“You did not come back to me.”

(Amos 4:10)

Problems can arise even in Christian marriages, for example if the husband spends too much time on congregation matters of if the wife spends too much money on witnessing cases. But God “knows better than anyone else the way to a happy family life. And He has put the key at our fingertips in … the Bible.” (Kingdom News No. 32, page 2) Husbands whose wives committed adultery can follow Jehovah’s example, for “although Jehovah honorably fulfilled his role as Husband, the nation of Israel became an unfaithful wife.” (The Watchtower, August 1, 1995, page 10) How did Jehovah try to save his marriage with the nation of Israel?

Looking back over this time, he said: “I … caused a lack of bread in all your houses; but you did not come back to me … I also withheld rain from you three months before the harvest … I struck you with scorching heat and mildew … The locust would devour your fig trees and olive trees; and you still did not come back to me … I sent among you a pestilence … With the sword I killed your young men and captured your horses. I made the stench of your camps rise up into your nostrils; but you did not come back to me.” (Amos 4:6-10) Jehovah spared no effort to regain the love of his unfaithful “wife” – he struck the Israelites with famines, bad harvests, epidemics, poverty, death and many other plagues.

Christian husbands of today can do the same. They could cage unfaithful wives, withhold food and drink from them, or intentionally give them foul or poisoned food so that they get sick. As the ultimate measure they could kill their wives and hope that in the resurrection they will feel their “first love” again. (Revelation 2:4, NASB) But what if a wife does not respond to these loving measures?

In that case Christian men should consider that the same happened to Jehovah. He brought ever stronger diseases and plagues over his wifelike people – “but you did not come back to me.” (Amos 4:10) “Jehovah, in effect, divorced himself from the nation” of Israel when he realized that his marriage was beyond remedy (Awake!, February 8, 1994, page 21) Christian husbands can do the same and so “become imitators of God.” – Ephesians 5:1.