are polluting the temple? Is it possible that in the place that we ought to worship God, we instead worship devils?

May our Gilgal, may the place where our reproach is rolled away continue to be a place that is rolled away.

May it never be said that we tasted of the world to come, but then turned our back on it.