CHART I

THE TWELVE (12) MINOR PROPHETS ARE:

A. PRE-EXILEB.C.Contemp. Kings

1) Hosea785-725Jeroboam

2) Joel800Jehoash

3) Amos797-787Jeroboam II

4) Obadiah887-885

5) Jonah862Jotham, Ahaz

6) Micah750-710Hezekiah

7) Nahum713Manasseh

8) Habbakkuk626Jehoiakim

9) Zephaniah630Josiah

B. POST-EXILE

1) Haggai520

2) Zechariah520-487

3) Malachi394

HOSEA-the BOOK (14 chapters)

(Three logical divisions)

I. His Unfaithful (prodigal wife), ch. 1-3

II. The Unfaithful (prodigal) People (Israel) ch. 4-13

III.. Their Judgment and Future Glory, ch. 13:9-14:9

INTRODUCTION TO MINOR PROPHETS

A. (The 16 writing Prophets)

In addition to the twelve minor prophets there were four major prophets who wrote five books of the Old Testament. However, the terms “major” and “minor” are used as arbitrary and accommodating terms. One is not major over or minor to another in the sense of trustworthiness or position of Divine trust. Each of these prophets spoke as he was “moved by” the Holy Spirit, without error, in speaking or writing his message from God, Psa 119:160, 2Pe 1:21. Each of these prophets, and each of their prophetic books, presented Jesus Christ as the coming hope and power of their message, as attested, Act 10:43, Rev 19:10, which asserts “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

B. The Divine Covenants and Prophecy

Most Old Testament prophecy revolves around four Covenants which God made with Israel, each of which involved three things:

1) A Land.

2) A Seed.

3) A Blessings.

The four covenants are:

1) The Abrahamic (seed) covenant, Gen 12:1-3; Gen 22:15-18.

2) The Palestinian (land-grant) covenant, Gen 13:14-18; Gen 15:18; Deu 30:1-10.

3)The Davidic king covenant, 2Sa 7:8-17; Psa 89:3-4; Luk 1:32-33.

4) The New Covenant, Jer 31:31-34, (Blessing).

God’s promise to Abraham of a “land”, a “seed”, and a “blessing’ were promised as unconditional gifts, sure and everlasting. Because of Israel’s repeated failures and sins God gave to her the Mosaic Law. It was given to 1) show how bad sin was, before God, and 2) to direct Israel to salvation and holiness in life, and 3) to point to the Redeemer He would one day send to atone for the sins of all who trusted in Him, Act 10:43; Gal 3:14; Gal 3:24.

C. Assured Fulfillment

Israel has not yet come into full possession of the land-grant

God promised her. But trustworthy prophecy still stands, to affirm

that Jesus literally, as the “seed” of Abraham, and of David, will

one day establish an “everlasting kingdom” and an “eternal

throne” for the “eternal king” who will reign over the house of Israel forever. For “the, testimony of Jesus is (exists as) the Spirit of Prophecy “from the beginning” and “can not be broken.” Jesus is that “seed” of the woman, “seed” of Abraham, “seed” of David, and the “seed”, or only begotten of the Holy Spirit, who shall fulfill the promised blessings of God to Israel in’ Redemption, Restoration, and Reigning one day, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, forever! See Gen 15:18; Psa 89:3-4; Luk 1:32-33; Psa 119:60; Joh 10:35; Rev 19:10 b.

To this end, Hosea, and each of the minor prophets, directs his message of sin, judgment, redemption, and restoration blessings to Israel.

HOSEA – THE INTRODUCTION

WHO SPEAKS?

Hosea was the writer of this book. His name means “Salvation, Redemption, or Deliverance,” even as Joshua’s original name had meant the same, Deu 32:44. His name is also the same as that of the last king of Israel, 2 Kings 17; 2 Kings 16. Hosea’s father’s name was Beeri, which means “an expositor”, Hos 1:1. Beyond this nothing is known of his parents.

However, a more complete description of his home life is given in chapters 1-3, than that of any other prophet. This record of his prostitute wife and problems with his children is used to reflect the apostate, rebellious, insolent, and adulterous condition of God’s chosen people, Israel, at that time. This record recounts and affirms God’s continuous love for people in spite of their moral, ethical, and spiritual infidelity toward Him.

TO WHOM?

The weight of Hosea’s message is addressed to Israel, or to the ten northern tribes, then constituting the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The two tribes of Benjamin and Judah were then known as the Southern Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Judah; It adhered to the family of David. “Israel”, as used by Hosea, means the ten northern tribes. While “Israel” when referred to by the Lord as “my people” refers to Israel, as a nation, inclusive of the twelve tribes, Gen 12:2-3; 1Ki 12:1-21; Rom 11:26.

ABOUT WHAT?

The message of the prophet Hosea may be summed up in three parts:

1) First, the apostate, adulterous infidelity of His chosen people, Israel as pictured in His call upon Hosea, His prophet, to marry a prostitute wife; Who would bear him rebellious children, to set forth a picture of Israel, God’s wife, in her Spiritual rebellion and covenant-breaking infidelity toward Him, chapters 1-3 and Jer 3:6-14.

2) Second, there is a warning of coming chastisement or judgment from God upon this apostate, adulterous, idolatrous Israel, who is called God’s wife; Such pending judgment is designed to call her back to a state of fidelity, in love toward Him, because He loves her still, Hosea Ch. 4-13:8.

3) Third, the message is one of hope and assurance, that because of God’s covenant of Grace, for Abraham’s sake, Israel will find restoration to God’s favor, and ultimately be a glory to Him, Hosea Ch. 13:9-14:9.

Hosea was the first pre-exile evangelist-prophet of grace to Israel. His three-fold message, as given above, is quoted or alluded to five times in the New Testament; Mat 2:15; Mat 9:13; Rom 9:25-26; 1Co 15:55; 1Pe 2:10.

WHEN?

The book was written covering a period of about 60 years, 785 to 725 B.C. by Hosea, during the reign of Jeroboam 11, grandson of Jehu, in Israel. It was also during the times of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah in Judah, Hos 1:1. This preceded the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel, which occurred during Hezekiah’s reign in Judah, 721 B.C.

Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah and Micah of Judah, Isa 1:1; Mic 1:1; and Amos in Israel, Amo 1:1.

WHAT WAS THE OCCASION?

The occasion of the Book of Hosea was to show the tender heart of a loving Jehovah-God for His chosen wife-nation, and that after she had suffered His chastisement, He purposed to receive her again, in spite of her former infidelity toward Him.

PART II

HOSEA —Part I Chapters 1-3.

This first Division of Hosea considers Israel as a prodigal or prostitute wife who belongs to God, to whom God has sent a message by the mouth and life of Hosea.

Historically, literally, and factually it recounts Hosea’s personal, marital, and family life as God’s prophet. Prophetically, it projects or pictures God’s love for Israel, in spite of her moral, ethical, spiritual, and marital infidelity toward Him. This first division, covering the first three chapters, sets forth the message of the entire book in which the low moral state of Israel is set forth with rebuke and judgment warnings of coming sufferings. It is then followed by calming assurance of future blessings and glory for Israel.

HOSEA —PART II, Chapter 4-13:8.

This second Division of Hosea describes Israel at length, as God’s prodigal, prostitute, or harlot wife, as also described by Jer 3:6-14. This division of Hosea begins “hear the word of the Lord ye children of Israel,” Hos 4:1. Hosea then cries, the Word of the Lord’s complaint against Israel’s moral corruption, political decay, and spiritual judgment upon Ephraim, (the house of Israel) and upon Judah, yet pointed to a time of their repentance and return to the Lord, Hos 4:5; Hos 4:15; Hos 6:1-3, etc.

HOSEA —PART III, Chapters 13:9-14:9.

This third Division of Hosea points to further judgment, and a time of restoration through the promised seed, to the promised land, with assurance of promised blessings.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

1) Who Hosea was,v.1

2) Hosea’s marriage and the birth of Jezreel, v. 2-

3) The birth of Lo-ruhamah, v. 6, 7

4) The birth of Lo-ammi, v. 8, 9

5) Future blessings and restoration of Israel, v. 10, 11

Chapter 2

1) Chastisement of adulterous Israel, v. 1-13

2) The adulterous Israel, God’s wife to be restored, v. 14-23

Chapter 3

1) Hosea called to love and marry an adulterous woman,

v.1-3

2) Israel’s kingdom to be put away, later restored, v. 4, 5

Chapter 4

1) The grave charge against Israel, v. 1-5

2) Israel’s willful, obstinate ignorance, v. 6-11

3) Her marriage to idolatry, vs. 12-19

Chapter 5

1) Israel, Ephraim, and Judah to fall because of idolatry, v.1-5

2) Mercy withdrawn and judgment to follow all, v. 6-15

Chapter 6

1) Israel’s decision in the last days, v. 1-3

2) Jehovah’s response to Ephraim, Judah, and Israel’s cry, v.4-11

Chapter 7

1) Jehovah’s continued exposure of their extended whoredom, v.1-7

2) The deceitful, half-hearted cry of Ephraim, v. 8-16

Chapter 8

1) Why judgment lingers, v. 1-6

2) Reaping because of wicked seed-sowing in Israel and Judah,

v.7-14

Chapter 9

1) When pay-day comes in Egypt and Memphis, v. 1-72) Why Ephraim, Judah, and Israel were cast from God, v.8-17

Chapter 10

1) What Israel and Ephraim are like in captivity, v. 1-11

2) The call to repentance, v. 12-15

Chapter 11

1) Israel loved in, called from, and led out of Egypt, v. 1-5

2) Delivered to Assyria, not Egypt, v..6-83) Survey of pre-captivity conditions in Israel, Ephraim, and Judah, v. 9-12

Chapter l2

1) Ephraim’s vanity, feeding on the east wind, v. 1-82) Jehovah provoked to judgment for Ephraim’s willful

contempt toward Him, v. 9-14

Chapter 13

1) Jehovah’s judgment warnings concluded, v. 1-8

2) Hope, help, and restoration found in Jehovah, v. 9-16

Chapter 14

1) Seeking the Lord in earnest penitence, v. 1-6

2) Divine mercy, help, and glory returns to Israel, v. 7-9

HOSEA – CHAPTER 1

Verses 1-5:

Comments:

V. 1, Hosea claimed direct inspiration in what he received, spoke, and wrote from the Lord during his prophetic ministry, in the days of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah and one king of Israel, Jeroboam, the son of Joash. He was the son of Beeri, a native of Israel, of whom nothing more is known, 2Pe 1:21; Psa 119:160. These were dark days of idolatry, political anarchy, threatened judgment, and little success in Israel, Amo 7:10; Amo 7:12.

V. 2 describes the Lord’s call to Hosea to take to himself a wife from among the morally debauched women of Israel’s whoredoms, from among prostitutes, and to bear children through her, because Israel had joined herself to the whoredoms of idolatry and debased His name, His people, and His Laws. This union was to show Israel’s fallen condition.

V. 3 Explains Hosea’s obedience in taking a debased woman, named Gomer (which means “Complete”). She was the daughter of Diblaim, meaning “two cakes”. She conceived and bare to Hosea a son named Jezreel, which means “God scatters”.

V. 4, 5 Further assert that the Lord would avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, causing the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease in this lineage of Ahab, 2Ki 10:1-14. This final breaking of the bow was to be and did occur in the valley of Jezreel.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

This first verse shows the time in which Hosea prophesied. He names four kings of Judah, — Uzziah, Jotham, Ahab, Hezekiah. Uzziah, called also Azariah, reigned fifty-two years; but after having been smitten with leprosy, he did not associate with men, and abdicated his royal dignity. Jotham, his son, succeeded him. The years of Jotham were about sixteen, and about as many were those of king Ahab, the father of Hezekiah; and it was under king Hezekiah that Hosea died. If we now wish to ascertain how long he discharged his office of teaching, we must take notice of what sacred history says, — Uzziah began to reign in the twenty seventh year of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. By supposing that Hosea performed his duties as a teacher, excepting a few years during the reign of Jeroboam, that is, the sixteen years which passed from the beginning of Uzziah’s reign to the death of Jeroboam, he must have prophesied thirty-six years under the reign of Uzziah. There is, however, no doubt but that he began to execute his office some years before the end of Jeroboam’s reign.

Here, then, there appear to be at least forty years. Jotham succeeded his father, and reigned sixteen years; and though it be a probable conjecture, that the beginning of his reign is to be counted from the time he undertook the government, after his father, being smitten with leprosy, was ejected from the society of men, it is yet probable that the remaining time to the death of his father ought to come to our reckoning. When however, we take for granted a few years, it must be that Hosea had prophesied more than forty-five years before Ahab began to reign. Add now the sixteen years in which Ahab reigned and the number will amount to sixty-one. There remain the years in which he prophesied under the reign of Hezekiah. It cannot, then, be otherwise but that he had followed his office more than sixty years, and probably continued beyond the seventieth year.

It hence appears with how great and with how invincible courage and perseverance he was endued by the Holy Spirit. But when God employs our service for twenty or thirty years we think it very wearisome, especially when we have to contend with wicked men, and those who do not willingly undertake the yoke, but pertinaciously resist us; we then instantly desire to be set free, and wish to become like soldiers who have completed their time. When therefore, we see that this Prophet persevered for so long a time, let him be to us an example of patience so that we may not despond, though the Lord may not immediately free us from our burden.

Thus much of the four kings whom he names. He must indeed have prophesied (as I have just shown) for nearly forty years under the king Uzziah or Azariah, and then for some years under the king Ahab, (to omit now the reign of Jotham, which was concurrent with that of his father,) and he continued to the time of Hezekiah: but why has he particularly mentioned Jeroboam the son of Joash, since he could not have prophesied under him except for a short time? His son Zachariah succeeded him; there arose afterward the conspiracy of Shallum, who was soon destroyed; then the kingdom became involved in great confusion; and at length the Assyrian, by means of Shalmanazar, led away captive the ten tribes, which became dispersed among the Medes. As this was the case, why does the Prophet here mention only one king of Israel? This seems strange; for he continued his office of teaching to the end of his reign and to his death. But an answer may be easily given: He wished distinctly to express, that he began to teach while the state was entire; for, had he prophesied after the death of Jeroboam, he might have seemed to conjecture some great calamity from the then present view of things: thus it would not have been prophecy, or, at least, this credit would have been much less. “He now, forsooth! divines what is, evident to the eyes of all.” For Zachariah flourished but a short time; and the conspiracy alluded to before was a certain presage of an approaching destruction, and the kingdom became soon dissolved. Hence the Prophet testifies here in express words, that he had already threatened future vengeance to the people, even when the kingdom of Israel flourished in wealth and power, when Jeroboam was enjoying his triumphs, and when prosperity inebriated the whole land.

This, then, was the reason why the Prophet mentioned only this one king; for under him the kingdom of Israel became strong, and was fortified by many strongholds and a large army, and abounded also in great riches. Indeed, sacred history tells us, that God had by Jeroboam delivered the kingdom of Israel, though he himself was unworthy, and that he had recovered many cities and a very wide extent of country. As, then, he had increased the kingdom, as he had become formidable to all his neighbours, as he had collected great riches, and as the people lived in ease and luxury, what the Prophet declared seemed incredible. “Ye are not,” he said, “the people of the Lord; ye are adulterous children, ye are born of fornication.” Such a reproof certainly seemed not seasonable. Then he said, “The kingdom shall be taken from you, destruction is nigh to you.” “What, to us? and yet our king has now obtained so many victories, and has struck terror into other kings.” The kingdom of Judah, which was a rival, being then nearly broken down, there was no one who could have ventured to suspect such an event.

We now, then, perceive why the Prophet here says expressly that he had prophesied under Jeroboam. He indeed prophesied after his death, and followed his office even after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, but he began to teach at a time when he was a sport to the ungodly, who exalted themselves against God, and boldly despised his threatening as long as he spared and bore with them; which is ever the case, as proved by the constant experience of all ages. We hence see more clearly with what power of the Spirit God had endued the Prophet, who dared to rise up against so powerful a king, and to reprove his wickedness, and also to summon his subjects to the same judgement. When, therefore, the Prophet conducted himself so boldly, at a time when the Israelites were not only sottish on account of their great success, but also wholly insane, it was certainly nothing short of a miracle; and this ought to avail much to establish his authority. We now then, see the design of the inscription contained in the first verse. It follows —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

HOSEAOR GODS AFFECTION FOR AN UNFAITHFUL PEOPLE

Hos 1:1 to Hos 14:9.

IT is our purpose in this series of articles on the Minor Prophets to throw such light upon these twelve Books as to make them meaningful and profitable to our readers. I suppose it may be safely said that the average Christian leaves these Books unstudied, and some of them unreada circumstance due to certain natural difficulties in their interpretation; but in greater measure still, to the poor work of present-day preaching. The custom of taking a text has wrought havoc in Bible study. Our fathers in the ministry were Bible expositors; their successors are textual preachers. The result is described in one of the minor Prophets:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the Words of the Lord:

And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it (Amo 8:11-12).

There are some simple and yet fundamental facts regarding the prophecy of Hosea that are essential to its proper understanding. It was doubtless written by the man whose name it wears. It refers, unquestionably, to the time of Jeroboam the Second, when Elisha, the Prophet of God, was living, and Isaiah, that great Evangel of the Old Testament, was a babe; and when those kings of Judah Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiahwere successively occupying the throne. The date is supposed to be 790 to 725 B. C.

Hosea was the great Evangel of his time. While he was an Elijah the Tishbite, in his stern denunciation of sin, he was a John the Apostle in his sense of Divine love and his eloquent call to repentance.

Some of the Books of the Bible break easily into divisions, and some of the students of Hosea have seen fit to divide it into two such. But our research does not justify the method. To us it is one grand whole, with not a break in thought from first to last. It is a recital of Israels history in her unfaithfulness, and an illustration of Gods goodness to His own people.

For our convenience, however, we divide it into four sections.

THE SYMBOLISM OF GOMERS SIN

And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim (Hos 8:2-3).

These opening sentences of Hosea have given no small trouble to students. Some have received it historically; while others have insisted that God could not send the Prophet on any such mission, without Himself being a party to sin; and so have attempted to interpret it as a dream or vision. Following the custom which we have found alone to be safe, we believe with those who accept the Book at what it says. And yet we have not found the question involved so difficult of solution as some. When it is remembered that the whole people of Israel had already turned to idolatry, we can understand that any daughter selected from them could be spoken of in this language, since the charge of whoredom, with the false gods of the land, lay against every son and daughter of Israel. And even when the narrative seems to specifically charge this woman with this sin, it does not necessitate Gods participation in evil because He sends Hosea to wed her. You will see, ere the history ends, she is won to a righteous life again. So the Prophet is to her what he has become to all IsraelGods agent of salvation. But her sin is symbolical.

It was a sin against law and love. The seventh commandment antedated Hosea and stood as a protest against the violation of that relation which husband and wife sustain to one another, as the whole decalogue stands as Gods protest against the violation of the relation which He and His people sustain to each other. When, therefore, Gomer forgets the law and despises the love of Hosea, she fitly represents the conduct of the whole kingdom in forgetting Gods Law and despising the Divine love. The man who, today, living under the reign of grace, disregards the moral Law and tramples it beneath his feet with impunity, is guilty of a crime of the first magnitude. But the man who adds to that an equal disregard of the Divine love takes the last step needful in the contemplation of his folly and the sealing of his fate.

Paul wrote to the Hebrews:

If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the Truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses;

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith he wets sanctified, an holy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I wilt recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people (Heb 10:26-30).

This sin was again symbolical in that it was against good society.

The moment the foundations of domestic life are undermined the whole fabric of society is endangered. When lust assaults the home it strikes the essential pillar of the State. And when it overrides the law and love of domestic relation, it leaves desolation in its track and brings in a dark day for the people. When such a sin as this can be found in the first houses the very nation has fallen. Dr. Talmage said truly enough that where there is no pure home there are the Vandals and the Goths of Europe; the Numidians of Africa, and the Nomads of Asia. No home, no school; no household, no republic; no family, no church.

But Gomers sin became more significant still, God made it to be a sorrowful instruction! Strange as it seems, it is yet probably according to the natural law in the spiritual world that Gods spokesmen must be sufferers. It was only after the iron had entered Moses soul as he watched the oppression of his own people from his position in the palace, and by his enforced exile spent forty years on the back side of the desert that he was eloquent as Israels leader. Joshua was fitted by forty years of wilderness wandering for his great work of commanding Israel and conquering Canaan.

But no man could read this Book of Hosea without feeling that its authorour Prophethad suffered probably as much as either of these great predecessors. Joseph Parker says, Hoseas sorrow was of the deepest kind. The daughter of Diblaim was the daughter of the devil. He had no peace, no rest, no singing joy within the four corners of his own house. He lived in clouds; his life was a continual passage through a sea deeper than the Red Sea. If we may vary the figure, his wandering was in the wilderness, unblessed; cursed by the very spirit of desolation.

And yet we do believe that strong natures have the very power to transmute their sorrows into eloquent appeals for righteousness; that the very intensity of their suffering adds solidity to their thought and eloquence to its utterance. We seriously doubt if Hoseas wife had not been a scarlet woman, as she was, whether he could ever have properly sympathized with God, the Father, in that Israel turned from Him to moral infidelity, by worshiping at false shrines and living wicked, sensual lives.

John Bright, that marvelous leader of thought in England, started on his career of splendid service in consequence of an unspeakable sorrow. His young wife, to whom he was devoted, lay dead when Richard Cobden called on him. Having expressed, as best he could, sympathy and condolence, Cobden looked up and said, Bright, there are thousands and thousands of homes in England, at this moment, where wives and mothers and children are dying of hunger. Now when the first paroxysm of your grief has passed, I would advise you to come with me and we will never rest until the corn-laws are repealed.

Cobden showed himself a philosopher that day. He knew full well that one way to recover from a personal pain was to take into ones heart as an antidote, the pain of the people.

You will remember what had more to do, perhaps, with the declaration of war with Spain than any other single thing, the destruction of the Maine excepted. It was Senator Thurstons speech. And how did it happen that this Nebraskan, who had never before been eloquent, spoke before the Senate of the United States with such an appeal as to move even opponents to agree with him? That speech opened in these words,

Mr. President: I am here by command of silent lips to speak once and for all upon the Cuban situation, and trust that no one has expected anything sensational from me. God forbid that the bitterness of a personal loss should induce me to color, in the slightest degree, the statements that I feel it my duty to make. I shall endeavor to be honest, conservative and just. Then he proceeded with such an oration as American law-makers of any decade seldom, if ever, heard. Concluding with these words, Mr. President, in the cable that moored me to life and hope the strongest strands are broken. I have but little left to offer at the altar of freedoms shrine. But all I have I am glad to give. I am ready to serve my country as best I can in the Senate or in the field. My dearest hope, my most earnest prayer to God is this, that when death comes to end all I may meet it calmly and fearlessly, as did my Beloved, in the cause of humanity, and under the American flag.

There is but one explanation of such an address as that. The eloquence of it was born of the sorrow of burying a beloved wife in Cuban soil, and feeling in his heart that the pain of the oppressed people of that land had been already the occasion of her death; and to relieve it, was worthy the laying down of his life.

The Psalmist said, I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good, and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue.

It was sorrow. It was that suffering that only a righteous man can feel when sinned against by her whom he loves most, that made Hosea understand the Divine Ones suffering in Israels sin, and adequate to its expression.

PHASES OF ISRAELS INFIDELITY

It found first expression in unwarranted forms. There seems to be a general agreement between students of Hosea that the groves and altars, when first chosen and erected, were unto the Lord. But it does not take long for them to go from unwarranted forms to open infidelity. God did not command any of these at their hands. Her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, became occasions of Baal-worship. Instead of saying any longer, Ishimy husband, they turned to say, Baalimy lord. It is the history of unwarranted forms in all ages.

When Christ came into the world He found the Church of the Old Testament cold in death, slain by the hands of ceremonialists,the Scribes and Pharisees of His time,who, with their hollow ritualism and hypocrisies, had driven many men to the infidelity of Sadduceeism; so that they said, There is neither angel nor spirit. Truly, as Frederick Robertson said,

No self-righteous formalism will ever satisfy the Conscience of man; neither will infidelity give rise to a devoted spirit. Formalism in religion and infidelity in conduct often go hand in hand.

Charles Dudley Warner tells us that after having traveled around the world he came back to Brindisi, Italy, a so-called Christian country, and entered a so-called Christian Church to see a figure of Christ, the Crucified One, set off in a dark corner with dust gathered on it, while a representation of Mary, the mother, clad with the latest mode of French millinery, flamed before an altar, and their knees bowed there.

It was little better than the Baal-worship of Hoseas time. And if Jesus should come to that church He would have occasion to utter the words which He once addressed to Scribes and Pharisees.

Thus have ye made the Commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me.

But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

This degenerate worship was popularized by priest and prince. By reading fourteen verses of the fifth chapter you will see they were its chief patrons. The Prophet of God addressed them Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye House of Israel. Then, after describing their participation in these false and foul ceremonies, he voices God as saying: I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the House of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away: I will take away; and none shall rescue him.

It is a sad day for the Church when the prince, or the man in the place of power, is putrid. It is a darker day when the priest, or the leader in the Church of God, is correspondingly corrupt. When the time came that Tetzel could sell indulgences, with the consent of the priesthood of Rome, the very moral rottenness existing in the Name of Jesus, compelled the Reformation, and gave rise to Luthers opinions, and victory to his appeal. And when, at the present time, a Pastor, either by evil practices, leads his people into iniquity, or by his silence concerning the commercial and other sins of those who contribute to his salary, connives at iniquity, the condition becomes akin to that which Hosea was raised up to rebuke nearly three thousand years ago. And the result for the present day will be the very same as that which came to the Israel of Hoseas time.

It produced the grossest idolatry and immorality.

There is not time to read to you these chapters,4 to 13,but if there were, the reading would only profit you by giving you pain as you looked upon Israels open sore.

It was this principle that Hosea saw and clearly stated so many, many centuries ago,namely, when men become lawless, and are libertines, they cannot hope to keep women upon a plane of chastity and holiness. God distinctly declares that He would not punish their daughters for their sins, in view of the conditions of society, for which priest, prince and peasant were responsible.

George Adam Smith reminds us that history in many periods has confirmed the justice of Hoseas observations, and by one strong voice after another, enforced his terrible warnings. The experience of ancient Persia and Egypt, the languor of the Greek cities, the deep weariness and sated lust which in Imperial Rome made human life a hell. It is only another illustration of the Apostle James words,When lust hath conceived, it bring eth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (Joe 1:15).

THE FOLLY WHICH INFIDELITY EFFECTS

There can be traced in this volume a striking parallelism between the conduct of the individual and of the nation. Gomers treatment of Hosea was Israels treatment of God.

There is a supreme insensibility to undeserved favor. The Prophet says, She did not know that I gave her corn, etc.

Insensibility to Divine favor has often marked the conduct of man. We easily forget that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights. We quickly attribute our blessings to our own ingenuity, to the bounty of nature, or to luck, and just as easily forget Godthe Giver of all. Strange isnt it that the one creature made in His image, endowed with the highest faculties, blessed of Him thousands of times beyond all other works of His hands, should be insensible to what he had received, and to what he is receiving, and know not God gave corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied * * silver and gold.

If this spirit were all in the world it were not so bad; but Gomer is the Prophets wife, and Israel is espoused of God; and this insensibility to Divine favor has smitten the Church, and her children forget Me, saith the Lord. Sam Jones had a man come to him who said, Jones, the church is putting my assessment too high. How much do you pay? asked Jones. Five dollars a year, was the reply. Well, said Jones, how long have you been converted? About four years. What did you do before you were converted? I was a drunkard. How much were you worth? I rented land, and was plowing with a steer. What have you got now? I have a good plantation and a pair of horses. Well, said Jones, you paid the devil two hundred and fifty dollars a year for the privilege of plowing a steer on rented land, and now you dont want to give the God who saved you five dollars a year for the privilege of plowing your own horses on your own plantation. Insensibility to Divine favor! Moses had occasion for that passage in his song, They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee, and established thee? (Deu 32:5-6).

They were slow to realize the Divine intent of judgment. After announcing His purpose in judgment, I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the House of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him (Hos 5:14). The Lord reveals His reasons by adding, I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early (Hos 5:15). Deliverance is always the Divine purpose in Gods judgments against His people. The Psalmist said, Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Thy Word. And it was only after the Lord had visited them with judgment that Israel could say, Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up (Hos 6:1).

But, like sinners of all ages, Ephraim must be smitten, her root dried up, so that they shall bear no fruit, and they realize themselves utterly cast away because they did not hearken unto the Lord. It is only after Israel hath destroyed herself that she realizes the source of life in God.

How strikingly this experience parallels that of weak men in all ages! Only when the prodigal, clothed in rags, starved to the point of sustenance on the honeysuckle, and sitting with the swine, does he come to himself. As a rule, the man that follows the lusts of the flesh, and goes the way of the libertine, or the drunkard, never sees the meaning of the Divine judgment until his sins have slain his manhood, wrecked his business, scattered his family, consumed his flesh, and left him as perfectly stranded as was ever a vessel when driven high upon the ragged rocks. It is amazing to study the folly of men who have departed from the Lord! Almost universally they are conceited up to the very day when they are undone. They think that they are going to recover themselves. Like Ephraim, strangers have devoured their strength, and they know it not: gray hairs are here and there upon them, and yet they know it not. They feed on the wind and follow after the east wind, and daily increase in desolation. They make a covenant with the Assyrians and boast their righteousness as Ephraim did, saying, In all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.

God can do nothing else with such men than to bring them low; nothing else than to whelm them with sorrow; nothing else than to strike them to the very earth with judgment; for they must be made to see that their condition is not due to circumstances, but to an evil spirit.

Dr. Chapman tells the story of a woman who was seated in Central Park, New York, with her little child playing about her. Suddenly the child was startled by the barking of a dog. In her frightened state she ran into her mothers arms. When the dog ceased his barking she said, Why are you frightened, dear; he is quiet? Oh, yes, I know, mamma; but the bark is still in him.

One thing always being said by unregenerate men is, If I could only remove to a new location; settle myself with new associates, and in new business employment, I would be all right. All right! And yet evil still in you! Better turn over to Gal 5:19-21, and read, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like What one needs is not a change of location, but a change of nature, so that the incoming of the Holy Spirit shall give you the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Such folly is followed only by shame and degradation. The tenth chapter of Hosea illustrates the consequences of Israels conduct.

Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.

Their heart is divided: now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.

For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us?

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shalt mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.

It shall be also carried into Assyria for a present to King Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.

As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.

O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.

It is in My desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.

And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.

Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.

Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shahnan spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.

So shall Beth-el do unto you because of your great wickedness; in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.

In conclusion we pass to

GODS AFFECTION FOR AN UNFAITHFUL PEOPLE

That affection was expressed in undeserved words and acts. God bares His heart here as He has often done before, crying,

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away (Hos 6:4),

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt,

I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.

I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them (Hos 11:1; Hos 11:3-4).

How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together.

I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city (Hos 11:8-9).

Beloved, one lesson that it seems difficult to learn is thisto remember the goodness of God. One should adopt the custom of thinking upon Divine favor. It is only as we forget the source of our blessings, of every good and perfect gift that we grow indifferent to the grace of our God.

Dr. Torrey says, I was talking one night to one who was apparently most indifferent and hardened. She told me the story of her sin, with seemingly very little sense of shame, and when I urged her to accept Christ, she simply refused. I put a Bible in her hands and asked her to read this verse. She began to read, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, and before she had finished reading the verse she had broken into tears, softened by the thought of Gods wondrous love to her.

It is a strange thing that more people dont answer temptation as did Joseph,How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

When God executes judgment it is commonly for the purpose of correction. Take the reference in this volume,

Therefore will I return, and take away My com in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will recover My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness,

And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of Mine hand,

I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them,

And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and for gat Me, saith the Lord (Hos 2:9-13).

What is the purpose? He immediately proceeds to tell us, Therefore(God never employs that word without occasionit is the great conjunction with Him.)

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her,

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt (Hos 2:14-15).

Beloved, there is a beneficent purpose when the fiery trial is on. The very whips with which He makes Israels back to bleed are not the expressions of His wrath; but, rather, of His love.

Henry Ward Beecher declares that his father used to make him believe that the end of the rod that he held in his hand was a great deal more painful than the end which he applied to Henry. And the great preacher says, It was a strange mystery to me; but I did believe it, and it seemed a great deal worse to me to be whipped on that account.

It ought to be so with the children of God. I once had in my church a woman who punished her children by vicarious suffering. When they misbehaved at the table she denied herself a meal, and she told me that it broke their hearts.

Would to God that we were as sensitive to the suffering which our sin imposes upon the Heavenly Father, and as sensible concerning the purpose which He has in visiting correction against our sins.

But, after all, God gave best evidence of His affection by,

Keeping for His people an open heart. I like to dwell on the last chapter of this Book,

O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; * *

Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously (Hos 14:1-2).

And I like to listen to Gods answer to this cry which He Himself seeks to put into their lips,

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away from him.

I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.

His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.

Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? (Hos 14:4-6; Hos 14:8).

It is a beautiful picture! It ought to encourage the children whose hearts have departed from the plain paths of privilege in Christ; it ought to incite hope in the heart of the individual who has played the prodigal and paid the penalty.

I like to reflect upon the words of that sweet-spirited man, F. B. Meyer, as he speaks of Gods attitude toward those who turn again to Him, saying,

Be sure that God will give you a hearty welcome. He has not given you up or ceased to love you. He longs for you. Read the last chapter of the Book of Hosea, which may be well called the backsliders gospel. Read the third chapter of Jeremiah, and let the plaintive pleadings to return soak into your spirit. Read the story of Peters fall and restoration, and let your tears fall thick and fast on John 21: as you learn how delicately the Lord forgave, and how generously He entrusted the backslider with His sheep and with His lambs. Be sure that though your repeated failures and sins have worn out every one else, they have not exhausted the infinite love of God. He tells us to forgive our offending brother unto four hundred and ninety times; how much oftener will He not forgive us? According to the height of heaven above the earth, so great is His mercy.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

HOMILETICS

THE FIRST COMMUNICATIONS.Hos. 1:1

I. The chosen servant.

1. His human descent. Son of B. The Jews say that the prophet whose father is named was the son of a prophet. Nothing recorded of Ber. Hosea dignified and distinguished not by noble birth nor worldly grandeur. Rank and riches are not moral worth. Life outlined by noble deeds; greatness acquired by religious service. Character in its noblest embodiments, exhibits the highest qualities, commands the greatest influence and admiration. Apostles of great thoughts and rulers of the human mind have sprung from no exclusive rank in life, but have been called from schools of the prophets and workshops of the poor.

2. His spiritual training. God spoke in Hosea; gave him knowledge and experience first, then commissioned him to teach others. Personal dedication before public duty; fellowship in private before reward in public. We must speak what we know; be blessed ourselves before we can bless others. This is a law of Christian economy. We can only teach others as we are taught ourselves. Our influence upon others must be measured by the Divine gifts within us. The best proof of Christianity is the energy with which we can Christianize. God bestows blessings not to nurse in our bosoms but to radiate in beneficent influence to others. I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

3. His outward call. Probably when a young man, and hence the length of his ministry. Samuel and Timothy given to God when young. Jeremiah consecrated from the womb. An honour and privilege to serve God in youth. Energy and enthusiasm are necessary as well as talent and experience. I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth.

II. The Divine message.

1. Its nature. A word, the expression of the mind and purpose of God. The power of a word to influence character and change the destinies of life. Words of monarchs have decided the fate of empires. The word of God, judgment or mercy, the message of life or death to a people. To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other of life unto life.

2. Its origin. The word of the Lord. Not by man nor from man, not self-originated; it was first Gods and then became the prophets. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. Men not left to their own devices and must not declare their own opinions. God finds the message and speaks with Divine certainty and authority. All teaching deserving the name comes to us not as the product of human thought but of the Holy Spirit. Preach the preaching I bid thee. The Bible is pre-eminently the prophetic word. Ye do well that ye take heed to it.

3. Its medium. Through Hosea. Gods message through men and to men. Man in his moral nature is renewed, elevated, and qualified to teach and bless a fallen people. This displays Divine wisdom and love, creates sympathy for our fellow-creatures, humanizes the Bible, and renders the gospel more charming and attractive.

III. The dark days.

1. Days of prevalent idolatry. The land hath committed whoredoms. Idolatry was made the national religion. The worship of Baal was a rival to the worship of God. Calf-worship led to sin, licentiousness and sensuality. The first in rank were first in excess. Sad when men of high position fall into vice! Now, even, men profess to own God, talk of nature and natural laws, yet forget God, or change their glory (i.e. their God) into the similitude of an ox, a man, a hero, or an abstract principle.

2. Days of political anarchy. Kings came to the throne by the murder of their predecessors and were in turn murdered by their successors. Military despotism disturbed the peace, and horrible slaughter stained the people of the land.

3. Days of threatened judgment. Hosea sent to urge to repentance, for captivity was imminent, certain, and irreversible; but God was forsaken, the nation was insensible of its moral and political decay, and judgments lost their terror. In spite of warning after warning the people sought to prop themselves up by alliance with Egypt and Assyria. When a nation is rotten at the core no outward power or splendour can prevent its decay. It carries within it the seeds of death. The sky grew darker and darker; the thunder at last resounded; calamities could not be averted; then judgments fell upon them without mercy in dispersion and destruction.

4. Days of little success. Israel was not converted but taken into captivity, yet Hosea laboured on year after year, through good and evil report (Amo. 7:10; Amo. 7:12). No abatement of his earnestness and efforts. He was faithful to his trust and to his God. It is often the lot of Gods servants to labour long and see little fruit. Isaiah cried, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain. We must be content to toil on and deliver our message to the greatest sinners in the darkest days, and feel like the prophet named, surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES

In the days of, Hos. 1:1.Hoseas ministry.

1. A type of Gods long-suffering and mercy; waiting long, sending prophets, and offering grace to a sinful people, until beyond the reach of mercy.

2. A type of service fixed in time and sphere, in chequered scenes and great discouragements. God gives to every servant his special place and peculiar gifts. In hope and humble confidence he must labour on.

The days of Jeroboam II., days of prosperity and political pre-eminence. He reigned 41 years; recovered lost cities (2Ki. 14:28; Amo. 1:3; Amo. 1:5); was victorious in war (2Ki. 13:4; 2Ki. 14:26); and enjoyed the teaching of Hosea, Joel (Joe. 3:16), Amos (Amo. 1:1), and Jonah (2Ki. 14:25). But idolatry was mixed with the worship of Jehovah; drunkenness and oppression prevailed in the country, and the prophets predicted its downfall.

1. Temporal prosperity is no guarantee for public morality. The kingdom, amid splendour and popularity, rotten at the core, decaying in vigour, and under the judgment of God.

2. Temporal prosperity is no security against public calamity. Temporal prosperity is no proof either of stability or of the favour of God. Where the law of God is observed, there, even amid the pressure of outward calamity, is the assurance of ultimate prosperity. Where God is disobeyed, there is the pledge of coming destruction. The seasons when men feel most secure against future chastisements, are often the preludes of the most signal revolutions [Pusey].

Kings rise and empires fall, but Gods purpose is the same; carried on through all times and by all agencies. Kings die and are buried in the dust; prophets live in all ages and rewarded in eternity. Monarchs have their times and their turns, their rise and their ruin [Trapp].

Men pass awaynotwithstanding wealth and talent. Nations pass awaynotwithstanding political power and military glory. God is eternal and carries on his work.

The perpetuity of truth. Although these kings successively appeared and passed away, the ministry of Hosea kept on.

1. The Word of the Lord is adapted to all generations. It is congruous with all intellects, it chimes in with all hearts, it provides for the common wants of all.

2. The Word of the Lord is necessary for all generations. All men in all ages and lands want it, it is as indispensable to their happiness as air is to their life. Generations may appear in the distant future, who may not require our forms of government, our social institutions, our artistic devices, our mechanical inventions, and who may despise our literary productions, but no generation will ever appear who will not require the Word of the Lord [Homilist].

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1

Our Age and Work, Hos. 1:1. Every great man is the son of his age, but not its pupil [Guesses at Truth]. The dream, the common mistake, of the present day, is the belief that a man cannot be useful and noble without great endowments and a grand sphere. If we had great opportunities, and great duties, we could do something in life, and make a mark after death. The littleness of our trust is often an excuse for its neglect, like the servant with one pound who hid his Lords money. But with moderate powers, in a small sphere, we may be faithful to duty, and secure our reward. We must live and act in the present; realize what God has given us to do to-day, and do not look beyond it. David after he had served his own generation, by the will of God, fell on sleep.

Mothers conduct. I am a missionary in my nursery, once observed a Christian mother. Six pair of little eyes are daily watching mammas looks, and listening to her words, and I wish my children never to see in me that which they may not imitate. The mother lives again, says Smiles, in her children. They unconsciously mould themselves after her manner, her speech, her conduct, and her method of life. Her habits become theirs, and her character is visibly repeated in them.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

LOVE REBUFFED

GOMERS INGRATITUDESPIRIT OF HARLOTRY

TEXT: Hos. 1:1-8

1

The word of Jehovah that came unto Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

2

When Jehovah spake at the first by Hosea, Jehovah said unto Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land doth commit great whoredom, departing from Jehovah.

3

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bare him a son.

4

And Jehovah said unto him, call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

5

And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

6

And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And Jehovah said unto him, call her name Lo-ruhamah; for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, that I should in any wise pardon them.

7

But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

8

Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.

9

And Jehovah said, Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

QUERIES

a.

Was it right for God to command Hosea to marry an immoral woman?

b.

Why would God command Hosea to do so?

c.

Why did God command Hosea to give such names to his children?

PARAPHRASE

The word of the Covenant God came to Hosea and took possession of him during the reigns of these four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and during the reign of Jeroboam, son of Joash, who was king of Israel then. The Lord commanded Hosea, Go and marry a whorish woman and have children of the same character by her. This experience will symbolize the actions of Israel who has committed spiritual whoredom against Me by worshipping other gods. So Hosea married a whorish woman by the name of Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Now the Lord commanded Hosea, Name the child Jezreel (God disperses or God scatters) for I am about to punish the dynasty of Jehu and avenge the blood shed in the valley of Jezreel at which time I will make Israel into a Jezreel (dispersed or scattered). That is when I will strip Isreal of her military powerI will do it in the very valley of Jezreel. Soon Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Jehovah commanded Hosea, saying, Name this child Loruhamah (She finds no sympathy) and let her name symbolize the fact that I will not show Israel any more mercy to forgive her again. I will, however, have mercy on Judah and save her by My own Mighty Armand without any help from her armies or weapons. Now just as soon as Gomer weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to another son. God commanded Hosea, saying, Name this child Lo-ammi (not mine) and let his name symbolize the fact that Israel is not My people any longer and neither will I be their God any more.

SUMMARY

Hosea is commanded to marry a whorish woman which symbolizes the attitude of the people of Israel toward God. The prophet is further commanded to give his children symbolical names depicting Gods attitude toward the idolatrous people.

COMMENT

Hos. 1:1 THE WORD OF JEHOVAH THAT CAME UNTO HOSEA; The word came is from a Hebrew word which is often used to mean took possession of, and is so used of the evil spirit sent by the Lord upon Saul (1Sa. 16:23; 1Sa. 19:9). What Hosea says to Israel is not simply Hoseas idea of what he thinks God might want to say to Israelwhat Hosea says is exactly what God put into his mind to say. Peter writes (2Pe. 1:21), Being borne along by the Holy Spirit, men spake from God (translation by Edward J. Young in Thy Word is Truth). The prophets possessed the Spirit of Christ (1Pe. 1:10-12), were possessed by the Holy Spirit (2Pe. 1:21), so what they wrote did not come by the impulse of men, did not originate in their minds; what they spoke and wrote originated in the Mind of God and they became the spokesmen. Warfield says, The term borne is very specific . . . not to be confounded with guiding, directing or controlling or even leading . . . it goes beyond all such terms . . . The things which they (the prophets) spoke under this operation of the Spirit were therefore His things, not theirs. That individuality of expression is apparent in the Biblical writings is obvious. Peter does not express Gods message with the same vocabulary and style as John or Paul and vice versa. But this cannot be construed as evidence to deny their infallibility. We quote again from B. B. Warfield: Revelation is made in both words and deeds; it is necessary therefore that both the words and deeds be recorded inerrantly. If the Lord makes any revelation to man (or through man) He would do so in the language (and style) of the particular man He employs as the organ of His revelation . . . The accommodation of the revealing God to the several prophetic individualities . . . is a concursive operation. The Spirit works confluently in, with and by them elevating them, directing them, controlling them, energizing them, so that, as His instruments, they rise above themselves and under His inspiration (influence) do His work and reach His aim. The product, therefore, which is attained by their means is His product through them . . . Although the circumstance that what is done by and through the action of human powers keeps the product in form and quality in a true sense human, yet the confluent operation of the Holy Spirit throughout the whole process raises the result above what could by any possibility be achieved by mere human powers and constitutes it expressly a supernatural product . . . Even the very words were Gods intended wordsthe apostles were acutely conscious that they were citing immediate words of God; (cf. Gal. 3:16) here Paul hangs an argument on the very words of Scripture and so does Jesus (cf. Joh. 10:34; Mat. 22:32; Mat. 22:43).

Hosea means literally, Salvation, or, the Lord saveth. His fathers name, Beeri, means, my well or welling-forth. We have already considered the background of the time in which Hosea prophesied (cf. Introduction). There can be very little doubt as to the time of the composition of this book and Hoseas ministry for it is specifically declared to be in the reign of Jeroboam II (see Introduction).

Hos. 1:2 JEHOVAH SAID UNTO HOSEA, GO, TAKE THEE A WIFE OF WHOREDOM AND CHILDREN OF WHOREDOM; We have discussed in our Introduction to this book whether Hoseas marriage was an actual, historical event or whether it was visionary and symbolical. Our view is that it was an actual event which was intended to symbolize the then existing spiritual relationship of Israel to God. G. Campbell Morgan, emphasizing the phrase in this verse spake at the first, says, . . . notice very carefully that little phrase, at the first. The writer was looking back, from the end of his ministry, when he was writing out his notes, committing them to manuscript form, and said in effect: When away back there my ministry began, when, before the tragedy came into my life, Jehovah spoke with me, it was He Who commanded me to marry Gomer. The statement distinctly calls her a woman of whoredom, but it does not tell us that she was that at the time. It certainly does mean that God knew the possibilities in the heart of Gomer, and that presently they would be manifested in her conduct, and knowing, He commanded Hosea to marry her, knowing also what his experience would do for him in his prophetic work. When Hosea married Gomer, she was not openly a sinning woman, and the children antedated her infidelity. The earlier life of the prophet was in all likelihood one of joy and happiness.

So Dr. Morgan believes that Gomer had the spirit of harlotry in her heart before Hosea married her but that she did not actually commit adultery until after the children were born. This would be one way to solve the seeming incongruity of God commanding Hosea to marry a woman who had already become a harlota command which some think would put God in the position of violating His own Holy Nature. Others say that God simply commanded Hosea to marry a woman of Israelequating a woman of whoredom with the spiritual harlotry of all Israel at that timeand that she became an adulteress after the marriage. The visionary or allegorical interpretation of the marriage does not solve the alleged moral problem here since a command from God to engage in such a relationship would have been just as contrary to the thinking of Hosea as to command the actual thing (see Introduction). Furthermore, as Kirkpatrick points out, . . . if the prophet had a faithful wife, it seems incredible that he should have exposed her to the suspicion of infidelity, as he must have done by using an allegory which certainly does not bear its allegorical character upon the face of it. Kirkpatricks view of the situation is like that of G. Campbell Morgans. Pusey deals with the moral difficulty thusly, Holy Scripture relates that all this was done, and tells us the births and names of the children, as real history. As such then, must we receive it. We must not imagine things to be unworthy of God, because they do not commend themselves to us (cf. Isa. 55:8-9). . . . as Sovereign Judge, He commanded the lives of the Canaanites to be taken away by Israel . . . He has ordained that the magistrate should not bear the sword in vain, but has made him His minister, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil (Rom. 13:4) . . . He willed to repay to the Israelites their hard and unjust servitude, by commanding them to spoil the Egyptians (Exo. 3:22) . . . The Prophet was not defiled, by taking as his lawful wife, at Gods bidding, one defiled, however hard a thing this was.

God is absolute Sovereign. He may supersede natural law as He wishes, He is Lord of all and may command men and nature to do what seems to finite thinking unjust, perhaps immoral, while in His omniscience He is not at all self-contradictory.
Laetsch says that even if Gomer had been guilty of harlotry before Hosea married her, his marrying her would still not have constituted an immoral act for, . . . An act is immoral, . . . only if it violates a clear command of God. There is no divine commandment forbidding such a marriage, hence no reason to condemn it as immoral, particularly since God commanded this marriage, Only priests were forbidden to marry a harlot (Lev. 21:7) . . .

Kirkpatrick writes, The true view, which at once relieves the moral difficulty, gives the natural explanation to the narrative, and supplies the key to Hoseas teaching in the experience of his life, is that while we have in these chapters a record of actual facts, Gomer was as yet unstained when Hosea took her to be his wife. The expression used in chapter Hos. 1:2 is peculiar. She is not called a harlot, but a wife or woman of whoredom (a wife of harlotry, R.S.V.). The hideous tendencies to evil were latent in her heart. The prophets love did not avail to restrain them . . . She abandoned him for the wild orgies of the licentious worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. Then, as he sat in his homeless home, and pondered over this . . . as he watched the ghastly ruins of his life, he saw that even this cruel calamity was not blind chance but the will of God . . . Then he recognized that it was by Gods command that he had chosen the wife who had proved so faithless.

Lange adds, . . . it is one thing to have intercourse with an unchaste woman, in order to practice fornication with her, and quite another to marry such a woman. The one is as assuredly sinful as the other is in itself not so, any more than it was for Jesus to be a friend of publicans and sinners, For the prophet would not have entered into such an alliance that he might be assimilated to the woman, but in order to raise her up to his own level, to rescue her from her sinful habits . . .
It would seem to us that whether God commanded Hosea to marry a woman who, until after marriage had not committed harlotry but who had the spirit of harlotry hidden in her heartor whether Hosea married a woman whom he knew to already have committed harlotryGod cannot be represented as commanding Hosea to do something immoral for two reasons: (a) To marry even an unchaste woman was not a sin in the Old Testament; (b) to obey any command of God is not immoralto disobey is immoral.
Whatever the case, the prophet is commanded by God to take a woman of harlotry to wife for the express purpose of mirroring to the people of Israel their spiritual relation to Jehovah. It was intended to shock the peoples consciences. That which would be shocking enough (a prophet marrying a whorish woman) in the temporal realm representing what they were actually doing in the spiritual realm! Symbolizing the shameful whoredom of Israel in going after (worshipping) calf-gods and Baal is the express purpose of Hoseas marriage to a woman of whoredom. As a part of this symbolizing, Hosea was to have children by this unchaste woman and to give them symbolical names.

Hos. 1:3 SO HE WENT AND TOOK GOMER . . . DAUGHTER OF DIBLAIM; AND SHE CONCEIVED . . . Gomer means, completion; completed whoredom. Diblaim means, Daughter of fig-cakes, or some say it may mean, daughter of embraces. However, there is not the slightest indication from the text that these two names were to have any symbolical significance. We have here a simple statement of historical facts. Hosea married Gomer, she conceived and bare him a son. Lange says the latter part of this verse should be translated, and she conceived and bore to him a son. This removes all doubt, says Lange, as to the father of the child. He was Hoseas childnot an illegitimate one. Laetsch disagrees with Lange; he says that the child was illegitimate but was presented by Gomer to Hosea with the demand that this illegitimate child be accorded all the privileges of one who was his own child. This, says Laetsch, better symbolizes the brazen impudence of Israel. The individual Israelites (illegitimate children of their harlot-mother, Israel) acting with the same impudence demanded recognition from God as children of His while in fact they were not!

Hos. 1:4 . . . CALL HIS NAME JEZREEL . . . I WILL AVENGE THE BLOOD OF JEZREEL UPON THE HOUSE OF JEHU . . . In 2Ki. 9:1 ff you may read of Jehus purging Israel of the prophets of Baal and in 2Ki. 10:30 you may read where God commended him for carrying out His orders. Yet here Hosea is told that God is going to avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. Why? Plainly because Jehu is held responsible for the present whoring of the whole land in that he perpetuated the calf-worship and Baalism. After Jehu gained the throne through this uprising against Baalism, he arrogantly struck out for himself a false path by returning to the worship of the calves. This shows that Jehus obedience to Jehovahs command was motivated from the very beginning by selfishness and pride. Jezreel means to sow. God will Sow the nation of Israel among the heathen in captivityHe will disperse them. Its opposite use is found in Hos. 1:11.

God is about to visit upon the idolatrous offspring of the idolatrous Jehu exterminationthe same judgment Jehovah visited, through the hand of Jehu upon the house of Ahab. This promised judgment, symbolized by the name of Hoseas first born, followed not long after the death of Jeroboam II in the murder of his son through the conspiracy of Shallum (2Ki. 15:8 ff). But Gods punishment will not end with the extermination of the dynasty of Jehu, He is going to cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. When Shallum murdered the son of Jeroboam II, there began a plunge into political anarchy from which Israel never recovered. Only Menahem had a son for a successor. All the rest of the kings of Israel were overthrown and slain by conspirators. The fall of the house of Jehu was the beginning of the end for Israel.

Hos. 1:5 . . . AT THAT DAY . . . I WILL BREAK . . . ISRAEL . . . IN THE VALLEY OF JEZREEL. When the kingdom falls it is to happen in the valley of Jezreel in which the city of Jezreel lay near Mount Gilboa. Ahab built a palace there. Jezebel met her death by being thrown from a window of this palace, and her body was eaten by dogs (2Ki. 9:30-35). The valley of Jezreel was the natural battlefield of the northern kingdom (cf. Jdg. 4:5; Jdg. 6:33). No definite enemy of Israel is named as the executor of the judgment here pronounced but in the second part of the book of Hosea we learn it will be Assyria. It is not mentioned in the books of the Kings where Assyria dealt the final blow but we must assume Hosea knew where it would occur.

Hos. 1:6 . . . SHE BARE A DAUGHTER . . . LO-RUHAMAH . . . I WILL HAVE NO MERCY Lo-ruhamah means literally, she finds no pity, or, is not compassionated. It may be significant, as Lange points out, that a female child was chosen to be given this symbolical name for the female can usually find pity when no more is given to men. It makes the fact that God will soon withdraw His compassion all the more emphatic. The prophesied withdrawal of pity here is simply an enlargement of the punishment coming upon Israel foretold earlier by the symbolical name of the son, Jezreel. The ten tribes of Israel would shortly be cut off from the tender mercy of God and scattered by Him, never to be restored as a whole nation. Only those of the ten tribes who returned with Judah in the restoration or were subsequently united to Judah found a place in the holy land again. How long God had suffered with this rebellious and stiff-necked people! How long He had withheld His terrible wrath! How long He had compassionately sent them warning after warning; prophet after prophet; but they would not hearken.

Hos. 1:7 BUT I WILL HAVE MERCY UPON THE HOUSE OF JUDAH . . . This verse was intended to be a rebuke to Israel. If Israel had only been like Judah they too would find compassion. Israel was a rebel from its very inception as a nation. It began with idolatry and continually grew more idolatrous and decadent. Judah, on the other hand, retained the true place of worship, the lawful priesthood and the God-ordained lineage of the monarchy. Judah was on the whole, a true witness to God. Judah still trusted in Jehovah for her security and deliverance from her enemies (cw. also Hos. 11:12). The latter half of this verse found fulfillment more than once. When Assyria beseiged the city of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah God delivered Judah not by the military might of Judah but by His Own power in sending the death angel to slay 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Furthermore, it was not by battle or military strength that Judah was delivered from her captivity in Persia, but God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to send the people of Judah back to their promised land (cf. Ezr. 1:1 ff; 2Ch. 36:22-23). This verse probably has its ultimate fulfillment in the deliverance to the Jew who is one inwardly, in Christ since the whole context here is interpreted by both the apostles Paul and Peter as Messianic (cf. Rom. 9:25 ff; 1Pe. 2:10 ff). We will comment at length upon this in Hos. 1:10-11 below.

Hos. 1:8-9 . . . SHE BARE A SON . . . LO-AMMI . . . FOR YE ARE NOT MY PEOPLE . . . Lo-ammi means literally, I will not be for you, i.e., not be yours, not belong to you. The covenant relationship between God and His people is to be completely dissolved, They are no longer His. They have rejected for themselves the counsel of God . . . and judged themselves unworthy of Gods covenant. They spurned His love. They broke the covenant. They deliberately chose other gods. Therefore, they are not His people. It was their own doing. The blame for their judgment is not to be placed upon God. They are responsible, Their sin is not excusable by ignorance at all! Remember the original covenant God made with Israel was I will be your God, and you shall be My people . . . (Lev. 26:12; Exo. 6:7). But when they wilfully rejected Him as their God, how could they any longer be His people?!

QUIZ

1.

What does verse one tell us of the method of prophetic revelation and inspiration?

2.

Was Hoseas marriage an actual marriage or symbolical or visionary? Give reasons for your answer.

3.

Would it be wrong for God to command a prophet to marry a woman of whoredom? Explain!

4.

Were the children born those of Hosea or were they illegitimate?

5.

What symbolical significance is attached to the name Jezreel?

6.

What does Lo-ruhamah mean and what application does it have to Israel?

7.

Why did God say of Israel, ye are not my people, and I will not be your God?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) In the days of Uzziah.On the historical questions involved in this verse, see Introduction.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1, 2a. Title intended as a heading for the whole book. On its probable original form, its accord with internal evidence, etc., see pp. 15ff.

Word As in Isa 2:1 (compare “vision,” Isa 1:1), denotes the substance of the divine revelation, whatever the manner in which it was received (see pp. 14f.).

Jehovah Thus the A.R.V. reproduces throughout the entire Old Testament the name of God rendered in A.V. LORD).

Beeri Introduction, p. 10.

The beginning of the word of Jehovah by Hosea R.V., “When Jehovah spake at the first by Hosea.” A.V. is more satisfactory, and is supported by the ancient versions. The words are a new heading, perhaps by Hosea himself, for part of the book; not chapters 1-3 (Cheyne), but chapters 1, 2. To “beginning” corresponds “ again” in Hos 3:1.

By Better, R.V. margin, “with” (Zec 1:9; Num 12:2). In what sense this was the beginning of Hosea’s prophetic activity, see Introduction, pp. 15f. The narrative for such is chapter 1 begins with Jehovah said to Hosea; it closes with Hos 1:9, in Hebrew the end of chapter 1.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Introductory heading.

‘The word of YHWH which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.’ The name Hosea means ‘he has delivered’ and is probably intended to indicate ‘YHWH has delivered’. His father’s name Beeri means ‘he is my well-spring’, again indicating ‘YHWH is my well-spring’.

In true prophetic fashion Hosea receives ‘the word of YHWH’, for that was the function of the prophets. It possibly came to him over a period of about sixty years (from around 758BC to 698 BC), although the majority of what is recorded, if not all, would appear to have been received in the first portion of that period prior to 722 BC, when Samaria was destroyed by the Assyrians. (If Hezekiah’s co-regency with his father Ahaz is what is in mind his ministry may have ceased at the fall of Samaria, but it is unlikely that Hezekiah would have been mentioned if he had not at the time been sole-ruler. Hosea may well thus have taken refuge in Judah bringing his prophecies with him. But the ascription only requires his prophesying in the first years of Hezekiah).

The kings of Judah are mentioned first because in Hosea’s eyes they were the true royal dynasty chosen by YHWH (Hos 1:11 a; Hos 3:5; Hos 11:12). Indeed only one king of Israel is mentioned at all, and that is Jeroboam II. It is true that Jeroboam II also had Yahwistic credentials, with the head of his dynasty, Jehu, having been approved by Elisha’s messenger (2Ki 9:1-3), but the latter had forfeited their position as a result of their continuing the worship of the golden calf at Bethel. The idea is that none of the Israelite kings who followed Jeroboam, a motley collection succeeding in the most part via assassination (2Ki 15:10; 2Ki 15:14 ; 2Ki 15:25; 2Ki 15:30), were to be seen as having any part in YHWH. So while YHWH had a ‘word’ for Israel as a whole, He had no word for them.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Hos 1:1  The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hos 1:1 “The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri,” – Word Study on “Hosea” Strong says the Hebrew name “Hosea” ( ) (H1954) means “deliverer.” Joshua was called by this same Hebrew name before Moses changed his name (Num 13:16). The name “Hosea” or “Oshea” is similar to the Hebrew name “Joshua” ( ) (H3091), which means, “Jehovah-saved” ( Strong), “ Jehovah is his help,” or “Jehovah the Saviour” ( Easton), or “a savior; a deliverer” ( Hitchcock).

Num 13:16, “These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.”

Word Study on “Beeri” Strong says the Hebrew name “Beeri” ( ) (H882) means, “fountained,” and comes from a Hebrew noun ( ) (H875), which means “a well, or a pit.”

Hos 1:1 “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel” Comments – The opening verse of Hosea tells us that this prophet’s ministry extended through the reign of four kings of Judah, Uzziah to Hezekiah, who reigned from 792 to 686 B.C., and under one king of Israel named Jeroboam II, who ruled from 793 to 753 B.C., about forty years. These four kings of Judah reigned a total period of about 107 years. The estimated dates of the reigns of each of these kings are:

Uzziah 792 to 740 – 52 years

Jotham 747 to 731 – 16 years

Ahaz 731 to 715 – 16 years

Hezekiah 715 to 686 – 29 years

Adam Clarke dates the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah from about 809 B.C. to about 698 B.C. [11]

[11] Adam Clarke, Hosea, in Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), notes on Hosea 1:1.

One question raised by the opening verse of the book of Hosea is why are four kings of Judah named and only one king of Israel in dating these prophecies. Hosea’s prophecy even refers to the king of Israel as “our king” (Hos 7:5). The answer may be found in the possibility that a later Judean scholar, such as Ezra the scribe, made the final compilation and dated these prophecies by the common practice of using the reigns of kings. A Jewish scribe who lived after the fall of the northern kingdom (722 B.C.) would have dated the prophets by the kings of Judah.

Hos 7:5, “In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.”

Jeroboam II is referred to in the opening verse that lists four Judean kings perhaps because of his major role in restoring a measure of peace and prosperity to the northern kingdom during this period of history (2Ki 14:23-27).

2Ki 14:23-27, “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel , which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher. For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash .”

Hos 1:1 Comments The Manner in which Divine Oracles were Delivered unto the Prophets – God spoke through the Old Testament prophets in various ways, as the author of the epistle of Hebrews says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1). The Lord spoke divine oracles ( ) through the Old Testament prophets in three general ways, as recorded in the book of Hosea, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.” (Hos 12:10) ( NKJV) In other words, the prophets spoke to Israel through the words they received, they described divine visions to the people, and they acted out as divine drama an oracle from the Lord.

(1) The Word of the Lord Came to the Prophets – God gave the prophets divine pronouncements to deliver to the people, as with Hos 1:1. The opening verses of a number of prophetic books say, “the word of the Lord came to the prophet” Thus, these prophets received a divine utterance from the Lord.

(2) The Prophets Received Divine Visions – God gave the prophets divine visions ( ), so they prophesied what they saw ( ) (to see). Thus, these two Hebrew words are found in Isa 1:1, Oba 1:1, Nah 1:1, and Hab 1:1. Ezekiel saw visions ( ) of God.

(3) God Told the Prophets to Deliver Visual Aids as Symbols of Divine Oracles – God asked the prophets to demonstrate divine oracles to the people through symbolic language. For example, Isaiah walked naked for three years as a symbol of Assyria’s dominion over Egypt and Ethiopia (Isa 20:1-6). Ezekiel demonstrated the siege of Jerusalem using clay tiles (Eze 4:1-3), then he laid on his left side for many days, then on his right side, to demonstrate that God will require Israel to bear its iniquities.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Israel to be Rejected on Account of its Idolatry

v. 1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, who are probably mentioned in the sequence of their reign on account of the stability of their rule, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, this statement being added to bring out the fact of Hosea’s having prophesied in the earlier part of the century, before there was any indication of decay in Israel from which one might reasonably have deduced the probability of the nation’s downfall, a fact which would have weakened the idea of a prophecy.

v. 2. The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea, literally, “In the beginning when Jehovah spoke with Hosea,”. and the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, most commentators believing this to have been done internally and in a vision, since the force of the symbolical act would otherwise be lost, and children of whoredoms. The figure represents the northern kingdom in its relation to Jehovah at the time of the prophet, when the nation as such had become unfaithful and in its individual members could well be compared to children of adultery, as the prophet says; for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord, its idolatry was of a kind to call forth the righteous anger of the Lord.

v. 3. So he, the prophet, went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, whose very name was descriptive of the life in which she delighted; which conceived and bare him a son.

v. 4. And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel, the name of a very fruitful valley in the northern part of the land; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel, namely, the blood that had been spilled by Ahab and other wicked kings in this garden spot, upon the house of Jehu, who had loaded blood-guiltiness upon himself by acts of murder for which he had no command of God, Cf 2 Kings 9, 10, and will cause to cease the kingdom. of the house of Israel, the end of the kingdom thus being predicted while it still seemed to be at the height of its power.

v. 5. And it shall come to pass at that day that I will break the bow of Israel, the military force on which the strength of the kingdom rested, on which its existence depended, in the Valley of Jezreel, for the Assyrians, within four decades, overthrew the power of Israel completely.

v. 6. And she conceived again and bare a daughter, a female child being named in order to represent the entire nation, both men and women, in the sons and daughters of the people And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah (“not having obtained mercy”); for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away, literally, “for not will I add any more to have compassion on the house of Israel that I should keep on forgiving them,” that is, His patience was now exhausted, and His judgment upon them would soon be carried out.

v. 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, the southern kingdom, in which His worship was still being observed by the few who represented His kingdom on earth, and will save them by the Lord, their God, by an almighty deliverance, and will not save them by bow nor by sword nor by battle, by horses nor by horsemen, the heaping of the synonyms showing the futility of all human power over against the Lord’s decrees.

v. 8. Now, when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bare a son, there being no interruption in the announcement of evil.

v. 9. Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi (“not My people”); for ye are not My people, namely, on account of their rejection of Him, and I will not be your God, they could not claim Him as their highest good, they could not call upon Him as their Helper. When people deliberately reject the true God, they cut themselves off from all the manifestations of His grace and mercy; they bring misfortune upon themselves and can blame no one but themselves for their unhappy state.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Hos 1:1

The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri. The prophets are divided into the former (rishonim, Zec 1:4) prophets and the later prophets. The writings of the former prophets comprise most of the historical hooks, for the Hebrew conception of a prophet was that of an individual inspired by God to instruct men for the present or inform them of the future, whether orally or by writing; the later were the prophets properly so called, while these, again, are subdivided into the greater, consisting of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the lesser, or minor, including the remaining twelve. The designation “minor” does not imply any inferiority in importance of subject or value of contents, but has respect solely to the smallness of their size as compared with the larger discourses of the others. The twelve minor prophets were added to the canon before its completion as a single book, “lest,” says Kimchi, in his commentary on this verse, “a book of them should be lost because of its smallness, if each one of them should be kept separate by itself.” They were accordingly reckoned as one book , as Eusebius expresses it. The name Hosea, like other Hebrew names, is significant, and denotes “deliverance,” or” salvation;” or, the abstract being put for the concrete, “deliverer,” or “savior.” It is radically the same name as Joshua, except that the prefix of the latter implies the name of Jehovah as the Author of such deliverance or salvation; while the Greek form of Joshua is Jesus, which in two passages of the Authorized Version stands for it. The form of the name in the original is closely connected with Hosanna (hoshia na),” save now,” which occurs in Psa 118:25. In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The period of Hosea’s prophetic activity is one of the longest, if not the longest, on record. It continued during the reigns of the four kings of Judah above mentioned, and during that of Jeroboam II. King of Israel, which was in part coincident with that of Uzziah. Uzziah and Jeroboam reigned contemporaneously for twenty-six years. Somewhere during or rather before the end of that period Hosea commenced his ministry. Uzziah survived Jeroboam some twenty-six years, then Jotham and Ahaz in succession reigned each sixteen years. During all these fifty-eight years Hosea continued his ministerial labors. To these must be added a few years for the beginning of his prophetic career during the reign of Jeroboam, and some two or three years before its close in the reign of Hezekiah; for the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the fourth year of that king, the prophet looks forward to as still future. Thus for three score years and moreprobably nearer three score years and ten, the ordinary period of human lifethe prophet persevered in the discharge of his onerous duties. It may seem strange that, though Hosea exercised his prophetic function in Israel, yet the time during which he did so is reckoned by the reigns of the kings of Judah. The single exception of Jeroboam II. is accounted for in a rabbinic tradition on the ground that he did not credit or act on the evil report which Amaziah the priest of Bethel preferred against the Prophet Amos, as we read (Amo 7:10), “Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam King of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words” (see also Amo 7:11-13 of the same chapter). The real reason for the reckoning by the kings of Judah, and for the exceptional case of Jeroboam, was not that assigned by the rabbins; neither was it an indication, on the part of the prophet, of the legitimacy of the kingdom of Judah on the one hand, and evidence, on the other hand, of the performance of God’s promise to Jehu that his sons would sit upon the throne to the fourth generation, while Jeroboam, Jehu’s great-grandson, was the last king of that dynasty by whom God vouch-sated help to Israel, his son and successor Zechariah retaining possession of the kingdom only for the short space of six months. The true cause is rather to be sought in the regicides, usurpations, occasional anarchy, and generally unsettled state of the northern kingdom, inasmuch as such instability and uncertainty furnished no sure or satisfactory basis for chronological calculation. Thus we find that, on the death of Jeroboam II; there was an interregnum of some dozen years, during which, of course, a state of anarchy prevailed. At length Zechariah succeeded to the throne; he had reigned only six months when he was murdered by Shallum. Shallum’s reign only lasted a month, when he was put to death by Menahem. During his reign often years occurred the invasion of Pal. Menahem’s son, Pekachiah, had only reigned two years when he was murdered by Pekah, in whose reign Tiglath-pileser invaded the land. Hoshea slew Pekah. Next followed an interval of anarchy lasting eight years. Then, after Hoshea’s short reign of nine years, the kingdom was destroyed. Thus it was only in the southern kingdom that a sufficiently firm foundation for chronological reckoning was available, while under these circumstances Jeroboam’s reign was necessary to show the prophet’s connection with Israel, and also that the prediction of the fourth verse preceded the event foretold. The general heading of the whole book is contained in this verse and Divine authority is thus claimed for the whole, as the prophet to whom the word of the Lord came is only Jehovah’s spokesman.

Hos 1:2

The beginning of the word of the Lord by (literally, in) Hosea. These words may be rendered at once more literally and more exactly,

(1) “The beginning (of that which) Jehovah spoke by Hosea.” Thus Gesenius translates, understanding ashen, which is often omitted as a pronoun in the nominative or accusative, indicating relation, and as including the antecedent personal or demonstrative pronoun. When the pronoun thus supplied is in the genitive, the preceding noun is in the construct state, as here.

(2) Rosenmller, without necessity, takes the noun in the adverbial sense; thus: “In the beginning Jehovah spake by Hosea.” He also suggests the possibility of dibber being a noun of the same meaning as dabar, but of different formation; while in two manuscripts of De Rossi and one of Kennicott the regular form of the construct state of davar is expressed.

(3) Keil takes the noun as an accusative of time, and accounts for its construct state by the substantival idea of the succeeding subordinated clause; thus: “At the commencement of ‘ Jehovah spake,’ Jehovah said to him.” But what is the beginning here mentioned? It cannot mean that Hoses was the first of the prophets by whom God made known his will to Israel, or the first of the minor prophets; for Jonah, as is rightly inferred from 2Ki 14:25, preceded him; Joel also is usually regarded as before him in point of time; neither can it denote his priority to Isaiah and Amos, who also prophesied in the days of Uzziah. The plain meaning is that which becomes obvious when we adopt the right rendering of Gesenius, as given above, that is, the beginning of the prophecies which Hoses was commissioned by Jehovah to make known. The peculiarity of the expression, “in Hosea,” as the word literally means, deserves attention. Maurer compares Num 12:2, Num 12:6, and Num 12:8, to prove that the expression signifies speaking to rather than in or by; he also cites other passages to the same purpose, But while the verb “to speak,” followed by be and the verb constructed with el, may coincide in signification at a certain point, it does not thence follow that they are everywhere and always synonymous. Long ago Jerome drew attention to the distinction which this difference of construction suggests. “It is one thing,” says that Father, “for the Lord to speak in Hosea, another to speak to (el) Hosea: when it is in Hosea he does not speak to Hosea himself, but by Hosea to others; but speaking to Hosea denotes communication to himself. So in the New Testament (Heb 1:1) we find the corresponding Greek expression, viz. , which the Revised Version rightly renders, “God having spoken the in the prophets.” The first verse is the general heading for the whole book; the first clause of the second verse is the special heading of the first section of the book, which extends to the end of the third chapter. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms. Whether the transaction here enjoined is to be understood as a reality, or a vision, or an allegory, has been keenly debated. To enter fully into the discussion of this point would lead us too far from our purpose; nor could it minister to edification. Though high authorities have maintained it to be a real occurrence, we do not see our way to concur with their view. A canon of interpretation sanctioned by Augustine forbids the literal acceptation of this command, for, according to the canon referred to, if the language of Scripture taken literally would involve something incongruous or morally improper, the figurative sense must be preferred. Again, we can scarcely understand it of a vision; for there is no mention of or reference to anything of that kind in the passage, nor does the context countenance the notion of a vision. Keil regards it as such when he speaks of it as “an inward and spiritual intuition in which the word of God was addressed” to the prophet. We are, therefore, shut up to that interpretation which explains the whole as an allegorical or imaginary narrative, which is thus constructed in order to impart greater vividness to the prophet’s declaration. The Chaldee paraphrase understands it in this sense. “Go,” says the paraphrast, “declare a prophecy against the inhabitants of the idolatrous city, who persist in sin.” Jerome also explains it allegorically, and urges against the literal sense that passage in Eze 4:4-6, where the prophet is commanded by God to bear the iniquity of the house of Israel, and to lie upon his left side three hundred and ninety daysa thing impossible according to the literal understanding of the injunction; he accordingly concludes, in reference to the particulars here commanded, that “sacramenta indicaut futurorum.” Calvin rightly understands it in the sense of a parabolic representation as follows: “The Lord had bidden him (the prophet) to relate this parable, so to speak, or this similitude, that the people might see, as in a living portraiture, their turpitude and perfidiousness. It is, in short, an exhibition in which the thing itself is not only set forth in words, but is also placed, as it were, before their eyes in a visible form.” Kimchi considers it to be a prophetic vision; while some of the older Hebrew interpreters viewed it in the light of an actual transaction. Kimchi’s words are: “And the whole took place in the vision of prophecy, not that Hoses the prophet had taken to himself a wife of whoredoms; although it is found in the words of our rabbins that the meaning is according to the literal signification of the words.” By “a wife of whoredoms” we understand a woman addicted to whoredoms, and thus likely to prove an unfaithful wife, as” a woman of quarrels” is a quarrelsome woman, “a man of bloods” is a bloody man, “a man of sorrows” a sorrowful man; while “children of whoredoms” are children who follow in the footsteps of their mother’s lewdness, or children on whose birth their mother’s licentiousness bad left a stigma so that their legitimacy is questionable. The construction of the verb “take,” with both objects, is an example of the figure zeugma, by which one word does duty to two clauses, though it undergoes a modification of sense in its application to the second. The meaning here is clearly that the prophet should take a wife of the character indicated, and beget children by her, not take such a wife and such children already born to her. This view is favored by the Vulgate, Sume tibi uxorem fornicationum et fac tibi filios fornicationum; though Keil maintains that Hosea was to take children of prostitution as well as a wife who had lived by prostitution. For the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. This is more exactly rendered, for the land hath utterly gone a-whoring from after (that is, from following) the Lord. From this we learn the symbolic import of the command, in whatever way that command is interpreted, whether as a reality, or vision, or allegory, the prophet’s marriage to an unfaithful wife sets forth Jehovah’s marriage to an unfaithful nation. God often condescendsgraciously condescendsto represent his relation to his people as a marriage covenant; while unfaithfulness on their part is spiritual adultery. The mother and the children may represent the country and its inhabitants, or the nation as a whole and its several members, or generally the people and their posterity in succeeding generations. The father of the Hebrew race had served other gods on the other side of the flood, that is, in Ur, in the land of the Chaldees, whence God had called Abraham. When taken into covenant relationship, how often had they fallen into the former sin of idolatry! The fearful consequences of their sin is graphically portrayed in the verses immediately following, symbolized in the names of the prophet’s children. They arenational ruin, the loss of the Divine favor, and the forfeiture of their proud position as the chosen people of Jehovah.

Hos 1:3

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. Kimchi conjectures that “Gomer was the name of a harlot well known at that time;” he also explains the name, according to his view of its symbolic import, as follows: “Gomer has the meaning of completion;” as if the prophet said, He will fully execute on them the punishment of their transgressions that he may forgive their iniquity.” The names of the children born to the prophet are significant and symbolical; and their symbolic significance is explained. The names mentioned in this verse are also significant, though their significance is not expressly stated, as in the former case; the cause of the omission being the fact that these names were not, like the others, now received for the first time, but simply retained. Gomer denotes “completion” or” consummation,” from a verbal root signifying “to perfect” or “come to an end; and Diblaim is the dual of deblelah, the plural being debhelim, from the verb dabhal, to press together into a mass, especially a round mass. The meaning of the word, then, is “two cakes,” that is, of dried figs pressed together in lumps. It may be observed, in passing, that the Greek seems to come from the Aramaic form debhalta, by the omission of the initial daleth. But what is the mystic meaning which the prophet veils under the two names Consummation and Compressed fig-cakes (cakes of compressed figs)? The one may hint not obscurely consummation in sin and in the suffering which is the ultimate consequence of sin; while the other may imply the sweetness of sensual indulgences, especially such as idolatrous celebrants were prone to. If, then, the symbolical interpretation of these names be allowable, we may accept that given by Jerome. He says, “Out of Israel is taken typically by Hosea a wife consummated in fornication, and a perfect daughter of pleasure which seems sweet and pleasant to those who enjoy it.” There is, moreover, an obvious appropriateness in the names thus symbolically understood. The prophet, whose name signifies “salvation,” marries a woman who was a daughter of plea. sure and a votary of sin; this alliance represents the relation into which Jehovah, with his saving power, had mercifully taken Israel; but that people, unmindful and unthankful for such mercy, and intent on the indulgence of a sinful course, went from bad to worse in apostasy and idolatry till God at length left them in their impenitence and abandoned them to their fate. The conception and birth of Gomer’s son to the prophet, though several authorities omit “him,” give no countenance to the idea of the child being supposititious; and so far there seems to be some confirmation of the opinion of Keil referred to under verse 2.

Hos 1:4

And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel. The name which the people inherited from a distinguished ancestor was one of honor and dignityIsrael or Yisrael, “prince with God;” the name imposed by their sins was one of reproach and disasterIzreel, or Yizreel, “scattered by God.” The Hebrews had a peculiar fondness for a paronomasia of this kind; thus Bethel, “house of God,” becomes Bethaven, “house of vanity.” Keil regrets the appellative sense in this passage, and refers to the historical importance of the place. The latter view seems favored by the succeeding explanation of the name. For yet a little while, and I will avenge (visit) the Mood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. The verb here rendered “avenge” is literally to “visit,” and is used sometimes in a good sense, implying a benevolent purpose, as in Rth 1:6, “For she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread;” sometimes it expresses a hostile intention, as in Exo 20:5, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.” In the present passage, as elsewhere in this book (see Hos 2:13; Hos 4:9), it is taken in the sense assigned it in the Authorized Version, with which the Septuagint and Syriac are in accord. But what are we to understand by the blood of Jezreel, which brought down this vengeance on the house of Jehu? Some suppose that the expression denotes the bloody deeds of Ahab’s house, including, not only the murder of Naboth, but also their bloody persecution of the servants and prophets of Jehovah, as we read in 1Ki 18:4, that “Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord;” and in 2Ki 9:7, “Thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.” These and like deeds of blood brought down retribution on the house of Ahab; Jehu, the instrument of this retribution, was himself guilty of such enormities that the cry of blood for vengeance was repeated, and the criminality of the preceding dynasty continuing, the ate of Jehu’s was redoubled. This view appears to us both clumsy and far-fetched. The plain meaning is that which refers the blood of Jezreel to the bloody massacres of Jehn himself, when in a single day he put an end to the dynasty of Omri and the wicked house of Ahab. On that memorable occasion he slew the queen-mother Jezebel, the seventy sons of Ahab, and forty-two relatives of King Ahaziah, also all the prophets of Baal, all his servants and all his priests. The royal house of Israel he exterminated, for he “slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none remaining;” the royal house or’ Judah he brought at the same time to the very verge of extinction. The slaughter of Ahab’s sons, of Jezebel and Joram, and that whole royal line, was, it is true, in compliance with God’s express command; and, for the measure of his obedience to that command, Jehu was rewarded by the promise of his family occupying the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But what was the motive that prompted this performance of the Divine will? Was it really zeal for God, as he pretended, and consequent diligence in obeying the Divine direction? Or did human passion predominate and political advantage hurry him on? We trow not. Certain it is that his subsequent career rendered the purity of his zeal more than doubtful. He exterminated the idolatry of Baal, but he clave to the calves of Jeroboam at Bethel and Danthe fundamental sin of the kings of Israel. In what he did, therefore, the act itself was right, for God commanded it; but the motive was wrong, for it was selfish ambition that prompted it. Thus it was with Baasha; he executed vengeance by command of God on the wicked house of Jeroboam I; and for so doing was exalted to be prince over God’s people Israel; but the word of the Lord came against him, as we read, “For all the evil that he did in the sight of the Lord… in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he killed him.” The Chaldee regards the blood shed by Jehu in Jezreel, though shed in a righteous cause and for the rooting out of the Baal idolatry, as innocent blood, because Jehu himself and his house turned aside to the idolatry of the calves. Jerome takes a similar view of the matter. Kimchi adopts the same; his words, literally translated, are the following: “And why does he call it the blood of Jezreel? Because it was shod in Jezreel. And though in this matter he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, yet, since he did not observe to walk in the Law of Jehovah, and did not turn aside from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the blood which he shed was reckoned to him as innocent blood.” He then adduces as a parallel the case of Baasha already mentioned. And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. Jeroboam II; the third of Jehu’s family, was now reigning; a fourth member of the same was to occupy the throne. That fourth sovereign was Zechariah, whose short inglorious reign lasted only six months, at the expiration of which he fell a victim in the conspiracy by Shallum. Thus ended the dynasty of Jehu; while its overthrow paralyzed the strength of the northern kingdom. Anti, though the day of its complete destruction was deferred for half a century, yet the disorders, dethronements, anarchy at times, and repeated assassination of the sovereigns, to which Menahem was the only exception, prepared the way for the final catastrophe. The overthrow of the house of Jehu has been aptly termed by Hengstenberg “the beginning of the end, the commencement of the process of decomposition.”

Hos 1:5

And it shall some to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Here we have a prediction of a most momentous event, with express statement of the place where it should occur, as also the time of its occurrence. The event itself was more than the downfall of a dynasty; it was the destruction of a kingdom. The date of that destruction is defined simply as the period when God would punish the sins of both the princes and people of Israel The close of Jehu’s dynasty was at once the preparation for and the commencement of the cessation of the kingdom of Israel. The place of this calamity was the Valley of Jezreel. This famous valley was the cockpit of Palestine. There Israel conquered the host of King Jabin; there Gideon overthrew the Midianites; there Saul was defeated by the Philistines, when driven up the slopes of Gilbea “the beauty of Israel was slain in thy high places;” there a defeat equally sorrowful and not less disastrous was aggravated by the death of good King Josiah, and proved fatal to the kingdom of Judah; there, too, in later times, the last conflict took place between the Crusaders and the Moslems, in which victory crowned the arms of Saladin; there, also, was fought the battle, as we learn from this passage, which decided the fate of the kingdom of Israel. The situation of this valley was admirably suited for such scenes. This plain, or valley, broad as it is beautiful, begins where the maritime plain, interrupted by the ridge of Carmel, turns aside and extends across the center of the country from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Jordan valley on the east, and from the hills of Galilee on the north to those of Ephraim or Samaria on the south. The form of this plain is triangular; its eastern side or base is fifteen miles, reaching from Engannim, now Jenin, to the hills below Nazareth; the north side along the hills of Galilee is twelve miles; the southern, formed by the hills of Samaria, is eighteen miles; while the apex of this somewhat irregular triangle is a narrow pass through which the river Kishon”that ancient river, the river Kishon”with its winding stream makes its way to the sea. On the east there are three branches in the direction of the Jordan, which bear a remote resemblance to the fingers of a hand. The northern branch passes between Tabor and Little Hermon, or Jebel ed-Duhy; the central one, which is the Valley of Jezreel proper, runs between Shunem and Jezreel, now Zerin; the southern between Mount Gilboa and En-gannim, now Jeniathis branch, having no outlet, loses itself among the eastern hills. The name of this plain was derived from the city of Jezreel, situated near its eastern extremity on a spur of Mount Gilboa, which Ahab chose as a royal residence, and which remained so for three successive reigns, though in the time of Jeroboam II. Samaria had again, as in the days of Omri, become the royal city. In this great plain, called by the Greeks Esdraelon, the bow of Israel was to be broken. The bow (qesheth, rad. qashah, hard, stiff, unbending) was the warrior’s weapon of offence and defensestrong and powerful; the breaking of his bow deprived him of his chief weapon, and left him at the mercy of the enemy to conquer or to kill; thus we read, “His bow abode in strength;” and again, “My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.” But while such general references prove the bow to have been an emblem of strength and power, as Kimchi explains it, still there is something very special and suitable in the expression of the prophet here. “In one important respect,” says the author of the ‘Jewish Church,’ “the ancient military glory of Israel was, if not confined to the northern kingdom yet regarded as eminently characteristic of it. Judah, with all its warlike qualities, had never been celebrated for its archery. The use of the bow was there a late acquisition (2Sa 1:18). But in Benjamin and Ephraim it had been an habitual weapon. The bow of Jonathan was known far and wide. The children of Ephraim were characterized as ‘carrying bows.’ And so the chief weapon of the captain of the host of Israel was his bow. The King of Israel had always his bow and arrows with him. The sign of the fall of the kingdom was the breaking of the bow of Israel.” The language employed by the prophet was thus singularly appropriate. An historical basis, though denied by some and pronounced precarious by others, is, we have little doubt, found for this prediction in Hos 10:14 of this very book. The bow, that is, the archery in which Israel excelled so much, was broken in the Valley of Jezreel, when Shalmon, identified with Shalmanezer, King of Assyria by Pusey and Stanley, spoiled Beth-Arbel, or Arbela, the city between Sepphoris and Tiberias, and near the middle of the valley, and thus crushed Israel in an overwhelming defeat. If the identification be sustained, that day of battle was most calamitous to Israel, and as cruel as calamitous, for neither the helplessness of infancy nor the tenderness of womanhood was spared; the infants were dashed to death against the stones, and the mothers then hurled in mortal agony upon the dead bodies of their little ones. Kimchi explains it generally: “On that day when I shall visit the blood of Jezreel, I shall break the bow of Israel, that is to say, their might and power.”

Hos 1:6

And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah. The first birth symbolized the blood-guiltiness and idolatry of Israel, and the consequent destruction. Two other births follow to confirm the certainty of the coming calamity, to develop it further, and exhibit the nation ever which it impended under new phases, as also to show the prospect of deliverance to be hopeless. The change of sex may indicate the totality of the nation, male and female, as Keil thinks; or rather the weak and defenseless condition of Israel after their bow was broken and their power crushed by the enemy. They are new ready to be led into captivity, like a female helpless and powerless and exposed to ell the insults of the conquerors. The birth of the daughter is thus explained by Kimchi: “After she had borne a so which is a proverbial reference to Jeroboam the son of Joash she bore a daughter, who refers parabolically to Zechariah and to Shallum son of Jabesh, who reigned after him, who were weak as a female.” The name given to the child is Unpitied, or Unfavored, if ruchamah be taken as a mutilated participle, the initial mere being dropped, though it is not found in close connection with a participle; or, She-is-not-pitied, if the word be a verb. In either case, the mercy which if exercised would save her from the miseries of captivity, is clean gone; and the love which, if it existed, would prompt that exercise of mercy, is no longer to be looked for. For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away (margin, that I should altogether pardon them). Aben Ezra quotes the correct meaning as follows: “Some say that is that I have up till now forgiven their iniquity; “and Kimchi: “Hitherto I have forgiven and pardoned them, because I have had mercy upon them; but I shall continue to do so no more.” , again, from , to return or repeat. The construction of the first clause is peculiar. Rosenmller cites as parallel Isa 47:1, Isa 47:5 and Pro 23:35; but more exact parallels are 1Sa 2:3 and Hos 6:3, in both of which, and also in the text, Kimchi and Aben Ezra understand asher before the second verb. The last clause of the verse, however, presents a real difficulty, as we may infer from the variety of interpretations to which it has been subjected. The LXX. has , “But I will surely set myself in array against them.” Jerome, confounding the verb with translates, “But I will entirely forget them.” Rashi: “I will distribute to them a portion of their cup and of their deeds,” viz. as they have deserved by their deeds, Kimchi: “I will raise up enemies against them, who shall carry them into captivity and lay waste their land.”Aben Ezra: “I will take them away;” he quotes for this meaning of the text Job 32:2, and takes the prefix le as the Aramaic sign of the accusative, giving as a notable example of the same 2Sa 3:30, haregu leabner for eth-abner. The Syriac Version is similar. A more feasible rendering, if the meaning of “take away” be retained, is that of Hengstenberg and others, who translate it: “I will utterly take away from them, or with regard to them,” viz. everything. We prefer the sense of “pardon,” as given in the Chaldee; in the margin of the Authorized Version; by Ewald, Wunsche, and Delitzsch; and mentioned by Aben Ezra and Kimchi. Thus it will read: “I will no more favor them that I should verily forgive them.” The flint verb literally means the pitiful yearning of parental lovethe strong feeling of affection which the Greeks expressed by . Paul’s rendering of the word with the privative denotes absence of love; and Peter’s the absence of mercy. Both notions are contained in the word, and their relation is well explained by Pussy, who says, It is tender love in him who pitieth; mercy as shown to him who needeth mercy.” Now, the connection between such tenderness of love and forgiving mercy is natural and close. Many an instance of this had been experienced in the previous history of Israel; many a time God’s compassion had been extended to his erring people, notwithstanding their manifold provocations; but that day is gonethe Divine long-suffering is exhausted. Once Israel is carried captive, there shall be no return; no mercy to restore them, as in the case of Judah.

Hos 1:7

But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God. Thus the contrast expressed in this verse increases the painful feelings with which the threatened abandonment and consequent destruction of Israel would be regarded. The promised mercy to the house of Judah is emphasized by the peculiar form of the expression. Instead of the pronoun, the proper name of Jehovah is employed; instead of saying, “I will save them by myself,” he says in a specially emphatic manner, “I will save them by Jehovah,“ adding at the same time the important adjunct of “thy God,” to remind them of that relationship to himself in virtue of which he interposes thus personally and powerfully on their behalf. An expression somewhat similar in form occurs in Gen 19:24, “Then the Lord [Jehovah] rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord [Jehovah] out of heaven.” And will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle (literally, war), by horses, nor by horsemen. This enumeration is quite in accordance with the prophet’s style, as may be seen at a glance by comparing Hos 2:5, Hos 2:11, Hos 2:22; Hos 3:4; and Hos 4:13. The manner of this deliverance is very peculiar and unusual; while prominence is given to the absence of those means of defense or deliverance on which the northern kingdom so much relied. The deliverance would be accomplished without the ordinary weapons of warbow and sword, in the use of the former of which Israel was so celebrated; also without war, that is, without its appliances and material of whatever kindskilful commanders, brave soldiers, and numerous troops; likewise without horses and horsemen, a great source of strength in those days (parashim, equivalent to “riders on horses,” as distinguished from rokebhim, riders on camels). This deliverance, in fact, was to be entirely independent of all human resources. All this points plainly and positively to the deliverance of Judah from Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah, when in one night the angel of the Lord smote a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the flower of the Assyrian host, and Jehovah thus by himself delivered Judah. Thus, too, Judah is saved from that power before which Israel had previously and entirely succumbed. (Compare, on this miraculous deliverance, 2Ki 19:1-37. and Isa 37:1-38)

Hos 1:8

Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. As Eastern mothers nurse their children some two or three years, the process of weaning at the end of that period would imply a corresponding interval. This may be merely an incident to complete the prophetic declaration, and pleasingly vary the narrative. It is rather, we think, a pause in the progress of the approaching calamitya pause indicative of the Divine lothness to execute the final sentence. Or the weaning may be referred, with some, to the entire withdrawal of all spiritual nourishment and support, when promise and prophecy, instruction and consolation, symbol and sacrifice, would be abolished.

Hos 1:9

Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Here we have the climax of Israel’s fate. The prophet’s children, whether actual, visionary, or allegorical, symbolized step by step the sad gradation in Israel’s fast-coming calamity. The name Jezreel, whether taken to mean their being scattered by God or their suffering the sorrowful consequences of their multiplied delinquencies, m either ease denotes the first blow dealt to them by Divine providence. Bat from that it was possible by repentance to recover; and, though dispersed, they were not beyond the reach of the Divine compassion, nor beyond the power of the Divine arm to collect and bring together again. But Lo-ruhammah, Unpitied, or Uncompassionated, imports another and a still heavier blow; and, though dispersed far and near, and though left in the places of their dispersion without pity and without compassion, still there might be a good time coming in the near or in the distant future, when a favorable change in their circumstances would be brought about so that they would be both collected together, or comforted and compassionated. The name Lo-ammi, however, puts an end to hope, implying as it does a total rejection and an entire renunciation of the people of Israel on the part of the Almighty. The national covenant is annulled; God has cast off his people, who are thus left hopeless as helpless, because of their sinful and ungrateful departure from the Source of all mercy and the Fountain of all blessing. The expression of this is very touching: “Ye” says God, now addressing them directly and personally, “are notare no longer, my people; and I will not be yours.” Such is the literal rendering of this now sad but once tender expressiontender, unspeakably tender, as long as applicable; sad, inexpressibly sad, now that its enjoyment is forever gone.

Hos 1:10

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor numbered. The division of the verses at this place is faulty both in our common Hebrew Bibles and in the Authorized Version. The former connects Hos 1:10 and Hos 1:11 with the second chapter, and the latter closes the first chapter with these verses, and thus detaches them from the first verse of the second chapter. The correct arrangement combines Hos 1:10 and Hos 1:11 of Hos 1:1-11 with Hos 1:1 of Hos 2:1-23, and concludes the first chapter with these three verses which are so closely joined together in sense. Here is the usual cycle of eventshuman sinfulness, deserved punishment, and Divine mercy. Had the last element been wanting, the promise of a countless posterity made to Abraham, renewed to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob, might appear abolished. Yet, notwithstanding the rejection of Israel, the Word of God remaineth sure. But who are the children of Israel, whose multitude, like sea-saint, defies numeration and measurement? The whole posterity of Jacob or Israel might seem included, as the words of the promise made to that patriarch and those of the present prediction so closely correspond; and Israel is occasionally taken in this wide and general sense. The context is opposed to this; especially does the distinction so sharply marked in the succeeding verse militate against this. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. The place where this great change takes place is either the place where their rejection was foretold, or that where its fulfillment became an accomplished fact. The former was, as is obvious, Palestine; the latter, the place of their exile, and so the lands of their dispersion. Thus the Chaldee, adopting the latter, renders freely as follows: “And it shall come to pass in the place where they lived in exile among the peoples, when they transgressed my Law and it was said to them, Ye are not my people, they will turn and be magnified, and called the people of God.” Once this change takes place, their true mission shall be attained and their relations to the living God shall be readjusted. The dumb, dead idols, to which they had bowed down in the days of their apostasy and unbelief shall be cast aside and away for ever. Jehovah the Living One alone shall be the object of their adoration in that day.

Hos 1:11

Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. The phraseology of the older Scriptures is here followed. Thus we read in Exo 1:10, in the words of Pharaoh, the children of Israel “getting them up out of the land” (comp. also Exo 12:38 and Num 32:11); and again, on the report of the spies when the people murmured against Moses and Aaron, “they said one to another, Let us make a captain [head], and let us return into Egypt.” In this way the scenes of former days were in some sense to be repeated: an exodus of some sort was again to take place; Egypt was to be abandoned and slavery left behind; they might have a wilderness to traverse, but here again the prospect of a land of promise was to cheer them on their journey and compensate them at its close; in fact, another or better Canaan was before them. Nay, more, the breach between Judah and Israel would be healed, and the disruption which had been so disastrous become a thing of the past. Judah and Israel would again unite and rally together under one head. But the important inquiry remains as to the how or when this prediction was to have fulfillment. Even if we admit the return from the captivity of Babylon to be a fulfillment, it would be but a very partial, though literal, fulfillment of such a grand prediction. That restoration was far too meager in its dimensions to come up to the requirements of, much less exhaust, such a splendid prophecy. Some of Israela mere fragment of the ten tribesunited with Judah in the relearn from Babylon: this poor miniature fulfillment, if we may so say, cannot be regarded, except perhaps typically or symbolically, as the fulfillment of the prophet’s vivid picture. We must look to gospel times and gospel scenes for the realization of the glorious promise under consideration. Jewish interpreters themselves refer it to the times of Messiah. Thus Kimchi says, “This shall take place in the gathering together of the exiles in the days of the Messiah, for unto the second house there went up only Judah and Benjamin that had been exiles in Babylon; nor were the children of Judah and the children of Israel gathered together; and they shall make for themselves one head,this is the King Messiah;” similarly, in the ‘Betsudath David,’ by Altschul, we read on this passage,” They shall be gathered together: this will come to pass in the days of the Messiah. One head: this is the King Messiah. And they shall come up; out of the lands of the captivity they shall go up unto their own land.” We cannot possibly mistake the objects of this prophecy; they are expressly declared to be “the children of Judah and the children of Israel”the two distinctive branches of the Hebrew race, the two constituent elements of the Jewish nationality, and comprehending the whole natural posterity of Israel. There can be just as little doubt about the primary and proper application of the prophecy to the conversion of the people of the Jews. For a time they were not to be the people of God; but the testimony of the prophet to their again becoming the sons of the living God is quite unmistakable. They shall appoint themselves one head. “The prophet,” says Calvin, “has, by the expression, characterized the obedience of faith; for it is not enough that Christ should be given as a King, and set over men, unless they also embrace him as their King, and with reverence receive him. We now learn that, when we believe the gospel, we choose Christ for our King, as it were, by a voluntary consent.” The words are adopted by both Peter and Paul: the former (1Pe 2:10) employs them as an appropriate description, in Old Testament language, of the happy change of condition consequent on the knowledge of the truth; the latter (Rom 9:25) quotes them more formally in an extension of their meaning beyond their primary import, and proper and literal application to the Jews, as an exemplification of the principle of once not my people, now my people. In this extension of their meaning they embrace, no doubt, the Gentiles, though not the objects originally and chiefly contemplated in the prophecy.

(1) If the place mentioned in the previous verse be, the place or lands of their dispersion, on the change indicated taking place, namely, their conversion to Christ as King, then their coming up out of the laud under the sole headship of the Son of David, the true Shepherd of Israel, may denote their restoration out of all the countries of their dispersion to their ancient territory, again become their own land, and their own in perpetual possession. Thus the Targum understands it of the land of the Jews’ captivity; likewise Kimchi: “They shall go up out of the land of their captivity to their own land; for the laud of Israel is higher than all lands, and he that goeth thither goeth up, and he that goeth out of it goeth down.” The initial and typical fulfillment was the return of Judah, joined by many Israelites, out of Babylon under Zerubbabel. The final fulfillment may be the restoration of the Jews, converted and believing in Messiah, under Divine guidance, to their own land.

(2) If, on the other hand, the place of the preceding verse be Palestine, the land of their rejection and subsequent recognition as the sons of God, the going up may refer to the going up of the inhabitants of both kingdoms to Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of their common king of David’s line; not in the sense of going up, as Ewald and others understand it, to do battle in order to widen the boundaries of their native hind and make room for the returning exiles.

(3) But whether the place be the country of Palestine or the lands of their dispersion, the going up may be understood spiritually of their coming up to join themselves to the Church, or rather to the Church’s Head, as under the old economy the tribes of Israel went up out of all parts of the land to worship at Jerusalem. It will thus apply properly enough to their spiritual journey onward and upward to the heavenly Canaan. For great shall be the day of Jezreel. The names of the prophet’s children were names of ill omenGod’s sowing in the sense of God’s scattering, Not-my-people, Not-pitied; now the evil is eliminated, the meaning of the second and third is reversed, and the first is read in a new signification, so that Not-my-people becomes My people, Unpitied becomes Pitied, God’s sowing is no longer God’s scattering but God’s growing. The curse is thus changed into a blessing; great, then, shall be the day so signalized by Divine goodness, so glorious in Divine grace, and so conspicuous for the wondrous works of the covenant-keeping God. Most of the older interpreters take Jezreel here, as in Exo 1:4 and Exo 1:5, equivalent to “scattered of God.” Aben Ezra says, “But the iniquity of the house of Israel is punished. And behold, it is all said by way of reproach, not praise.”

Hos 2:1

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Divine mercy being now received, the recipients are urged to extend to each other the right hand of fellowship, exhorting one another, encouraging one smother, confirming each other in the faith, and mutually provoking each other to love and good works. “Because the comparison deals with a son and a daughter, the prophet therefore adds, ‘your brothers and your sisters'” (Kimchi).

HOMILETICS

Hos 1:1-3

The sin of Israel sharply reproved.

The great sin, the root-sin we may call it, of Israel at this time was idolatry. But that sin was not alone; it was aggravated, as usual, by accompanying abominations. All along, from the period of the disruption, idolatry had been their besetting sin. The oft-repeated statement that Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, “made Israel to sin” has a special significance in this regard. As long as Jerusalem remained the gathering-place of the tribes, arid Solomon’s temple remained the national sanctuary, Judah must have retained the supremacy. To undermine that supremacy, or rather to transfer it to Israel, required a stroke of bold, unscrupulous policy; but the audacity, or rather godlessness, of Jeroboam was quite equal to the occasion. Under pretence of facilitating the religious service of his subjects, as though it was too much for them to go up to Jerusalem, but in reality to prevent the people turning again in their allegiance to the dynasty of David, he changed the place of religious worship, appointing Dan and Bethel at the northern and southern extremities of his kingdomthe one on the Syrian and the other on the Judaic frontier. But this change of place necessitated other changes in keeping therewith. The mode of worship had to be changed from that of the true God to that of the calves, symbolical representations of the true God. With such symbolic representation of Deity he had, no doubt, become familiar in Egypt, as previously Aaron and the Israelites had carried it with them on their emancipation from that land. There was something very insidious in this change; it was only a half-measure, but a preparation for the whole. It was not the introduction of new gods, such as Baal and Ashtaroth, the dual deities of Phoenicia, of which sin Ahab was guilty; it was the worship of Jehovah under an external form. It was not the violation, at least directly, of the first commandment, which forbids the having of other gods; it was the transgression of the second, which condemns the making a graven image; so that Stanley says of Jeroboam that “to keep the first commandment he broke the second.” The people took far too kindly to the change, and clung to it with fatal tenacity for two hundred years, subsequently even in the time of the Prophet Hoses, as we learn from several passages in this very book the calves were still objects of idolatrous worship. In our study of these verses we have for consideration the following.

I. THE PERSON OF THE PROPHET. He introduces himself to us by his name and surname, or patronymic. His name, Hosea or Savior, is one of good omen and happy augury, at least in his case; his patronymic of Ben-Beeri, “son of my well,” has also a pleasing significance of its own. By the former we are reminded of that Savior to whom the prophet pointed and to whom he bore his testimony, and thus became an instrument of salvation; while the surname may call to mind him who is the Well-spring of salvation and the Fountain of living water, according to his own words, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Or if the name have reference to the function of the prophet himself, it may denote his pouring out the water of life from the Divine Fountain of life.

II. THE POWER WITH WHICH HE WAS INVESTED. This, of course, touches on his Divine commission, and the corresponding inspiration which qualified him for the proper execution Of that commission. Like the apostles in after times, he claims to hold his commission from God, and to be charged with the commands of God. Thus in Luk 3:2 we read that “the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness;” and in Gal 1:1 we find the apostle of the Gentiles speaking of his commission in the following terms: “Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” Thus in the case of Paul, his apostolic authority was not from () men, as the source of that authority by whom it is conferred, nor by () man, the single representative of any body of men, as the channel of that authority through whom it is conveyed. It was through the two Persons of the blessed TrinitySon and Father, agent and origin, medium and sourcea direct Divine commission. So with the prophet in this introductory passage. But he not only held his commission from God, he had his instructions from God. His position was like that of a diplomatist or ambassador sent out by an earthly sovereign, who is commissioned to represent his sovereign, and in that capacity to adhere faithfully to the instructions he has received, correctly interpreting the will and wishes of his monarch and scrupulously communicating the same. Three several times is the source of Hosea’s instructions insisted on. There is the first general statement of the word of the Lord coming to him; then there is the notification of the beginning of the word of the Lord being in Hosea; and next we learn that the Lord spake to him. The conveyance of these instructions is presented under a threefold aspect. They come to him from the Lord and so with Divine authority; they reach him by direct communication, for the Lord himself spoke to him; and they are in him, reflected on his mind and retained in his memory, and ready for present and practical use. God made him a depositary of his truth and thus fitted him for declaring it to others; he revealed his will to him, and by the inspiration of his Spirit qualified him to record it without error for the benefit of present and succeeding generations. Though not possessing or presuming to possess this special inspiration of prophets under the Old and apostles under the New Testament, the preacher of the gospel is truly commissioned and strictly commanded to declare the whole counsel of God, not with wisdom of words, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, not handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

III. THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE PROPHET. The official life of Hosea reached the length of an ordinary lifetime, falling little short of the ordinary three score years and ten. The summer’s heat and winter’s cold of all those long and weary years still found him at his post, as a prophet of the Lord. Many a dynastic change had taken place during that period: sovereigns might rise or sovereigns fall; men might come and men might go, but he went on as ever. Faithful to his God, faithful to his king and country, alike pious and patriotic, he persisted in the work to which God had caned him. To most men work long continued at last becomes irksome; the performance of duties in incessant round and for a lengthened period disposes men to seek respite or release; age itself, with its weight of years, brings manifold infirmities; but however it may have been with the prophet, he does not plead age, or infirmity, or length of service, or exhausted energies, or enfeebled strength, or failing powers either of mind or body, in order to obtain exemption from further service, or to secure in the evening of his days that ease or rest which he had so well earned; nay, unceasingly as uncomplainingly he persists in his onerous duties, and plies the task which Providence assigned him.

IV. THE PATIENCE OF THE PROPHET. If our work be pleasant, and especially if it prove successful, we are greatly encouraged thereby, and in some sort enabled to persevere. Want of success, on the other hand, too often paralyzes men’s powers and puts an end to their exertions. Not so with Hosea. His efforts for the spiritual amelioration of his people were ineffectual; his labors in that direction were not crowned with the desired success. Yet in shadow as in sunshine, through evil report as good report, whether his work was appreciated or despised, with fruit or wanting it, he had learnt to possess his soul in patience. Many an untoward event, many a froward or perverse action on the part of those to whom he ministered, many a hard speech, discouraged his heart, we are sure, from the history of those evil days and the godless generation among whom he lived and wrought. His patience was triedsorely tried, yet triumphed over all What a lesson to all who are engaged in work for God!

V. THE PECULIARITY OF THE PERIOD AT WHICH HE PUBLISHED HIS PREDICTIONS, That peculiarity consists in the fact that it was a period of unwonted prosperity. Had it been otherwise; had it been a time of positive decline or partial disorganization; had disintegration actually and obviously set in as at a later period, it might have been said that coming events were so casting their shadows before that a sagacious calculator of probabilities might readily predict the coming catastrophe. But in the reign of Jeroboam II; son and successor of Joash, and largely by his prowess, the power of Israel was revived. During his reign of forty-one years he had enlarged his kingdom beyond all preceding limits from the time of its separation item Judah; he had recovered Damascus, the capital of Syria, though that city had been lost even in the days of Solomon, together with Hamath on the Oronte; the key of Eastern Syria, thus checking if not crushing that hostile power. The northern kingdom had reached an unprecedented height of wealth and power; the sovereign had been triumphant in war, and his subjects were now happy and prosperous in peace. But at this very period of material wealth and military glory, after he had “restored the coasts of Israel from the entering of Hamath [the lower part of the Coelo-Syrian valley, from the gorge of the Litany to Baalbek] to the sea of the plain,” amid the splendor of his achievements and the opulence of his subjects, the prophet foretold, not merely the decline, but the actual downfall, of the kingdom of Israel. An important lesson connects itself with this. It is not only the truth of the prediction, so contrary to all calculation, so opposed to all seeming probability, but the warning thus furnished against mistaking temporal prosperity for a proof of Divine favor, or reckoning and resting on the permanence of earthly possessions. In the case before us, however, a worm was at the root of the gourd. The moral progress of the nation was in the inverse ratio of its material prosperity.

VI. THE PAINFUL DECLARATION OF THE NATIONAL SIN. That sin was more than ordinary apostasy, bad as such a state of things assuredly is; it was idolatry which is spiritual adultery. This was expressed by the symbol of the prophet, whether in reality, vision, or parable, wedding an unchaste woman, a wife of whoredoms, by name Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. If such a union, even in symbol, was humiliating to the pure spirit of the prophet, how dreadful for a people to be in a condition so disgustingly loathsome and fearfully sinful, exposed to the deserved wrath of the Almighty, and obnoxious to the doom he has pronounced against such, “Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee!” If such relationship is repulsive in the extreme to every man of proper sentiments and virtuous feeling, how unspeakably hateful to the infinitely holy God to stand in the position of husband to a people so abominably faithless and impure! Yet their Maker had been their Husband, even the Lord of hosts, which is his adorable name.

Hos 1:4-9

The sufferings of Israel symbolically recorded.

The three children of the prophet by Gomer symbolize at once a degree of sin and a period of suffering. The forefathers of Israel had been idolaters in their native laud and in Egypt, as we learn from the admonition of Joshua (Jos 24:14), “Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt.” But God took them into covenant with himself at Sinai; this new relation may be represented by the prophet’s espousing at the Divine command Gomer, notwithstanding her previous impurity and lewdness. But though God took the people of Israel into such a close and endearing relation to himself, yet their posterity, instead of proving themselves children of God, often forsook God and fell into idolatry, this apostasy of the descendants through succeeding generations is set forth by the children of whoredoms which the prophet had by a wife of whoredoms. So with ourselves tainted with original sin; we are stained by many actual transgressions. “Sin,” it has been well said, “is contagious, and, unless the entail is cut off by grace, hereditary.”

I. THE NAME OF THE FIRST CHILD IMPLIES DEGENERACY, Jezreel, if taken in its local sense, reminds of bloodshed as also idolatry, and of the nemesis that in due time followed; but if understood appellatively, the name of dominion implied in Israel degenerates into that of dispersion included in Jezreel.

1. Imperfect work is imperfectly rewarded. No work done for God can make him our debtor, yet he is graciously pleased to reward honest work in his service, the reward being entirely of grace and not of debt. Jehu executed God’s judgment on the house of Ahab, and had his reward in the succession of his family to the fourth generation. Though he pretended zeal he did not do the Lord’s work sincerely; his own selfish interests and his own base designs mingled largely with his motives, and marred the worth of his work. The obtainment of a kingdom for himself rather than obedience to God was the chief end on which his heart was set. Neither did he perform the Lord’s work thoroughly. He abolished the idolatry of Baal, but he adhered to the idolatry of the calves; obviously because the former served his own ends and helped to establish him in the kingdom, while the latter tended, as be thought, to secure his interest in the kingdom and keep his subjects detached from Judah.

2. Punishment, though slow, is sure. Yet a little while and the dynasty of Jehu became extinct; while fifty years afterwards the very kingdom over which that dynasty had ruled ceased altogether to exist. In the interval that elapsed between the extinction of the dynasty of Jehu and the total cessation of the kingdom of Israel a crushing defeat had been sustained in the valley of Jezreel, when the military strength of Israel was completely broken. Whether this was the battle of Betharbel, in which Shalmanezer was victorious, or some other reverse sustained in the invasion by Tiglath-pileser, to the success of which the inscriptions of that monarch testify, we have not perhaps sufficient means of ascertaining. This was the beginning of the end, and a premonition of what was near at hand. The sins of princes and people had gone on accumulating till at length the day of vengeance came. As with nations, so with individuals

“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”

3. The unexpected often happens. Nothing could have appeared more unlikely in the reign of Jeroboam II. than the destruction of his kingdom within such a comparatively short space. He had proved himself a man of prowess and of power; he had extended the boundaries of his kingdom outwardly, and had consolidated its resources inwardly. He had restored the northern boundary of Israel to what it was in the days of Solomon; he had extended his kingdom southward by the sea of the plain, and to the valley of willows (Isa 15:7) between Moab and Edom; he had recovered what had been lost by the victories of Hazael; he had recaptured Damascus. He was, in fact, “the greatest of all the kings of Samaria. As if with a forecast of his future glory, he was named after the founder of the kingdomJeroboam II.” Yet then, while King Jeroboam was at the zenith of his fame, and the kingdom at the height of its prosperity, the word of the Lord went forth against it. God, who seeth not as man seeth, directed the eye of his servant the prophet to sin unrepented of and unforsakenthat internal moral weakness and rottenness which no amount of material prosperity or power could either rectify or remove.

II. THE NAME OF THE SECOND CHILD IMPORTS EXTREME DESOLATENESS OF CONDITION. Israel is pictured as Lo-ruhamah, and thus represented as a woman, worthless; for she is one of the children of whoredom, weak, an easy prey to the spoiler, a victim of injury and insult, unpitied and unprotected, impenitent and unpardoned. Applied nationally, the conquered people are uncompassionated, and waiting to be carried into captivity. Applied personally, how dreadful is the state of that individual who, by a long course of iniquity, has sinned away the day of mercy, and against whom God has shut up the bowels of his compassion!

1. To Israel as a nation, so to each of us God has showed great and manifold mercies; let us beware of abusing our mercies, and thereby forfeiting them. If we forsake our own mercies for lying vanities, as, alas I so many do, we may expect that those mercies will forsake us, being withdrawn in the providence of God. How sad the condition of those who are in affliction, and yet can have no reasonable assurance of the mercy of God; who are afflicted, and yet cannot plead the Divine pity, or hope for Divine sympathy and succor! Sadder still is the case of those whom death surprises in the condition indicated as not having obtained mercy! God, it is true, is infinite in compassion, and his mercy everlasting to them that fear him; but to the impenitent and unbelieving there is a limit to his mercy somewhere; while to such nations and individuals alike the time may come when he will say, “I will have no more mercy upon them, no more pity, and no more pardon.”

2. An aggravation of their misery is the natural consequence of the contrast with Judah in verse 7. Our blessed Lord very touchingly applies a similar contrast when he says, “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” The Revised Version, which has “cast forth without,” makes it yet stronger and more striking.

3. The salvation of Judah at this tired was their deliverance from Sennacherib. To this great event of Jewish history we find frequent reference elsewhere. Thus Isaiah, at the close of Hos 10:1-15. and the commencement of Hos 11:1-12; has a very striking contrast between the crash of mighty cedars and the springing up of a young shoot from a withered stumpthe downfall of the great conqueror with his men of might, and the uprising of a righteous Savior out of the lowliness of the royal house of Judah; in other words, the Assyrian and the Savior. This contrast is couched in the following poetic language: “The Lord of hosts shall lop the bough with terror [i.e. terrific force]: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall lie low; and he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one. And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” The same prophet, in Hosea 29; pictures the formidable military operations of the Assyrian, together with the suddenness of the disappearance and completeness of the destruction of his mighty host. Of the former he speaks in the first person, as the Assyrian was only the rod of his anger for the purpose of chastisement, and says, “I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and will raise forts against thee;” while of the sudden disaster that would overwhelm them he adds, “And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel [Lion of God], even all that fight against her, and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision;” a little before he had said, “The multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.” In the following chapter (30), naming him by name, he intimates that he had been a rod of chastisement in the Lord’s hand, and when that purpose had been served, the rod itself would be broken by the voice of the Almighty: “And through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be broken down that smote with a rod”the latter was chastisement and discipline, the former destruction. Several of the psalms also contain allusions to the events of Hezekiah’s reign connected with this great deliverancethe forty-fourth to Rabshakeh’s blasphemy in the words, “The shame of my face hath covered me, for the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth;” the seventy third, a psalm of Asaph, to Sennacherib’s destruction, “How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment I As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou debt despise their image.” In like manner the whole of the seventy-sixth applies. The third verse enumerates the peculiar weapons of the Assyrian, and affirms their destruction: “There brake he the arrows of the bow, shield and sword and battle;” the fifth and sixth depict that sleep of death that overtook them so calmly, so noiselessly, and so awfully: “They slept their sleep, and none of the men of might found their hands Both chariot and horse fell into a deep sleep;” the eighth verse adds the solemn awe in which all at last was hushed: “The earth feared, and was still.” The ninety-first psalm, which mentions the terror by night and the pestilence walking in darkness, and thousands perishing, may, whatever was the actual occasion of its composition, apply to the destruction of the Assyrian army at the eventful time when Judah was so miraculously saved.

III. THE NAME OF THE THIRD DENOTES DEPLORABLE DEGRADATION. Before this third and last stage is reached there is a respitesome time intervenes.

1. Speaking after the manner of men, we may say with reverence that God seems to repent of his resolution to cast off his people; he shows reluctance to renounce them at once and forever. Hence the delay. So in this very book he questions with himself: “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.” He pauses before proceeding to extremities.

2. Once they were the people of God, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; now they have lost that high positionthey are degraded, and that degradation must ere long issue in destruction. God, addressing them directly and, as it were, face to face, tells them plainly,” Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” The word “God” is here supplied, and the original expression is peculiarly tender. It is literally, “I will not be yoursyour Father and Friend, or your Husband and Head, or your Sovereign and Savior, or your Patron and Protector.” “I will not be to you,” as the words still more literally taken mean, “I will not be to you what I once was, what I long continued to be in spite of your numberless provocations, what I would still be but for your gross unfaithfulness, what you need no longer expect me to be in consequence of your base ingratitude. The bend is broken. I have no interest in you nor you in me; I have no honor from you, nor shall ye have benefit by me. You have withheld from me the observance that was duo to me and the obedience which I claimed; I shall withdraw all my mercies and loving-kindnesses from you. No more shall I send you my prophets, no more make known to you my promises; in a word,” and including the whole, “I will no more be your God.” Similar to the original words is that beautiful expression in Canticles, “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (ani ledodi vedodi li).

Hos 1:10, Hos 1:11

There is salvation in store for both Israel and Judah.

1. We must here premise our belief that the two divisions of the Hebrew peoplethe ten tribes and the twohave been long amalgamated. Even during the Captivity a considerable amalgamation of tribes may have taken place. Though we have the list of families that accompanied Zerubbabel and Ezra from Assyria and Media to Jerusalem, yet the tribal heads of those families are not given, as though their genealogy had been already lost. It has been conjectured, with some degree of probability, that the somewhat indefinite phrases, “Judah and Benjamin” are used by Ezra to denote “the more prominent actors;” while “Israel” designates “the whole nation collectively,” including persons belonging to all the tribes. It is certainly remarkable that in the Book of Esther the Hebrews belonging to all the tribes are no longer called “children of Israel” or “children of Judah,” but simply “Jews.” But besides this fusion of tribes during the Captivity, there would be a considerable admixture of such Hebrews as remained behind with their heathen neighbors; this might be expected from their readiness to contract heathenish intermarriages even in Ezra’s time. Many of the original stock of Israel may thus be found in Chaldea and the adjacent countries whither they had been carried captives, while others migrated into regions more remote. The so-called leer tribes may thus comprehend, not only those Israelites that were at so early a period as that of the Captivity incorporated with the children of Judah, but also those that intermingled with or were absorbed among the inhabitants of the Chaldean provinces, and whose descendants are represented by the Nestorians, Yezidees, and other tribes; and in case of those who had removed to greater distances, by the inhabitants of Afghanistan, the Jews of Malabar and elsewhere in India, the black Jews of Cochin China, the Jews of Tartary, and even the North American Indians.

2. This passage of Hoses before us, and that in the second chapter towards the end, which refer to the natural posterity of Abraham, consisting of Israel and Judah, and composing one nationality, are applied in the New Testament to Gentile believers. Hengstenberg draws attention to the paradoxical fact, that, notwithstanding the disinheritance of the natural Israel and in spite of their vast excision, yet “the number of the children of Israel should be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; who, from being not God’s people, should be called sons of the living God; that the children of Judah and the children of Israel should be gathered together and appoint themselves one Head, and come up out of the land [of their captivity]; and that great should be this day of Jezreel [or sowing].” He then proceeds to explain this as “first fulfilled in the Messianic time, and as in part still to be fulfilled, when the family of Abraham receives, and will yet more fully receive, an innumerable increase, partly by the reception of an innumerable multitude of adopted sons [Gentiles], and partly by the exaltation of [Israelitish] sons in an inferior, to sons in the highest relation,” in other words, by the incorporation of the multitudinous believing Gentries with the faithful remnant of Israel, thus constituting one sublime Israel of God; one family of Abraham, now the father of many nations, the heir of the world.

3. But the sense of the passage is not thus exhausted; more is to be expected. At present Gentiles supply the place of the rejected portion of the natural seed; the ultimate recovery, however, of this rejected and disinherited, because still unbelieving, portion itself is also included, as we believe, in this passage. But whether, with their conversion to God and submission to Messiah, they shall be restored to the “covenant land” from which their sin expelled them, is another question, and one not so easily answered. Indeed, there has been much conflict of opinion in regard to that answer. There is, at least, a presumption that with the pardon of their sin they shall be favored with the “ancient token of reconciliationtheir return to the delightsome land.”

4. In an able work on “The Future of the Jewish Nation,” we find the following statement: “The connection uniformly held forth in Scripture, in the case of the Jews, between defection and dispersion, and between reconciliation and restoration, constitutes strong ground for expecting that the final conversion of the Jews will be accompanied by a final restoration to their fatherland.” It is also added in the same work that the restoration advocated is “no voluntary return in a state of unbelief,” but “a restoration regarded as God’s public token of reconciliation to his ancient and now believing people neither are we contending for such a restoration as involves separation and seclusion from other nations in the little nook of Palestine but while the head-quarters, the proper home of the nation, will be in Palestine, there may be an abundant representation of the roving race in all the places of their present dispersion.”

HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN

Hos 1:1

The prophet and his work.

This subject may be appropriately introduced with some remarks about the minor prophets. They are “minor,” not because their work was of less consequence than that of the four major prophets, but simply because the Scriptures which they wrote are shorter. The contents of the minor prophets are very unfamiliar to many Christians. Possibly the pulpit is partly to blame for this.

I. THE PERSON OF HOSEA.

1. His name and descent. Our names are mere arbitrary labels affixed to us; but, among the Jews, names were often given in allusion to circumstances in character or destiny. “Hosea” means “salvation.” To some readers this name may appear to stand in direct contrast to his message, seeing that he denounced national ruin. Yet it was appropriate, after all; for Hosea’s ultimate prophetic word was the redeeming mercy of Jehovah. We know nothing of his father, Beeri; or of his own life, except as reflected in his book. He was a native and citizen of the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hos 1:2; Hos 7:5). He loved his fatherland with the deep love of a patriot; and his life-message was to “Ephraim.” He is the only prophet of that kingdom who has contributed to the Bible a book which is really a prophecy.

2. His lengthened ministry. Hosea must have been a young man when, during the powerful reign of Jeroboam II; he began his life-work; and he maintained his testimony throughout the turbulent period which ensued after the death of that prince, and indeed nearly to the time of the deportation of Israel into Assyria. He thus labored bravely during more than two generations. He did not withdraw from his ministry after thirty or forty years’ work, upon the plea of long service. Nor did he retire on the ground of his non-success, although it does not appear that he ever made a convert, or enjoyed the sympathy of even “a very small remnant” of his fellow-countrymen.

II. HIS TIMES. Hosea lived in the eighth century before Christ, about the time when Rome was being built. He must have begun his labors some years before Isaiah in the southern kingdom. His times were characterized by:

1. Deep spiritual apostasy. Indeed, his life extended over the darkest period of the whole history of Israel. God had, in great grace, espoused the Hebrew people to himself, and had called himself their Husband. But they had been miserably unfaithful to him. The kingdom of the ten tribes, especially, had “committed great whoredom” (verse 2). Its very existence as a separate kingdom was a course of adultery. Its political flirtations with Egypt and Assyria, when it ought to have relied wholly on Jehovah, were acts of adultery. The calf-worship at Jeroboam’s two “chapels of ease” was adultery. The Baal-worship introduced by Jezebel, with its shameful rites, was adultery. The nation, in fact, had cast off all fear of God, and lost all knowledge of him.

2. Fearful moral corruption. Wherever the foundations of religion are undermined, immorality becomes gross and rampant. Hoses contemplated almost with despair the universal secularity and violence and dissoluteness (or rather, dissolution) of society in his day. Riot and drunkenness prevailed everywhere. Sensuality was observed as a sacrament in the temples of Baal and Ashtoreth. Rivers of blood flowed through the land (Hos 4:1-3).

3. Hopeless political anarchy. After the death of Jeroboam II; the flames of revolution burst forth, and were never entirely quenched until the nation was suddenly carried into captivity. There was often confusion in the government, and sometimes utter anarchy. Kings perished by the hand of the assassin, and factions strove one with another until they were mutually devoured. Soon came the final rush of rain; and Hoses must have lived almost to see it.

III. HIS LIFE–WORK. Hosea is the Jeremiah of the northern kingdom. But his isolation was more complete, his sorrow more tragic, and his prophetic work more barren of results than even Jeremiah’s.

1. He denounced Ephraim‘s sin. The nation had rejected Jehovah as its Husband, and gone a-whoring after other gods. So Hosea was raised up on purpose to rebuke this unfaithfulness in all its forms: the Baal-worship, the calf-worship, the rampant licentiousness, the revolt from the house of David, and the leaning for aid upon heathen powers.

2. He pronounced Ephraim‘s doom. When he began his ministry there were as yet no signs of ruin. Hosea’s thunderbolts dropped at first out of a clear sky. It was the time of Jeroboam II; when the kingdom was in the zenith of its prosperity. But from first to last the prophet warned the ten tribes that their commonwealth would soon become a total wreck. They would be carried away into perpetual exile. God would set their kingdom aside on account of its sins, and not for seventy years only (as would be the case with Judah), but forever.

3. He announced redeeming love in store for Ephraim. For, after all, Hoses was not a despairing pessimist. He spoke with confidence of the continuance of the Divine tender mercy towards Israel. The northern kingdom, as such, must perish; but, notwithstanding, Jehovah will yet have a people for himself, who shall be gathered out of all the twelve tribes. So Hoses mingled with his menaces urgent calls to repentance. His appeals are surcharged with the tenderest pathos. It has been pointed out that he is the first of the Hebrew prophets who calls God’s affection for his people by the name of “love;” the first clearly to forecast the Christian conception of the fatherhood of God, with the infinite tenderness implied in it. Hosea’s message of grace was that God has still the heart of a husband towards Israel, and the heart of a father towards her children.

IV. HIS scour. It is important to distinguish between a prophet’s life-work and his contribution to Holy Scripture.

1. The arrangement. This book is by no means a methodical record of Hosea’s long ministry. It comprises only a few notes indicative of its burden and spirit. Yet the order of the book seems to be chronological. The first three chapters tell of the “word” given him before the fall of Jehu’s house, and while the kingdom still seemed strong and flourishing. The other chapters reflect those vicissitudes of frightful anarchy and feeble misrule which characterized the fifty years that followed.

2. The speaker. It is worthy of notice that throughout the book the speaker is generally the Lord in his own person. The whole prophecy contemplates Israel’s disobedience to “the first and great commandment;” and so the first personal pronouns usually refer to God himself. The Lamentations of Jeremiah is a sad book, but the Book of Hoses reverberates with even a profounder bass of sorrow; it is the saddest book of Holy Scripture, being in effect the lamentations of Jehovah. Hoses shows us the Divine heart as it were agitated with such conflicts of passion as a good man might experience whose conjugal and parental love had been cruelly blighted.

3. The style. Hoses is really a poem. It is so even in literary form; for only Hos 1:1-11. and 3. are written in prose. The first three chapters constitute a symbolical introduction, while the body of the book (Hosea 4-14) is a dirge, composed of mingled wailings, entreaties, threatenings, and promises. The style is abrupt, sententious, laconic, and “rather to be called Hosea’s sayings than Hosea’s sermons” (Matthew Henry). But “a verse may find him who a sermon flies.”

4. The profitableness of the book to us. Although Hoses was raised up primarily for Israel, his prophecy has its place as an elect stone in the temple of Divine revelation. It teaches the politician that only “righteousness exalteth a nation.” It reminds the moralist that a sound and pure ethics can rest only upon a foundation of living religion. It warns the Christian of the danger of harboring idols within his heart. Hoses is by no means a shallow book. It is not for superficial minds. It requiresas its epilogue (Hos 14:9) suggests very deep and diligent study.C.J.

Hos 1:2, Hos 1:3

Hosea’s marriage and prophetic training.

When this text is announced, possibly some may say, “What a shocking subject to preach about! Well it is shocking, indeed. God intends it to be so. But to our feelings spiritual adultery should be even more revolting than the literal whoredom which the Holy Spirit presents here as its prophetic symbol. And we must not forget that this painful passage records “the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea.”

I. HOSEA‘S CONJUGAL DISHONOR. How are we to explain the narrative portions (Hos 1:1-11. and 3) of this book? The most interesting problem of Hosea’s life, and the “vexed question” in the exposition of his prophecy, lies in the meaning of this story of his domestic experiences. There have been three principal interpretations. At the one extreme is the severely literal view; viz. that Hosea, in obedience to a Divine command, united himself in marriage with a woman notorious for her impurity. At the other extreme is the purely allegorical view; viz. that the narrative is to be regarded merely as a parable; or, at most, that the marriage took place in prophetic vision only (Jerome, Calvin, Hengstenberg, etc). The exegesis which the writer of this homily prefers lies between these two; viz. that Hosea’s marriage was real, but that Gomer did not become profligate until after she had borne the prophet’s three children (Ewald, Professor A.B. Davidson, Dr. Robertson Smith, etc). No view which it is possible to take is free from difficulties; but this last one is not exposed to the insurmountable objections which, in the writer’s judgment, adhere to the two extreme interpretations. It also furnishes an appropriate parallel in Hosea’s experience to the love of God for his people Israel. The prophet, accordingly, contracted a marriage which turned out to be unhappy. Gomer did not love God. Her heart became contaminated with the moral miasma which was poisoning the social life of the whole nation. Hosea’s quiet home, his simple occupations, and his devout sabbath-keeping, grew distasteful to her. She felt her life intolerably slow. After the birth of her third child she was directly tempted, and wandered and fell. Gomer joined the throng of the priestesses of Ashtoreth, took part in the abominable rites of the Phoenician idolatry, and left her poor husband to “cry to vacant chairs and widowed walls” that she had made his home desolate. Hosea’s love for his spouse had been very deep and tender, and he felt that he loved her still, despite the fierce conflict which his affection had now to wage against his outraged honor. It would almost seem too, from the ominous names given to the children, that they also, as they grew up, followed for a time in their mother’s evil ways. So Hosea begins his book by showing that it was the blighting of his fireside joys and the breaking of his household gods that first made him “a man of sorrows.”

“Now I sit
All lonely, homeless, weary of my life,
Thick darkness round me, and the stars all dumb,
That erst had sung their wondrous tale of joy.
And thou hast done it all, O faithless one!
O Gomer! whom I loved as never wife
Was loved in Israel, all the wrong is thine!
Thy hand hath spoiled all my tender vines,
Thy foot hath trampled all my pleasant fruits,
Thy sin hath laid my honor in the dust.”

(Dean Plumptre)

II. GOD‘S PROVIDENCE IN THIS DISHONOR. The shipwreck of his home-happiness taught Hosea very solemn spiritual lessons. He heard in it the voice of Jehovah pointing out to him his life-work. Looking around, he perceived that his experience was not an isolated one. Rather, his home was a picture of the moral state of the entire northern kingdom. The land was reeking with sensuality. And with that sin the sin of idolatry was closely intertwined. So Hosea became very deeply convinced that all the crime and vice of the age sprang from one spiritual root: “The land had committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.” He reflected that his own bitter experience was but a parable of God’s experience. What Gomer was to him, the Israelitish nation had been to Jehovah. She had been betrothed to God “in the days of her youth, when she came up out of the land of Egypt;” and the nuptials had been celebrated at Mount Sinai. But, alas I she had fallen now into foul and shameless idolatry. Hosea, from his own sad experience, could have sympathy with God. Himself a victimand not an eye-witness merelyof the wickedness of his age, he realized more fully than he could otherwise have done the odiousness of Israel’s apostasy. When he thought of Gomer, he could understand the words of the second commandment, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” And thus his conjugal dishonor was his birth as a prophet. It was “the beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea.” The Book of Hosea is a poem; and while, of course, “the poet is born, not reader events in his own life are oftentimes needed to strike from him the poetic fire. Although the poet is “dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love,” it is also true that

“Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”

(Shelley)

It was notably so with Hoses. Affliction was his one prophetical school. So, when he now sits down to begin his book, he recounts at the outset his domestic wrongs, in the light of his ripe experience of their Divine meaning. God had “girded” him, though at first he had “not known” it. The Lord had said, in his own Divine plan of Hosea’s life, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms.” The event had taught him that his desolate home was a type of Israel’s ruin; and his pity for Gomerwhich longed to restore her from her wasted lifea faint shadow of the yearning love of God for his apostate people.

III. LESSONS FOR OURSELVES.

1. God himself is the supreme end of our life. He is so:

(1) To the individual. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God.” The life which does not do this is a failure.

(2) To the family. This sad story reminds us of the blessedness of household piety, and of a pure family life. Holy Scripture everywhere magnifies the family, and enjoins that the fear of God be enthroned in its very heart. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

(3) To the nation. National religion, on the part of a self-governing people, depends upon the spiritual state of the persons and households which compose the nation. “Departure from the Lord,” whether in the case of the individual, or the family, or the commonwealth, is idolatry and adultery; and it leads inevitably to ruin (Psa 73:27).

2. All of us require to repent of Gomer‘s sin. Our evil hearts have gone a-whoring from our God; our wrong words and actions are the children born of our adultery. Each of us may say

“Thou, my soul, wast loved,
As bride by bridegroom, by the eternal Lord;
And thou, too, hast been false.”

(Dean Plumptre)

3. A course of affliction affords a valuable prophetic curriculum. There is a sense in which “all the Lord’s people” should be “prophets.” But, before we can be fully qualified and accomplished to teach the truth as it is in Jesus, we must be washed, not only in his blood, but in our own hearts’ blood also.C.J.

Hos 1:3-9

Hosea’s children.

Not only was the prophet’s marriage to be a sign; the children were to be for signs also. So, afterwards, were Isaiah’s sons in Judah (Isa 7:3, Isa 7:14; Isa 8:3). Hosea’s ill-starred children were cursed in the very names which they bore; and each of these was to be as a sermon to the nation. It may be that they personally walked for a time in their mother’s evil ways; but whether or not, the names which they received concentrate into a focus Hosea’s message of judgment.

I. JEZREEL. (Verses 3-5) “Jezreel” was the name of the great plain in the heart of the northern kingdom which was the glory of Palestine for its beauty and richness, and which has been in all ages a battle-field of nations. It was also the name of the fair city which stood near the eastern end of the plain, where Ahab had his ivory palace, and where Jezebel and he committed so many infamous murders. Now, Hosea’s firstborn was called “Jezreel:”

1. To recall the blood spilt there, which was still crying for vengeance. (Verse 4) This must mean the blood shed by Ahab and Jezebelthe murder of Naboth and his sons, and the massacre of the Lord’s prophets. But it probably includes also the revolting cruelties of John, by which he exterminated the whole family of Ahab. Divine retribution may slumber for many generations; but it will awake some day, and do its dreadful work. Jehu had destroyed the house of Ahab in obedience to a Divine command, and God had commended him for it (2Ki 10:30). But, while his act was in accordance with his commission, his motive was not. He had complied with the will of God only in so far as he judged that compliance would advance his own political ends. His “zeal for the Lord ” (2Ki 10:16) was only a thin veneer overlaying his zeal for Jehu. So, although he overturned the altar of Baal, he clave to the calves of Jeroboam. Calvin refers here to Henry VIII. of England as having been a modern Jehu. Henry broke with the pope, not that he might repudiate the errors of the papacy, but because he was determined to divorce Queen Catherine. He suppressed the monasteries, not because they were dens of vice, but that he might deliver a blow at the papal power, and at the same time fill his own coffers with the treasures of the monks. But, again, Hosea’s firstborn was called “Jezreel:”

2. To suggest that Israel was about to be scattered by God for its sins. (Verses 4, 5) “Jezreel” in Hebrew sounds and spells like “Israel;” and the play of sound suggests the thought that the nation which had “seen God,” and been a “prince that prevailed with God,” was to become “Jezreel” in the sense of being “God-scattered“ among the heathen. The impending ruin of John’s dynasty was to be the beginning of the end. For although the northern kingdom continued for half a century afterwards, it was constantly distressed with civil war, or distracted with revolution and anarchy, until at last Assyria came and subverted it altogether. Not only so, but Israel was to lose its prowess and meet its overthrow “in the valley of Jezreel” itself, hitherto the theatre of its military glory. That smiling plain had been to Israel what Marathon was to Greece, or what Bannockburn is to Scotland. Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Saul, Ahab, had all gained great victories there. Yet “in the valley of Jezreel” “the bow of Israel,” which still seemed so strong, was to be irreparably broken. Hosea himself lived to witness, at least in part, the fulfillment of this oracle (Hos 10:14). And illustrations may be readily multiplied from history of how God can break the pride of an ungodly nation at the innermost shrine of its glory. He did so with Nineveh, with Babylon, with Tyre. He did so again and again at Jerusalem. He did so a few years ago in France, when the victorious German army entered Paris by the Arc de Triomphe, and when King William of Prussia was crowned the first Emperor of United Germany in the palace of Versailles.

II. LO–RUHAMAH. (Verses 6, 7) This second child of Hosea and Gomer was a daughter. Her name, meaning “Not-pitied,” brought a still sadder message to the guilty nation than the name “Jezreel” did. To be unpitied by God is a worse calamity than even to be “God-scattered.” Hitherto Jehovah had at least always compassionated his erring children. And does not the whole of revelation tell us that the heart of God yearns with infinite tenderness over frail, suffering humanity? “Can a woman forget her sucking child?… Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Why, then, was Israel called “Lo-ruhamah”? Not because the Divine heart had changed, but simply because she herself insisted upon not being “his own.” She persistently “would none of” him. And so, at last, there was nothing for it but to allow her to “eat of the fruit of her own way.” Hosea’s daughter was to be a living witness by her name that the Divine patience was now at length exhausted. And the presage of this name would be fulfilled in the total and irremediable deportation of the ten tribes into Assyria. In case, moreover, the people should cling to any false hope, the opposite lot of the kingdom of Judah is referred to (verse 7) by way of contrast. Judah was not so thoroughly and hopelessly dissolute as Israel. The southern kingdom had not deserted the temple and the sacrifices. When it was spiritually at the worst, it possessed at least “a very small remnant.” So Judah would receive chastisement rather than judgment. And God would “save” Judah, although not “by bow, nor by sword.” There would soon be the marvelous deliverance from Sennacherib. Then, after the seventy years’ exile, the return from Babylon. And, last of all, in the fullness of the time, the spiritual salvation of Jesus Christ. But all the while, alas! the northern kingdom, as such, was to be unsaved. For Ephraim’s apostasy had been unanimous and universal. Not one of its kings was a godly man. And the people would not hearken to God’s prophets, but settled down in confirmed wickedness and impenitence. So now at length there was no refuge for Israel even in the compassion of God itself.

III. Lo-AMMI (Verses 8, 9) The name of this third child, meaning “Not-my-people” presaged still worse disaster than either of the preceding. The third installment of judgment would plunge the nation into the lowest depth of all. The withdrawal of the Divine favor could only lead to positive rejection. What though the Jews kept boasting that they were the Lord’s chosen people, when “by their works they denied him”! The life of the nation was such as at length to allow him no alternative but to declare that he would not be their God. Jehovah must dissolve his covenant relation to them. He is compelled to disown and disinherit them. Henceforth they are to be no longer a sacred people; they are to differ in nothing from the profane Gentiles. A dreadful doom! Yet still that nation is finally cut off, and that soul is lost for ever, to whom God says these withering, woeful words (verse 9), “I will not be yours.”

CONCLUSION. If we can conceive what a dreadful trial it must have been to Hosea to give his children these mystic names, so ominous of woe, we shall be enabled in some measure, as he was, to sympathize with the Lord’s sorrow for those in his human family who live and die in obdurate impenitence, and over whom his wailing, despairing lament is, “How often I would have gathered you together, but ye would not!”C.J.

Verse 1:10-2:1

The curse reversed.

The “yet“ with which this passage Clans is a blessed yet. It introduces suddenly an announcement of salvation for Israel. Hosea cannot think of everything as being always for the worst. His children are not to be living witnesses merely of approaching vengeance. So the prophet’s sobs of agony are stilled for a little, to give place to the inspiring strains of Messianic promise. He points out three blessings which lie on the other side of the dreadful doom of the northern kingdom.

I. REALIZATION OF THE COVENANT PROMISE. (Verse 10) Some one might naturally ask the questionIf Israel is to be “scattered,” “unpitied,” and “rejected,” what is to become of the promises given to Abraham and the fathers of the Hebrew race (Gen 22:17; Gen 32:12)? The prophet replies that these will be in no wise cancelled by the rejection of the ten tribes. The people of the northern kingdom are to be dispersed among the nations; but God’s purpose is to gather his Church from the Gentile world as well as from the Jewish. The promises given to Abraham were not so much national as spiritual. While, therefore, the symbolic one hundred and forty-four thousand shall be “sealed,” there shall stand with them before the throne the “great multitude, which no man could number” (Rev 7:4, Rev 7:9).

II. RECOVERY OF THE NATIONAL UNITY. (Verse 11) In the past there had always been more or less of enmity between Judah and Israel. Long before the disruption of the kingdom, Ephraim “envied” Judah. And for two hundred years now these tribes had also been sundered politically. But, in the good time coming, the twelve tribes shall again become one rod in the hand of the Lord (Eze 37:16, Eze 37:17). The oracle before us implies, further, that prior to this reunion Judah also shall have been rejected and carried into exile for its sins. To whom are we to refer this notable prophecy of the “one head”?

1. It refers typically to Zerubbabel, the head of the tribe of Judah at the return from the exile. Among those who went up with him were, at least, a few belonging to the ten tribes; so that a partial miniature of this union was presented in the return from Babylon.

2. It refers antitypically to Jesus Christ, the “One Head” of redeemed humanity. The literal Judah and Israel shall be reunited in him, along with the spiritual Israel of the whole Gentile Church. He receives the appointment, of course, from his Father; but also from his people, in the sense that they accept and rejoice in it. The lesson here is that only in the gospel of Christ is to be found the true basis of the brotherhood of the human race. The name of Jesus is the one adequate symbol of life and liberty. Only his body, the Church, can communicate to the world the blessings of the ideal republicliberty, equality, fraternity. Union among men can only spring from their common union with God.

III. RESTORATION TO THE DIVINE FAVOR. In the names of Hosea’s three children God had denounced woe upon Israel. But these very names may also be understood so that they shall convey an assurance of mercy and redemption. It may be, indeed, that after following for a season in the evil ways of their mother Goner, the three young people were themselves converted, and thus became qualified in character to illustrate their father’s prophetic message on its side of promise.

1. “Jezreel” will mean “God sows.” (Verse 11) This name shall be purified from its baser associations, and be understood again in accordance with its richest meaning. Originally suggestive of the beauty and fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, its application shall be extended, in the spiritual sense, to the whole of Palestine and of the world (Isa 35:1, Isa 35:2). When God sows there is sure to be a glorious harvest; hence the Messianic promise, “Great shall be the day of Jezreel.”

2. “Not–my-people” will become “My people.” In the good time coming, the men of Israel are to salute one another no longer as “Lo-ammi;” but, joyfully dropping the negative, as “Ammi,” i.e. those whom the Lord has again called to be his people. This name anticipates “the adoption of sons” under the New Testament. Hence we find the Apostle Peter applying this passage to the Jews of the dispersion (1Pe 2:10); and the Apostle Paul to the reception of the Gentiles, in opposition to the Jews (Rom 9:25, Rom 9:26). The words of the latter are not merely an ingenious adaptation of the prophecy to the heathen nations; they are an argument based upon the fundamental thought of it. Israel, through its apostasy, had fallen from the covenant of grace, and had taken its place spiritually as part of the Gentile world, which served dead idols. So the re-adoption of Israel carried with it the adoption also of the Gentiles as the spiritual children of God.

3. “Not-pitied“ will become “Pitied.” (Verse 1) The word “Ruhamah” will be applied to the daughters of the people, to express the climax of the Divine love. Israel is again to be the object of the Lord’s tender and yearning affection. On the other side of all the sin and doom Hosea discerns the sovereignty of Jehovah’s compassion and loving-kindness, and he calls upon the people rapturously to celebrate it.

CONCLUSION. How great the encouragement which these three verses afford to any of us who feel that we have, in our own lives, grievously departed from the living God l We, in this age, should understand more clearly than even Hosea did the unspeakable mercy of Jehovah. The prophet says nothing, for example, about the ground or method of the Divine forgiveness. But God has unfolded this “in these last days” in speaking “unto us by his Son” (Heb 1:2). The Lord Jesus Christ has come as the Prophet of the Church to emphasize and carry forward Hosea’s message” Jezreel,” “Ammi,” “Ruhamah.”C.J.

Hos 1:11

Great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Jezreel means “sown of God,” or “God’s sowing” (Hos 2:22, Hos 2:23). These words embody a rich Messianic promise which has already been partially fulfilled, but the complete realization of which is yet in the future. The import of this oracle was not exhausted by the return from Babylon; we may reasonably apply it still to every “high day” in the history of the Church. Some of these “days of Jezreel” are as follows:

I. THE DAY OF THE INCARNATION. On that day Jesus Christ was sown in the earth, “the Seed of the woman.” He fell into the soil of our humanity, that he might make it bring forth and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. The manifestation of God in the flesh has cut history in twain. Behind the Incarnation lies a moral wilderness; before it stretches the summer and harvest of the world.

II. THE DAY OF THE PASSION. Then the “corn of wheat fell into the ground and died,” that it might “bring forth much fruit.” And has not the Lord’s death been fruitful indeed? It possesses healing virtue for every sin-wounded son. It is the spring of all right thinking and of all noble living among men. Jesus “with his pierced hand has lifted empires off their hinges, has turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages” (J. P. Richter).

III. THE DAY OF THE RESURRECTION. Christ is “the First-begotten of the dead,” and “the Firstfruits of them that slept.” Because he lives, his people shall live also. His resurrection both secures and illustrates the quickening of the souls and bodies of the saints. The weekly return of the Lord’s day commemorates the great truth that His resurrection has brought with it the new creation of the world.

IV. THE DAY OF PENTECOST. That was the birthday of the New Testament Church. The events which took place on it presaged an illustrious career for the cause of the Redeemer. On that day the Holy Spirit descended in the fullness of his saving power; and the gospel seed which was then sown yielded an immediate and copious harvest, typical, too, of its destiny ultimately to cover the earth (Act 2:9-11).

V. THE DAY OF SALVATION. This day has already lasted for eighteen centuries. We are living in the streaming noontide of it. “Now is the accepted time” (2Co 6:2), The day of grace embraces every occasion regarding which it may be said, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” And, as the result of all, “a seed shall serve him.” “He shall see his seed.”

VI. THE DAY OF REVIVAL. Sometimes the Church loses its spiritual freshness. It becomes parched and barren and desolate. But God pours out upon it the plentiful rain of his Spirit; and soon conversions are multiplied, and the whole Church smiles again with the verdure of piety and righteousness, like a spiritual valley of Jezreel “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty,” etc. (Isa 44:3, Isa 44:4).

VII. THE DAY OF MISSIONARY TRIUMPH. It is the special function of the Church to bring the heathen nations to the knowledge of the truth. This work God will bless. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The fruit of the “handful of corn” “shall shake like Lebanon.” The spiritual wilderness “shall blossom abundantly;” and in our times we see the fields” white already to harvest.”

VIII. THE DAY OF MILLENNIAL GLORY. The Church is to enjoy a lengthened period of prosperity in the latter days before Christ’s second coming. While the millennium lasts, “the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in,” and the Jews shall be reingrafted into their own olive tree. Over all the world “Not-my-people” shall become “My people,” and “Not-beloved” shall become “Beloved.” The whole earth shall be God-sown, and shall “yield her increase.”

IX. THE DAY OF THE NEW CREATION. At the “great and notable day of the Lord” the Church will be conducted, through the final baptism of fire, to “the restitution of all things.” There are to be “a new heaven and a new earth,” adapted to the resurrection-bodies of the saints, and fitted for the habitation of the glorified Church. What a great day that shall be, when Paradise shall be restored, and the garden-city of the New Jerusalem shall come down out of heaven from God I

“There falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.”

(Tennyson)

CONCLUSION. This grand picture is only still beginning to be realized. But the work is God’s, and so we are confident that no part of it shall fail. “Jezreel” is “God’s sowing.” The seed is his. He is also the Sower. He will bless the springing thereof. He will fill the face of the world with fruit, and at last gather the wheat into his garner.C.J.

HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND

Hos 1:4, Hos 1:5

Divine retribution.

The political anarchy and social degradation of the kingdom of Israel during the time of Hosea arose from causes too deep to be reached by the panaceas of politicians, or by the nostrums of political economists. Willful and persistent disobedience to Divine Law was the secret source of these disorders, which called for a radical change in the hearts of the people. This, however, it seemed hopeless to expect from the nation at large. It was given over to its impenitence and hardness of heart. Hence, while there are words of promise for individual penitents, which break upon our ears like songs in the storm, there are none for the nation. Over it was creeping the darkness of a night which would have no dawn, the dreariness of a winter which would never be followed by a spring. The intensity of feeling with which a patriot like Hosea would utter such denunciations accounts in some degree for his obscurity, his sentences sounding sometimes as though broken by sobs. The degraded condition of those he addressed, demanding as it did a style of teaching which would compel attention, necessitated the bold sketches and glaring colors which abound in his prophecy. From the passage before us we learn the following lessons:

I. THAT A LITERAL OBEDIENCE TO A DIVINE COMMAND MAY ULTIMATELY BRING PUNISHMENT INSTEAD OF REWARD. “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.” The reference is to one of the greatest tragedies in history, recorded in 2Ki 9:1-37. and 10. Jehu destroyed the guilty house of Ahab, and the powerful hierarchy of Baal and Astarte, in obedience to God’s command. Why, then, was this blood to be avenged upon his house? Because, as Calvin puts it, “the massacre was a crime so far as Jehu was concerned, but with God it was a righteous vengeance.” In other words, a n act which is commanded by God may be so done as to become a crime to the man who does it. Let us take Jehu as an example of this

1. Jehu sinned in his obedience because he was seeking his own ends, and not God‘s. He slew the princes of Ahab’s house because they might rebel against himself; and destroyed the priesthood of Baal and Astarte because, as they owed their position to Jezebel, they would foment dissension, and use their influence against his usurpation. God does not seek such obedience as this. He teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven,” though the answer to the prayer may destroy our own cherished plans. The highest exemplification of this spirit we see in our Lord, who, being in an agony in Gethsemane, prayed, “Father, not my will, but thine, be done.” In later times the Pharisees sinned just as Jehu had done; and Christ, who read their hearts, declared that, although they obeyed the Law, they were condemned by God in their obedience, because they sought not his honor, but their own. Such sin is possible to you. If you do what is right in business merely because “honesty is the best policy,” and trade depends on a good reputation; if you give to the poor for the sake of the popularity you can win; if you abstain from a sinful indulgence because you can no longer afford it, or fear you may lose some prestige;you have in all these things “your reward;” you will gain what you seek, but nothing more. Yours is the sin of Jehu, who won the throne because he obeyed; but at last had this curse because he wrongly obeyed. Seeing, then, that you have to do with him who decides unerringly about the motive of every act, put up the constant prayer, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

2. The sin of Jehu also appeared in this, that he loved and practiced the very sins he had been called upon to punish in others. (2Ki 10:31) He refused to worship Baal and Astarte, not because they were idols, but because their worship was associated with the house of Ahab. But he did worship the calves (and so was equally idolatrous), because this cultus served his political ends, and seemed essential to the independent existence of the kingdom of Israel (see 1Ki 12:25-33). He hated the sinners, but he loved their sins; the very reverse of what was true of our King, who hated sin, but loved us and died for us “while we were yet sinners.” Now, if we punish a person for wrongdoing, and yet do the wrong ourselves, we are not only inconsistent, but we prove that we are sinning against the light, and so aggravate our offence. Suppose, for example, that a parent rebukes his child for swearing, while he himself is guilty of that sin, though right in the actual reproof, he is wrong, as Jehu was, in its insincerity. Paul contemplates this in Rom 2:3, where he asks, “Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” Such were the two elements of sin in Jehu’s outward obedience, which called for the threat, “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.”

II. THAT DEPARTING FROM GOD IS THE BEGINNING OF ALL SIN. Calf-worship (a modification of Egyptian idolatry) was less hideous and degrading in its ritual than that which desecrated the groves of Astarte or the high places of Baal. But it paved the way for these grosser idolatries. Indeed, even in itself it was not so innocent as some declare it to have been; for the calf did not represent Jehovah, but “nature,” so this was the worship of the creature, as opposed to that of the Creator. In less gross forms this idolatry appears in modern times. Many talk of “nature” till they forget God in his works, and are in spirit followers of shrewd, irreligious Jeroboam, who set up the calves at Dan and Bethel, and so made Israel to sin. In that false worship were found the germs of other sins. Spiritual adultery was followed by carnal adultery. Faithlessness towards God led to unfaithfulness towards man. So men became entangled, as they ever do, in the meshes of sin, till they were “drowned in destruction and perdition.” It is because we are fearful of the consequences of departure from God that we are anxious about many who are dead to us. They have contracted no notorious vices and are unstained in reputation; but they have no safeguard against the worst sins and woes, so long as it is true that “God is not in all their thoughts.” They are as much exposed to danger as the sheep on the fields of Bethlehem were before David, their shepherd, rich in his heroism and strength, slew both the lion and the bear. An estranged life is an endangered life.

III. THAT A TIME OF OUTWARD PROSPERITY MAY BE A TIME OF APPROACHING DESTRUCTION. “I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.” Never had the realm seemed more prosperous than when Hosed uttered this prophecy. It was daring the reign of Jeroboam II. a brave and able man, who had regained all that Hazael had conquered, had subdued Moab and recovered Damascus. The kingdom seemed strong, but it was on the eve of disruption. So has it often been. When the King of Babylon was feasting with his nobles, Cyrus was marching up the bed of the river, transforming the city’s means of defense into its means of destruction. When the people of the Roman empire were giving way to luxury, as men who could afford to relax the old toil and strain, the Goths were at their gates. Let any nation fail in moral strength amidst material prosperity, and forget that it is “righteousness which exalteth a nation;” let it in spirit say to itself, “Thou hast much goods laid up for many years,” then there sounds from heaven the warning words, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!” Nor ought a Christian Church to consider that its wealth and numbers constitute a gauge for its stability and spiritual strength, for not infrequently its truest prosperity has been seen in the days of persecution for righteousness’ sake. To ourselves also let us fearlessly apply the same principle. Our peril may be greatest in our hours of success and prosperity. Woo is nearest when all men speak well of us; for it is when we have eaten and are full that we must beware lest we forget the Lord our God.

IV. THAT A SCENE OF MEMORABLE VICTORIES MAY BECOME THE SCENE OF FINAL DEFEAT. “I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” The “bow” is always in Scripture an emblem of strength, and here denotes the military and political power of Israel, which would be broken in the valley of Jezreel. No place was more distinguished than this for the execution of Divine judgments against the foes of his people. There the hosts of Sisera were scattered by Barak, and there the Midianites slept securely in their camp till, in the dead of night, Gideon with his three hundred swept down the hillside like an avalanche and overwhelmed them. This place, made memorable by former victories, was to become the scene of final defeat to God’s people who had become God’s foes. This dreadful change was strikingly set forth by the two contrasted names, “Israel” and “Yidsreel,” names which implied that it was brought about by change in character; for the people were no longer “Israel,” having power with God, but had become “Yidsreel,” scattered by God, from him and from each other. Israel’s bow should be broken in the valley of Jezreel. What is the bow of our strength? If it be not in Jehovah it will be broken; for the day of retribution must come upon all that sets itself against God, or dares to take his place. We are hastening on to a final conflict which will test us to the utmost. In the valley of the shadow of death our fathers have exclaimed, “Now thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory;” but if we forsake God as Israel did, that place of holy memories will be to us, not the place of conquest and song, but of defeat and shame, for there that in which we have foolishly trusted will be broken, like the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.A.R.

Hos 1:7

Divine deliverance.

“But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” The contrast between the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel, in their nature and destiny, is here expressly declared. For Israel there was no hope; although pardon awaited any man amongst that people who turned unto the Lord, for no nation has been so godless, no family so vicious, but that every penitent in it may come with confidence to God. As for the kingdom, however, it was founded in rebellion against David’s house, and therefore against the Divine purpose. Its distinguishing mark was idolatry; the calves at Bethel and Dan indicated its limits, and the counsels of God, through his prophets, had been ostentatiously rejected. Hence the time had come when the people should be given over to the heathen whose worship they had chosen, and the words of the preceding verse announced their irrevocable doom. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away.” Very different was the position of the house of Judah. With all their imperfections and sins, the Jews still frequented the sacred temple, and there by appointed worship bore witness to the existence and unity of the living and true God. Judah was, therefore, still to be God’s ark, borne down the stream of time amidst the debris of fallen empires, until he should come forth from it who was the King of Judah, the Son of David, the Redeemer of the world. The Jews were to be humiliated and punished for sin, yet they should not as a people be destroyed; and so they were cheered by the promise, “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God.” The earlier fulfillment of these words is recorded in 2Ki 19:1-37; where we read of the deliverance of Jerusalem, not by brave defense, nor by bribes, nor by auxiliaries, but by the unseen pestilence which slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the crowded camp of the Assyrians. Nor was the promise exhausted then, but was again fulfilled when the Jews of the Captivity, to their own amazement, were restored, not by revolt or stratagem, but by the free offer of the magnanimous Cyrus (Ezr 1:2, Ezr 1:3). Our text, however, has more than a local and temporary interest. The principle of Divine deliverance, through other than human means, perpetually asserts itself in Old Testament history. It was the first lesson the Israelites were taught after leaving Egypt, when at the Red Sea Moses said, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord! He shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” And this lesson, emphasized in the wilderness, was repeated immediately Canaan was entered, when the walls of Jericho fell before the strength of an army which lifted up no weapon against it. In elucidating this principle of Divine deliverance we observe

I. THAT IT IS MAN‘S NATURAL TENDENCY TO TRY TO DO WITHOUT GOD, to trust the bow, and the chariots of human providing. The story of the prodigal is repeated constantly. Every man says in effect, “Father, give me my portion; let me see how I can do for myself without thee.” It is only by-and-by, when he finds that there are worse friends than the Father, and wearier places than the home, that, clothed in rags, with failing heart and many a tear, he says, “I will arise, and go to my Father.”

1. Israel showed this tendency. They confided in their bravery and patriotism and in the strength of Egypt, believing that unitedly they could construct a dam against which this great sea of Assyria, surging in so ominously, would break in vain. It was not an unreasonable expectation from the human point of view; for it seems still accepted as an axiom that “Providence is on the side of big battalions,” and that the destinies of peoples are decided by their material resources. Hosea would be rebuked as a prating preacher who was going beyond his province, when he urged that righteousness and godliness were elements which demanded consideration; by the lowest subaltern and by the highest general his counsels would be laughed to scorn, though events showed that he was right.

2. Temptations to this were never stronger than now. In proportion as our powers develop, our liability to trust to them, and not to him who gave them, increases. In our day physical sciences have grown, and the principles so educed have been swiftly and boldly applied to our necessities. We are pointed to evidences in every direction of the constancy of law and the absence of fortuity. Indeed, the religious fallacy of Judah has been formulated into the philosophy of Positivism, which recognizes nothing but that which the intellect can prove, and excludes everything spiritual and supernatural. It points out that in human distresses we should turn to science, not to God; and that the study of political economy and natural science may fairly supersede the preaching of righteousness as a means of salvation to a people. We do not disparage scientific discoveries, but rather rejoice that they are made so frequently and fearlessly. We only ask men to recognize that there is another sphere not discoverable by the intellect, which underlies and impinges upon the sphere of sensuous life, and. that, while things seen are temporal, there are things unseen which are eternal. Well may one of the characters in ‘The New Republic’ be represented as saying to such teachers, “Your mind is so occupied with subduing matter, that it is entirely forgetful of subduing itselfa thing, trust me, that is far more important.” But the disappointment of men’s shrewdest anticipations proves that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. “The shields of the earth” (the means of defense, temporal and spiritual) “belong to the Lord.”

II. THAT THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE IS INTENDED TO ERADICATE THIS TENDENCY TO FORGETFULNESS OF GOD. God rarely disappoints expectations which are founded on a study of natural law; for to act in accordance with natural law is to put ourselves in harmony with the Divine will, law being the expression of will. Yet there should be no idolatry of law, because it works in an orderly way. Law without God is a body without life, a machine without motive power. To bring about a belief in this, “time and chance happen to all;” in other words, things occur which are not expected and could not have been foreseen.

1. In history we see that God has often baffled man. He has defied probabilities, and chosen things which were weak to confound things which were mighty. Take as an example the destinies of Assyria and Judah, which were utterly unlike what man would have predicted. Assyria, in Hosea’s time, was the strongest creation of military force, and political genius. In the magnificence of her wealth, and the splendor of her palaces, she rose before men’s thoughts gloriously as the image Daniel saw in his vision. But no politician would have expected what the prophet foresawthat a stone cut without hands would come from the mountain and smite that gigantic fabric to the dust; that those richly peopled plains would become the haunts of the bittern and owl, and the lair of wild beasts. Meantime Judah, a little despised kingdom, tossed helplessly between the opposing forces of Egypt and Assyria, like a piece of seaweed between two enormous waves, was to be “saved by the Lord her God.” And thence, in the fullness of time, there came forth One whom men recognized as possessing the highest power, and amidst the ruins of a greater empire than Assyria herself, Christ, the true Ruler, founded a kingdom which never shall be moved. The world’s expectations were set at naught.

2. Have not our previsions often been falsified, and our best plans frustrated, so that the old adage has reasserted itself, “Man proposes, God disposes”? Happy is it if, amidst the ruins of our enterprises, we can say, “it is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.”

III. THAT MORAL VICTORIES ARE PREPARED FOR BY QUIET WAITING. God appoints quiet times for the recuperation of all life. The winter prepares for the spring. Sleep makes us ready for toil, and without it the world would go mad. So in the moral world. Work has been done most bravely and successfully by those who have had seasons of trust and waiting. Elijah had to learn that there was more power in the “still small voice” than in wind, or earthquake, or fire. Saul of Tarsus had to rein in his fiery spirit, and for three years was learning God’s answer to his question,” Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Neither Luther in the Wartburg nor Bunyan in the prison was wasting time, but gaining strength. Let us learn to wait as well as to work; and instead of being careful and troubled about many things, sit at Jesus’ feet to hear his word, and “in quietness and confidence will be our strength.” It is not by our subtle reasoning that we shall conquer our doubts, nor by our doings that we shall win salvation, nor by our efforts of speech that we shall save souls; for “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.” He has mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them neither by bow, nor sword, but by the Lord their God.

IV. THAT ITS HIGHEST EXEMPLIFICATION IS SEEN IN CHRIST‘S REDEMPTION OF THE WOULD. Had he come in manifested glory, the skeptic would have been silenced and the wrongdoer abashed; but he was made lower than the angels, that he might suffer death upon the cross. Born in a stable, he was nursed by the poor, depended on the wages of a carpenter for his food, and played with the common children in Nazareth. Having begun his ministry, he called to himself none of the leaders in the ecclesiastical, or intellectual, or social life of his age; but appointed Galilean fishermen as his representatives. Then he let his foes do their worst. No angelic forces hurled back his assailants, no trumpet-peal startled the court during the mockery of his trial; but he was taken “by wicked hands, crucified and slain.” And when he had passed away from earth, his disciples, without human advantages, won the world’s attention and established the kingdom of the Lord amongst all peoples. “It pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believed.” Consider:

1. The principle which underlies our text has its application in the experience of every Christian life. We are justified, not by the works of the Law, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We conquer our easily besetting sins, not by strenuous resolve or Christian association, but by him who, working through these, says, “Without me ye can do nothing.” We are saved from the fret of care, not because we are strong and brave to bear it, but because we have learnt to cast all our care upon him. We obtain rest from mental difficulties, not by reasoning, but by trusting, and leaving much contentedly to God’s future revelation. And in our last conflict salvation will be ours, not through the memory of past service, nor through our clear perception of what awaits us in the unseen world, but through the realized presence of him who came to receive us to himself and to give us the victory.

2. And finally let us apply the principle to the accomplishment of Christian work. The foes of Christ are still around his Church, and they will be conquered, not by the bow of intellectual, or social, or civil power, but by the Lord our God. You will never conquer skepticism by logical demonstrations; nor cast out heresy by persecution or the thunders of excommunication; nor put down vices by civil law; nor compel the heathen to submit at the Feint of the sword. But against these evils they will prevail who trust, not in men, but in God; who, conscious of human helplessness, look beyond all that is seen as those who can re-echo the psalmist’s words, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” For beyond the reach of mortal weakness and transient power he reigns who of old uttered this promise, “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”A. R.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON

Hos 1:1

The word of the Lord.

It is characteristic of the inspired Hebrew prophets that they sank themselves, their own individuality, in their Divine commission, and in the authority which accompanied it. In reading their prophecies we feel, as those to whom they were first addressed must have felt, that there was no desire on their part to speak their own thoughts, their own words.

I. FROM WHOM THE WORD COMES. Their formula was this: “Thus saith the Lord.” Their word was “the word of the Lord.” This is witness:

1. To the personality and spiritual nature of God. Words are the clothing of thought. He who speaks first thinks. The Divine mind is presumed in the Divine utterance. Language like that of the text could not be used of a principle, an abstraction, a law, an unconscious force, such as stone would thoughtlessly substitute for the living God.

2. To the interest of God in the moral state and welfare of men. Why should the Supreme concern himself to address the members of our race? That he has done so is evidence of his grace and benevolence. And to this the mission of the prophets bears witness only less powerfully than the advent and ministry of the incarnate Word.

II. BY WHOM THE WORD CAME.

1. By the medium of human spirits. There might have been other methods of communicating with mankind; but infinite Wisdom made choice of this. Man has ever been the minister of God to man.

2. The appeal of Heaven is thus seen to be to the human reason and conscience. It is plain that the Divine intention was not to overwhelm with an irresistible impression, but to convince and to persuade.

3. The Lord made choice of agents morally in sympathy with his holy character and aims. The prophets uttered the word of God, but they made that word their own. They plainly felt indignation with rebellion and unfaithfulness, and commiseration for wretchedness, and joy in every righteous endeavor and aim. In a word, they were what their designation impliesinspired utterers of the Divine mind, voices to all who would hear.

III. TO WHOM THE WORD CAME.

1. In every case it came to beings naturally capable of understanding it, and therefore responsible for the manner in which it was received.

2. To Israel the word came with an especial emphasis and adaptation; for the people had already received from the Lord such revelations as rendered them peculiarly qualified now to hear and to obey.

3. The especial circumstances of the northern tribes, the northern kingdom, were such as to make it peculiarly appropriate that Hosea should address to them language, first of severity, and then of consolation and encouragement.

4. The fact that these prophecies form a part of the canon of the Old Testament is an evidence that these words are profitable to all; and of this the experience of the Church is a sufficient confirmation.T.

Hos 1:2

Spiritual infidelity.

The figurative language in which Hosea was inspired to expose and denounce the sinful idolatry and apostasy of Israel is startling, and the symbolic act in which these sins were set forth in their abomination and horror is evidently intended to shock the mind of every reader.

I. GOD IS THE HUSBAND OF HIS PEOPLE. Human relationships are pressed into the service of religion; and the fact that God created man in his own image is the justification of such similitudes as that of the text. The Creator is represented as the King, the Father, and the Husband of the children of men. Under each relationship some new aspect of religious life and duty is brought into prominence. Jehovah declares that he espoused Israel in selecting her from among the nations, admitting her to special’ intimacy, and conferring upon her peculiar dignity and favors.

II. GOD‘S PEOPLE ARE UNDER OBLIGATION TO FAITHFULNESS TO THEIR LORD. The wife who has accepted a man as her husband binds herself to “keep to him only.” Adultery has ever been regarded as a shameful vice and crime. How much more are those, whom the eternal Supreme has favored with the revelation of his Law and his purposes, bound to render to him the most loyal and faithful service! He alone is to be worshipped, adored, obeyed, and served. Israel was distinguished among the nations by many events in the national history; and “in these last days” all to whom the gospel has come are signally honored, and are placed under a sterner responsibility.

III. IRRELIGION AND APOSTASY ARE NOTHING LESS THAN FLAGRANT INFIDELITY. When Hosea wrote, the northern tribes, constituting the kingdom of Israel, were again and again guilty of idolatry, and even those who were free from this stain in many instances fell into gross ungodliness and disobedience. Such conduct was represented as equivalent to spiritual adultery. Israel forsook her espoused husband and went after other lovers, and attached herself guiltily and disgracefully to the worthless rivals who wooed her. And all who depart from God are guilty of infidelity of a flagrant kind, such as the Lord cannot overlook or treat with indifference.

IV. THE UNFAITHFUL ARE SUMMONED TO REPENTANCE, AND ARE INVITED TO RETURN TO THE LORD. Conscience witnesses to the justice of God’s claims and to the sinfulness of neglecting and outraging them. And the word. of the Lord comes to the unfaithful in mercy and compassion. For, whilst he might righteously cast off his unfaithful spouse, he graciously opens the arms of his love and welcomes hack the penitent and the contrite.T.

Hos 1:6

Mercy denied.

The iniquity of Israel surpassed that of the sister kingdom of Judah. Hence the awful message of the Lord to the former, contrasting with the declaration of favor made towards the latter. There is perhaps nothing more terrible in the whole of revelation than the name symbolically given to the daughter of Hosea, regarded as representing the idolatrous and rebellions nation of Israelthe Unpitied!

I. THERE IS A WITNESS TO THE ENORMITY OF HUMAN SIN. Men sometimes imagine that God is indifferent to the conduct of man. But the truth is that while he is merciful, while his mercy endureth forever, he is not on this account an unobservant Governor. If he were not righteous, his mercy would be unmeaning. If he forgets to be gracious, if he lays aside his compassion, that which provokes him to such action must be iniquity of the deepest dye.

II. THIS WITNESS IS ALL THE MORE STRIKING BECAUSE OF GOD‘S MERCIFUL NATURE AND DISPOSITION. That some kings show no pity to their enemies, to rebels and traitors, seems only natural; their character is stern and unforgiving. But this is far from being the case with Jehovah. All Scripture concurs in exhibiting him as rich in mercy, as delighting in mercy, as unfailing in mercy. If, then, he in any case refuses or withholds mercy, his most glorious attribute seems to be in abeyance. He does not refuse mercy for his own pleasure, but only when its exercise would lead to anarchy and encourage rebellion.

III. THE REFUSAL OF MERCY IS NOT IRREVOCABLE. It is not for us to question the consistency of contiguous representations of the Divine government and purposes. We take them as we find them. And we observe that even when denunciations so terrible as that of the text have been uttered, after all they are followed by promises of deliverance and blessing.

IV. ACCORDINGLY THE THREATS OF GOD SHOULD NOT LEAD THE SINNER TO DESPAIR, BUT RATHER TO REPENTANCE. TO some temperaments especially, language like that of the text is productive of great depression as well as of serious concern. Let it, however, be remembered that to dread the Divine displeasure is one step towards the Divine favor. It is the insensible and impenitent who are working out their own destruction; whilst the man who trembles at God’s word is in the way for blessing. They who deserve no mercy may nevertheless obtain mercy; but only by sincere contrition, unrestrained confession, deep repentance, and a confidence in the Divine grace, which is warranted by the gospel of Jesus Christ.T.

Hos 1:7

Salvation, not of man, but of God.

It may well be that there was in this verse a prediction of one certain definite interposition of the Lord on behalf of Judah. Whilst the northern kingdom should be forsaken, and consequently conquered and desolated, Judah, it was foretold, should experience a very signal instance of Divine delivering mercy. The destruction of the host of Sennacherib, when

“The angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breath’d in the face of the foe as he pass’d,”

exactly corresponds with the language of this verse. Human power and bravery were not the means of the deliverance of Jerusalem; this was due to the intervention of a Divine and omnipotent hand. It is well that pious minds should recognize the wisdom and the power of God in every work of deliverance, and especially in the unparalleled interposition wrought on behalf of our humanity by Jesus Christ our Savior.

I. MAN‘S SALVATION IS NOT WROUGHT BY HUMAN MIGHT.

1. History records the insufficiency, the vanity, of all human endeavors to effect the deliverance of man from sin. Rulers by legislation, warriors by arms, philosophers by systems of thought, poets by emotion and imagination, have all essayed the reformation, the moral elevation, of the race; and all who have tried have failed. The wisdom of the world has been proved folly, and its strength weakness.

2. The explanation of this failure is not far to seek. All human means are powerless in affecting the government of God; whatever is to affect that must of necessity originate with the Divine Governor himself. And all human means fail to reach the root of the mischief in man’s spiritual nature. They deal with the surface, but do not penetrate to the center; they do not reach the heart of the individual; they do not, consequently, prove able to reconstitute society.

II. SALVATION IS FROM THE LORD OUR GOD, AND FROM HIM ONLY.

1. It might be presumed that such is the case, from the infinity of the Divine resources. God is not buffed in the execution of his purposes, as men constantly are, by insufficient power. On the one hand, the nature of his creatures is accessible to him, and is known perfectly by him; on the other hand, the means of affecting that nature are all at his disposal.

2. We observe the supreme proof of this in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(1) The Savior himself was from God.

(2) The Spirit, who effects the internal change, is the Spirit of God.

(3) The gospel itself is “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” Thus it is apparent that the whole provision for man’s redemption and recovery is nothing less than Divine.

APPLICATION. This declaration is especially encouraging to those who feel pro-roundly at once their own need of salvation and the insufficiency of all human provision; a Divine interposition satisfies all the conditions and necessities of the sinner’s case.T.

Hos 1:9, Hos 1:10

Rejection and restoration.

Paradox is often the highest truth. Consistency is the idol of the logician. And not only is the course of the wise and good man now and again at variance with itself; God’s ways sometimes appear to us as returning upon themselves. Yet there is a moral unity and order observable, even when the “dealings” of the Divine King with his subjects seem inexplicable and at first sight irreconcilable.

I. THE UTTER REJECTION OF ISRAEL FORETOLD. Stronger language of repudiation could not be used than that which is used here. Irene is completely disowned. “Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” The adulterous spouse is divorced, cast out, and forgotten. The idolatrous nation is joined unto idols, and the aggrieved Husband of the adulteress pronounces the sentence, “Let her alone.” In all this we discern the degradation into which sin plunges the ungodly. And we discern, too, the righteous rule of the Lord of all, who will not treat evil as good, and who will vindicate his Law.

II. THE GLORIOUS RESTORATION AND PROSPERITY OF ISRAEL ASSURED. In startling contrast to the denunciation of Hos 1:9, is the gracious and generous promise of Hos 1:10.

1. Increase and prosperity are denoted by the common expression, “as the sand of the sea.”

2. Favor is expressed in the assurance that those who had been disowned as the subjects of God shall yet be regarded as his sons. The very spot that had echoed with the thunder of wrath should resound with the language of fatherly complacency and affection.

III. THE RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE TWO DECLARATIONS. In several places in this prophecy similar paradox is met with; there is a strange and sudden reversal of tone and language.

1. The change is not in the principles of God’s government, but in the condition and character of God’s subjects. Repentance and renewal are undoubtedly presumed.

2. The two sides of religion are thus harmonized. The law threatens, the gospel promises; but both alike tend to the moral good of men and to the glory of God.

3. The reconciliation is supremely effected in the gospel of Jesus Christ; by him came grace and truth, and he made peace.T.

Hos 1:10

Sons of the living God.

It is both singular and instructive to observe that this expression, which is one of the richest and sweetest in revelation, is found in closest connection with language of severity, rebuke, and threatening. The contrast enhances the preciousness of the doctrine. Children of wrath become members of the Divine family, rejoice in a Father’s love, and inherit a Father’s home.

I. THE LIGHT HERE CAST UPON THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE SUPREME. It is a gospel needed by our age as much as by any that has ever existedthe tidings that the living God is the Father of the sons of men.

1. He is the living God; neither an abstraction nor a law, nor a Being uninterested in his works or indifferent to the fate of his spiritual creation.

2. He is the Father; which is something more, for it denotes his personal regard, his affectionate disposition, his benignant and bountiful care. To take any lower view than this of the Divine Being is to go back from the enlightened teaching of revelation to the effete and degraded paganism of the past.

II. THE LIGHT HERE CAST UPON THE CALLING AND DESTINY OF MAN.

1. Here is witness to our spiritual nature. This language could not be applied to the irrational and, unmoral brutes. Only man, among the inhabitants of earth, is capable of the dignity and blessedness involved in Divine sonship.

2. Here is witness to the transforming power of religion. The context shows that sinners have forfeited all claim to a hallowed relationship such as is here described, with its privileges and immunities. The grace of God, especially as revealed in the gospel of Christ, secures adoption. Christians are “children of God by faith in Christ Jesus;” they have “received the Spirit of adoption.”

3. Here is witness to the duties of the new and spiritual life. What dignity clothes the sons of the living God! What relationships, what prospects, what services, are theirs! Surely it is obvious that those so honored are summoned, and are bound, to cherish filial sentiments, to render filial obedience, to offer filial devotion. A holy Father looks for holy sons.T.

Hos 1:11

One body and one Head.

This prediction may be regarded as having been literally fulfilled, when, after the Captivity, all distinctions among the Hebrew people came to an end. It may be regarded as still waiting for fulfillment in the restoration of Israel to the Holy Land. But it seems more just and more profitable to turn attention to the moral lesson of this text, and to come under the influence of this inspiring representation of spiritual felicity. Elements in true well-being are here strikingly combined.

I. UNITY. Judah and Israel were often at enmity, and always envious and discordant; their reconciliation was represented as a marvelous work, attesting Divine power and grace. The work of Christ was one of reconciliation; he harmonized Jews and Gentiles, “making of twain one new man.” And the ultimate realization of his purposes of mercy shall be attained when there shall be “one flock and one Shepherd.”

II. SUBJECTION TO ONE HEAD. From the day when Rehoboam and Jeroboam became kings of the two sections respectively into which the Hebrew people divided themselves, onwards for many generations that people was a disunited and discordant people. In Christ Jesus a disunion, a discordance, far more widespread and far-reaching, was abolished. He is the one Head, in subjection to whom the several and separate members realize their true and proper unity. History shows us the vanity of merely human principles and powers of unity. But there are signs that a Divine headship is destined by the supreme Ruler to be the means of reconciling those who are severed, and of preserving the unity of those who are as one.

III. A SPIRITUAL EXODUS LEADING TO ONE SPIRITUAL HOME. The chronicles of Israel revealed the fact that it was the Exodus which made the nation. When brought out from Egypt, Israel felt the pulses of national life. A symbol this of the effects of a spiritual deliverance; a promise this of a spiritual and eternal rest. The Church is led forth by her Savior, by him is guided through the wilderness, and by him will be gathered into the unity of the heavenly Canaan.T.

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS

Hos 1:1

Scripture, kings, and truth.

“The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, King of Israel.” This verse leads us to consider three things.

I. THE ESSENCE OF SCRIPTURE. What is the essence of the Bible? It is here called “The word of the Lord.” Analyze the expression:

1. It is a “word.” A word fulfils two functions; it is a revelation and an instrument. A true word reveals the mind of the speaker, and is at the same time an instrument to accomplish his purpose. The Bible is the manifestation of God; it shows his intellect and heart; and is his instrument as well, by which he accomplishes his purpose on the human mind. By it he is said to enlighten, quicken, cleanse, conquer, etc.

2. It is a Divine word. “The word of the Lord.” Words are always powerful and important according to the nature and character of the speaker. The words of some men are unclean and weak, the words of others pure and mighty. Because the Lord is all-mighty and holy, his word is all-powerful and pure.

3. It is a Divine word concerning men. The prophecy came to Hoses in relation to Israel. The Lord has spoken many words, words to other intelligences unknown to us. If all the words he has spoken in the universe were written in books, what globe or system would contain them? But the Bible is a word to man.

4. It is a Divine word concerning man coming through men. The Lord’s word came now through Hoses to Israel. In the Bible God speaks to man through man. This gives the charm of an imperishable humanity to the Bible.

II. THE MORTALITY OF KINGS. Several kings are here mentioned who appeared and passed away during the ministry of Hosea. He prophesied “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, King of Israel.” Uzziah was the eleventh king of Judah. His example was holy, and his reign peaceful and prosperous. Ahaz was a son of Jotham; at the age of twenty he succeeded his royal sire. He gave himself up to idolatry, and sacrificed even his own children to the gods of the heathen. Hezekiah, the son and successor of Ahaz, was a man of distinguished virtue and religion, animated by true piety and patriotism. Jeroboam was the son of Joash, and great-grandson of Jehu, and followed the former Jeroboam, the man who made Israel to sin, and, like him, sank into the lowest idolatry and corruption. Some of these kings had come and gone during the ministry of Hoses;Kings die, etc.

1. This fact is a blessing. Royalty has a tendency so to feed and fatten the depravity of human nature, that, were not death to interpose, the lives of men would become intolerable. When we think of such kings as those of which Ahaz and Jeroboam were types, we thank God for death, and rejoice in the “king of terrors,” who comes to strike the despots down.

2. This fact is a lesson. What does the death of kings teach?

(1) The rigorous impartiality of death. Death is no respecter of persons; it treats the pauper and the prince alike.

“The black camel death kneeleth once at each door,
And mortal must mount to return never more.”

(2) The utter powerlessness of wealth. The wealth of empires cannot bribe death, nor can all the armies of war ward off his blow or keep him at bay.

(3) The sad hollowness of worldly glory. Death strips sovereigns of all their pageantry and reduces them to common dust.

“It is a monitory truth, I ween,
That, turning up the ashes of the grave,
One can discern no difference between
The richest sultan and the poorest slave.”

III. THE PERPETUITY OF TRUTH. Although these kings successively appeared and passed away, the ministry of Hosea kept on.

1. The “Word of the Lord” is adapted to all generations. It is congruous with all intellects, it chimes in with all hearts, it provides for the common wants of all.

2. The “Word of the Lord” is necessary for all generations. All men in all ages and lands want it; it is as indispensable to their happiness as air is to their life. Generations may appear in the distant future who may not require our forms of government, our social institutions, our artistic devices, our mechanical inventions, and who may despise our literary productions; but no generation will ever appear who will not require the “Word of the Lord.”D.T.

Hos 1:5

Retribution.

“And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” The word “Jezreel” means “God’s seed,” or “sowing.” The tract of land called by this name was an extensive plain, computed by modern travelers to be about fifteen miles square, stretching south and south-west from Mount Tabor and Nazareth; the hills of Nazareth and those of Samaria on the south, those of Tabor and Hermon on the west, and Carmel to the south-west. It was called by the Greeks, Esdraelon: it had also a royal city, where the tidings of Saul’s death in the battle of Gilboa was first announced. In this Ahab and Joram presided, and here Jehu slew both Jezebel and Joram. It was the scene of many battles: among them, those between Deborah and Bleak and Sisera the commander of the Syrians; one between Ahab and the Syrians, and one between Saul and the Philistines, and another between Gideon and the Midianites. Indeed, it seems to have been a chosen place for battles, from Barak to Bonaparte: Jews, Gentiles, Egyptians, Saracens, Christian Crusaders, and anti-Christian Frenchmen, Persians, Druses, Turks, and Arabs. Warriors out of every nation which is under the heaven have pitched their tents upon the plains of Esdraelon, and have beheld the various banners of their nation wet with the dews of Tabor and Hermon. The text leads us to make a few remarks concerning God’s retribution. Here the Eternal threatens to break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. The language suggests that

I. GOD‘S RETRIBUTION TAKES AWAY THE POWER OF ITS VICTIM. The bow of Israel is to be broken. The language means the utter destruction of all their military power. Israel fought many battles, won many victories, and trusted in its “bow”military forcebut now that very thing in which it trusted is to be destroyed. It is ever thus, when retributive justice comes to deal out suffering to the sinner, it strips him entirely of his power; it breaks his bow, and cuts his spear asunder. Thus he is left to the mercy of his enemies. What are the great enemies of the soul? Carnality, prejudice, selfishness, corrupt impulses, and habits. Retributive justice leaves the sinner at the mercy of thesebreaks his bow, so that he cannot deliver himself. He becomes their utter and their hopeless victim, and their “bow” is gone. The Word of truth, the Spirit of God, and all the ministers of religion are taken from him, and he is left morally powerless. What “bow” have the victims of retribution in eternity by which to deliver themselves from their crushing tyrants? No bow at allall redemptive instrumentalities are taken from them. Thank God, we have a bow now in our hands; the Bible, the Spirit, the ministry, are all with us.

II. GOD‘S RETRIBUTION DESPISES THE PRESTIGE OF ITS VICTIM. The bow is to be broken in the valley of Jezreel. Perhaps re spot on earth did Israel think of so much as Jezreel. It was the scene of their grandest military exploits; the scene, too, where Jehu their king had slain all the worshippers of Ball. It was to Israel what Marathon is to Greece, what Waterloo is to England. In this very scene the punishment shall come; the place of their glory shall be the place of their ruin and shame. Thus it is ever; when retribution comes, it seems to despise the very things in which its victim gloried. A noble lineage, great wealth, patrimonial possessions, elevated positions, brilliant genius, and distinguished abilities,these are the modern Jezreels of sinners. In these they boast. But what are these? God, when he comes to judgment, will strike them in those very places; he will break their bow in the valley of Jezreel.

III. GOD‘S RETRIBUTION DEFIES THE OPPOSITION OF ITS VICTIMS. Jezreel was well fortified. Israel had great confidence in the protection which it had. When the prophets foretold the ruin of their kingdom they would think it perhaps impossible; they would think of the victories won in Jezreel and the protection offered there. But retribution will take the sinner in his strongest place, strike him down on the spot where he feels himself most fortified. Notwithstanding Jezreel, the kingdom of Israel was broken; the ten tribes were scattered upon the hills as sheep that had no shepherd. What defense has the sinner? “Though hand join hand, iniquity shall not go unpunished.”

CONCLUSION. Retribution must always follow sin. It may move slowly and silently, but its pace is steady, resolute, and increasing. Swifter and swifter it moves towards the victim. Sooner or later it will reach him, break his “bow,” and overwhelm him in shame and confusion. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”D.T.

Hos 1:6, Hos 1:7

God’s mercy.

“For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” This passage leads us to con template God’s mercy. Mercy is a modification of goodness. God is good to all, but is only merciful to the suffering sinner. Mercy not only implies suffering, but suffering arising from s/n. If suffering were a necessity springing out of the constitution of things, its removal or mitigation would be an act of justice rather than mercy. Earth is a sphere where God shows his mercy, for here is suffering springing from sin. Here we have

I. MERCY WITHHELD FROM SOME. “For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.” “There are,” says Burroughs,” three estates of the people, signified by the three children of Hosea: First, their scattered estate, and that was signified by Jezreel, the first son, and the story of that you have in 2Ki 15:9-19, where you may read their woeful seditions; for Zachariah reigned but six months, and then Shallum slew him, and reigned in his stead; and he reigned but one month, for Menahem came and smote Shallum and slew him, and reigned in his stead; so here were nothing but murders and seditions amongst them. A scattered people. The scattered state of the people of Israel was their weak condition signified by the daughter; and the history of that you have from 2Ki 15:16 of that chapter onwards, where, when Pul, the King of Assyria, came against Israel, Menahem yielded to him his demand, gave him a thousand talents of silver to go from him, and laid a tax upon the people for it. Here they were brought into a very low and weak condition. And afterwards this King of Assyria came to them again, and carried part of them into captivity. The third child was Lo-ammi, and the history of the state of the people signified by what you have in 2Ki 17:6, where they were fully carried away and wholly rejected for ever. And because they were a little before that time grown up to some strength more than formerly, therefore this last was a son.” God now threatened to withhold mercy from Israel, and we know that when he did so the consequence was national ruin. Where mercy has been abused the time comes when it is withheld, and the subjects are left abandoned of God. When mercy is withheld from nations they perish, from Churches they decay, from families they sink to corruption, from individuals they are lost. “My Spirit shall not always strive with men;” “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.”

II. MERCY BESTOWED UPON OTHERS. “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” This mercy was signally shown to Judah. “When the Assyrian armies had destroyed Samaria, and carried the ten tribes away into captivity, they proceeded to besiege Jerusalem; but God had mercy on the house of Judah, and saved them; they were saved by the Lord their God immediately, and not by sword or ‘ bow.’ When the ten tribes were carried into captivity, and their land was possessed by others, they being utterly taken away, God had mercy on the house of Judah and saved them, and after seventy years brought them back, not by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts.” And truly most signal was the mercy shown to Judah, when in one night one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian warriors were slain.

“The angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breath’d in the face of the foe as he pass’d;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heav’d and for ever grew still!
“And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride,
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
“And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.”

Looking at the words in their spiritual application, they suggest two remarks in relation to man’s deliverance.

1. It is of mercy. “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God.” The deliverance of man from the guilt, the power, and consequence of sin is entirely of God’s mercyfree, sovereign, boundless mercy.

2. It is by moral means. “Will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” No material force can deliver the soul from its spiritual difficulties and perils. Moral means alone can effect the object.” Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”

CONCLUSION. Use mercy rightly while you have it. Its grand design is to produce reformation of character and meetness for the high service and lofty fellowship with the great God, here and yonder, now and forever.D.T.

Hos 1:10, Hos 1:11

The destiny of the race.

“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall he the day of Jezreel.” Biblical critics of all schools use the natural Israel as the emblem of the spiritual. Paul does so, and therefore it is just and right. We shall take Israel for mankind, and use the text to illustrate the destiny of the race.

I. The race is destined to an INDEFINITE INCREASE in the number of good men. “The number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered or measured.” The good, the spiritual Israel, have been comparatively few in all ages, though perhaps there is a larger number now than in any preceding period. But the time will come when they shall be innumerable. What mean such passages as these?”He shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the end of the earth.” Again, “All kings shall fall down before him.” Again, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” Numerous as the sand on the sea-shore! A Jewish rabbi regards the good as the sand, not only in relation to number, but to usefulness. As the sand keeps the sea from breaking in and drowning the world, so the saints keep the world from being drowned by the waves of eternal retribution. This is true. Were it not for the good the world would not stand long. But it is to represent number, not protection, that the figure is employed. Who can count the sand which is upon the shore? Do you say that to all appearances such an increase is impossible? When God promised to Abraham that his seed should be as the stars of heaven and the sand upon the shore, what could seem more improbable than the fulfillment? It was twenty years after the promise that he had any child, and that only child he was commanded to destroy, and though Isaac was preserved, he had no offspring until twenty years after his marriage. How improbable the fulfillment of such a promise; but nevertheless it was fulfilled. How numerous the descendants of Abraham became! Do not judge from appearance. Trust God’s Word; it will come to pass. There is a glorious future for the world.

II. The race is destined to a TRANSCENDENT PRIVILEGE. “And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”

1. They are destined to a general conversion to God. From not being his people they are to become his people. The places el the earth now populated with the enemies of God will one day be crowded with his friends; places where idolatry, superstition, worldliness, and infidelity prevail shall in the bright future be consecrated to Heaven.

2. They are destined to a general adoption into the family of God. “Ye are the sons of the living God.” They shall be endowed and animated with the true Spirit, the spirit of reverence and adoring love. They shall “worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” “The living God.” The world has abounded with dead gods; there is but one living God. He is the Living One. He is Life, the primal Fount of all existence. Christ calls him the living Father. “As the living Father sent me I live in the Father, so he that eateth with me shall live by me.”

III. The race is destined to a COMMON LEADERSHIP. “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.”

1. This leadership shall unite the most hostile. “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together.” Great and long-enduring was the hostility existing between these people. The time will come when all antitathies existing amongst peoples shall be destroyed. “Ephraim shall not envy Judah: they shall be of one heart and one mind.”

2. This leadership shall be by common appointment. They shall “appoint themselves one Head.” Their Leader will not be forced upon them contrary to their consent, nor will he force himself. Who is the Leader? Christ. He is the Leader of the people. He is the Commander-in-chief, he is the Captain of our salvation. All shall unite in him. He is the Head of the Church.

3. This leadership will be glorious. “They shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.” As Moses led the Jews out of the wilderness, as Cyrus delivered them from Babylon, Christ will lead them out of Egyptian darkness and Babylonian corruption. “Israel is here called Jezreel,” says Matthew Henry, “the seed of God. This seed is now sown in the earth, and buried in the clods, but great shall be its day whoa the harvest comes.”

“For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, drooping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the center blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunderstorm;
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.”

(Tennyson)

D.T.

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Hos 1:1

Superscription.

Consider here

I. THE PROPHET. “Hoses, the son of Beeri.” Hoses, whose name (Hoshea, “salvation”) remittals of Jesus (Mat 1:20), was:

1. A native of Israel. One, therefore, who lived in the midst of the evils which he describes, and felt a patriot’s love for his people.

2. A man of gentle, pensive, and confiding nature. This made his anguish at the thought of the nation’s sins and impending ruin the more poignant. There are striking resemblances between this prophet and Jeremiah, who sustained a relation to Judah similar to that which Hoses sustained to Israel.

3. A man sorely tried by domestic sorrow. Hoses was no mere spectator of the evils of the time. The iron had entered his own soul. He had been tried in the sorest way a man can be tried, by the unfaithfulness of his with. It was, however, in connection with this sorrow that God’s word came to him (verse 2). It was his own experience which enabled him to enter so deeply into the mystery of God’s love to Israel.

II. HIS TIMES. “In the days of Uzziah, Jotham,” etc. He dates by the reigns of the legitimate kings of the house of David. Israel, after the fall of Jeroboam’s house, was governed by usurpers (Menahem, Pekah, Hoshea, etc).

1. The chronology of the times. This has important bearings on the duration of the prophet’s ministry, and on the time which elapsed before the downfall of the kingdom. We cannot here, however, enter at length into the tangled questions raised by the apparent conflict of Hebrew and Assyrian dates (cf. Robertson Smith, ‘Prophet of Israel,’ Leer. 4. and notes), It seems to us

(1) that the biblical data do not warrant us in assuming the identity of the Pul of 2Ki 15:19, 2Ki 15:20, to whom Menahem paid tribute, with Tiglath-pileser (of. 1Ch 6:26); and that insuperable difficulties attend the lowering of the dates of the kings to the degree necessary to bring them into entire accord with the dates in the Assyrian canon. We believe it will be found that there is a break in the canon at B.C.. 745, sufficient for the insertion of the reign of Pul, and that the Menahem of the monuments, who paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser in B.C. 738, is not the Menahem of Scripture, but probably a second Menahem, a rival of Pekah’s, whom Tiglath-pileser, after putting down the revolts of B.C. 743-748, attempted to set on the throne in his own interest. We have a Menahem of Samaria, clearly an Assyrian viceroy, as late as B.C. 702, in the reign of Sennacherib.

(2) On the other hand, there are strong grounds for believing that the interregna commonly assumed to have existed between the death of Jeroboam II. and the accession of Zachariah (eleven years), and again, between the murder of Pekah and the accession of Hoshea (eight or nine years), must be abandoned as untenable. Scripture does not recognize them, and, as shown by the monuments, Pekah and Rezin of Damascus (2Ki 16:5; Isa 7:1) were certainly at war in B.C. 734. The numbers are probably to be harmonized by assuming that the regnal years of Uzziah and Jotham include, the former, eleven years of association with Amaziab, and the latter, eight or nine years of association with Uzziah (of. 2Ch 26:21). For an example of this mode of reckoning, see 2Ch 21:5 compared with 2Ki 8:16. This lowers the dates by nineteen years, and assuming a break of twenty-eight years in the canon at date of Pul (Rawlinson, ‘Ancient History,’ allows him twenty-five years), we bring the two chronologies from Ahab downwards into harmony. A formidable objection to the theory of a break in the canon is the mention, under date June, 763 B.C; of an eclipse of the sun, known to astronomy to have taken place at that date; but it is noteworthy that a similar eclipse took l lace June, 791 B.C; that is, twenty-eight years earlier, which exactly satisfies the conditions of our hypothesis (see Pusey on Amo 8:9). The seventeenth of Pekah, given in 1Ki 16:1-34; as the year of the accession of Ahaz, must, on this theory, be corrected to the seventh, and this is the only change required in the biblical numbers. Accepting these dates, it will follow that Jeroboam II. died about B.C. 762 or 763, a little more than forty years before the fall of Samaria. If, further, we assume Hos 1:1-11.3; of this book to be based on real history, and to have been composed before the downfall of the house of Jehu, we must suppose the prophet to have commenced his ministry about the middle of Jeroboam’s reign, and to have labored for nearly sixty years.

2. The character of the times. They were evil exceedingly. The state was tottering to its downfall. Revolution succeeded revolution (Hos 7:7). The land was filled with idolatry and with every species of wickedness (Hos 4:1, Hos 4:19). Priests and prophets, instead of reproving sin, openly encouraged it (Hos 4:5-9). The result was a general dissolution of social ties (Hos 4:2). To internal miseries were added the horrors of foreign invasion (Hos 5:8-11). Yet in their distress the people sought not to God, but turned instead to Assyria and Egypt (Hos 5:13; Hos 7:11; Hos 8:9; Hos 10:6; Hos 12:1). The nation, in short, was reeling to its ruin, and remonstrance and warning had no longer any effect upon it. The blow fell in the capture of Samaria, followed by the captivity of the people (Hos 13:16).

III. HIS MISSION. “The word of the Lord that came unto Hoses.” Hosea’s task in Israel was:

1. To testify against Israel for its sins; to hold up to the people a mirror which should show them to themselves.

2. To show them the root of their transgressions in apostasy from God.

3. To show them how God felt to them in their backslidingshow strong, pure, consistent, and unchanging was his affection towards them.

4. To warn them of the inevitable destruction they were bringing on themselves by sin.

5. To blend promise with threatening, and declare how grace would triumph even over Israel’s unfaithfulness. Though sharing in many of the calamities of the latter days of the nation, Hosea seems to have been removed before the final stroke fell. This was God’s mercy to him; he was “taken away from the evil to come” (Isa 57:1).

IV. HIS BOOK. Hosea’s prophecy preserves to us the substance of his public teaching. The materials wrought up in it belong to different periods of his ministry. Hosea 1-3, belong to the, reign of Jeroboam (Hos 1:4). They show no traces of the anarchy which set in after that monarch’s death. Hosea 4-6; belong to the succeeding period, the reign of Menahem, and earlier years of Pekah. Hos 7:1-16. and 8. may be a little later. They speak of a time of busy political intrigue, and of chastisement by the Assyrians. We are disposed to refer them to the middle of the reign of Pekah, when the Assyrians were frequently in Palestine. The key-note of Hos 9:1-17; “Rejoice not,” suggests a gleam of returning prosperity. This answers to Pekah’s later days when at war with Ahaz (2Ch 28:1-27), prior to the crushing of his power by Tigtath-pileser (1Ki 15:29). Hos 10:1-15. plainly takes us unto the times of Hoshea, while Hosea 11-13; refer to the very last days of the kingdom. The abruptness, pathos, and quick emotional transitions which have been noted as characteristic of the prophet’s style appear in these chapters in an exceptional degree. Hos 14:1-9. is the fitting conclusion to the whole. Calm succeeds to storm. The language is soft, gliding, peaceful, and laden with tenderness; the imagery is idyllic; glorious vistas open themselves into the future. Keil’s division of the second part of the book into three sections, viz. Hosea 4-6:3; Ho 6:4-11:11; Hos 12:1-14.-14; each section rounded off by promise, is as good as any.J.O.

Hos 1:1-3

The wife of whoredoms.

We cannot doubt but that real incidents in the prophet’s history underlie the representations of this chapter. Hosea, in obedience to what he recognized to be a word of God, took to wife Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. The names (Gomer, “completion;” Diblaim, “fig-cakes”) may possibly be symbolical, the real name of the prophet’s wife being concealed (cf. Hos 3:1, “The children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love grape-cakes“). We need not suppose Gomer to have been unchaste at the time of her marriage, though she soon afterwards fell into light ways. Verse 2 is not to be pressed too literally. The prophet, in the light of his later knowledge, reads back into the beginning of his relations with Gomer a meaning which could hardly have been obvious to him at the time. Children were born of the marriage, to whom, by Divine command, the character of the mother having by this time revealed itself, Hosea gave prophetic names. These, as they grew up, appear to have followed only too faithfully in their mother’s footsteps. “Wife of whoredoms,” “children of whoredoms.” Hosea did all he could to reclaim his wife from her sinful ways, but without success. The sequel of the story is given in Hos 3:1-5. The present section yields the following lessons:

I. A DIVINE LEANING IS TO BE RECOGNIZED IN THE EVENTS OF LIFE. In what befell Hosea there was, as the prophet came afterwards to see, a clear Divine purpose. He was bidden take Gomer, for “the land hath committed grievous whoredom, departing from the Lord.” The object of the union was to afford a symbol of the unhappy relations subsisting between Jehovah and his people. The prophet, further, was to be trained through his own great personal sorrow to sympathy with God in his. The human heart was to be made an interpreter of the Divine. Life is shaped for us by a power higher than our own. Its events embody words of God. The meaning hidden in them is often not manifest till afterwards. They are shaped for our instruction. They are parables to us and to others of Divine things. The teaching of the Spirit should be sought to aid us in understanding them.

II. THERE IS A NATURAL ANALOGY BETWEEN EARTHLY MARRIAGE AND THE AFFIANCE OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. It is tiffs analogy which underlies the representation of Israel’s apostasy from God as whoredom. “The whole Jewish Scriptures,” says R. H. Hutton, “insist with a strange and almost mystical monotony on the close connection between the constancy required in marriage and the constancy which God demands in the spiritual relation of worship to himself. Sometimes there appears to be almost a confusion between sins against the one kind of fidelity and sins against the other, as if it were implied that he who is incapable of appreciating duly the sacredness of the human tie, will necessarily be incapable of appreciating the sacredness of that which is at once more awful and more intimate. It is clear that the Jewish prophets regarded constancy in the most intimate of human relations, as a sort of initiation into the infinite constancy of God.” God claims our heart-whole love. The least wandering of desire from him is sin. Paul warns against the slightest deviation from perfect simplicity of affection towards Christ as a species of unchastity (2Co 11:1).

III. THE BEST–GUARDED HOMES ARE NOT SAFE FROM THE INFECTION OF SURROUNDING EVIL. No home would be more jealously guarded than Hosea’s. Yet the infection entered it. In a dissolute state of society it is almost impossible to exclude the pestiferous germs with which the moral atmosphere is loaded. They find insidious lodgment in places and hearts where we would least suspect their presence. Our safety lies in vigilance, and in doing our utmost to resist the spread of moral corruption.

IV. CHILDREN TEND TO FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE PARENTS. Especially of the mother. A mother’s influence is greater than a father’s. A pious mother is the best of blessings, as a wicked mother is the worst of curses.J.O.

Hos 1:3-9

Children of whoredoms.

Hosea’s children, like Isaiah’s, were to be “for signs and wonders” in Israel (Isa 8:18). Their namesJezreel, Lo-ruhamah, Lo-ammiwere significant. A prophetic word was attached to each.

I. JEZREEL. (Verses 4, 5) This first name”God will scatter”foretells Israel’s scattering. Through it judgment is denounced

(1) upon the house of the king”Yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu;” and

(2) upon the kingdom”I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The lessons taught are:

1. The character of an action is determined by its motive. By the “blood of Jezreel” is meant the slaughter of the seed of Ahab (2Ki 10:1-36). God had commanded the extermination of Ahab’s house (2Ki 9:7). Jehu was his chosen instrument in executing the judgment. Yet God says, “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.” The apparent contradiction is solved, by remembering the unsanctified spirit in which Jehu went about his work of bloodshed. He did what God commanded, but there was no purity of motive in what he did. His “zeal for the Lord’ was mere pretence, covering the seeds of personal ambition. He served God only so far as he could thereby serve himself. The massacre of Ahab’s seed opened his own way to the throne. When, therefore, having extirpated Ahab’s house, Jehu and his successors showed themselves heirs to Ahab’s sins, the bloodshed of Jezreel was justly imputed to them as guilt. Actions formally right may yet become sin to us through the motives which prompt them.

2. Partners in guilt will be made partners also in punishment. The kingdom had followed in the steps of its guilty rulers. The doom of excision, therefore, which is denounced against themthe same doom as had been denounced formerly against the house of Ahabwill fall on it also. Judgment is impartial.

3. There is a law of symmetry in the Divine visitations. It was the “blood of Naboth,” shed in Jezreel, which brought down on Ahab’s house the sentence of extermination (1Ki 21:17-25). It was in Jezreel that the doom was inflicted on Ahab (1Ki 21:19; 1Ki 22:34-38), on Jezebel (2Ki 9:30-37), and on Ahab’s sons (2Ki 10:11). Jezreel was the head-quarters of the wickedness for which the whole nation was now to be punished. And now Jezreel is again chosen as the place of vengeance. “I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” A similar correspondence of sin and punishment may be traced in very many of God’s dispensations. God would “break the bow.” When he smites, weapons of defense afford but small protection.

II. LO–RUHAMAH. (Verses 6, 7) The first name spoke of external judgment. The second, “Unpitied,” lays bare the ground of the judgment in the withdrawal of the Divine pity. It tells that Israel has nothing to hope for from God’s mercy in the dire hour that was so rapidly approaching. “For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel,” etc. (verse 6). The fact that mercy was no longer to be shown to Israel implied:

1. That mercy had been shown to Israel hitherto. This was the case. No attribute had been more conspicuously displayed in the history of God’s dealings with the nation. Mercy was to be shown to Judah still (verse 7). God’s end was merciful, even in the threatened rejection.

2. That there are limits to the Divine mercy. Not, ‘indeed, to the mercy itself, but to the exercise or manifestation of it. Righteousness sets limits to mercy. There comes a time when, consistently with righteousness, punishment can no longer be postponed. Even love sets limits to mercy. Paradoxical as it may seem, there are times when the only mercy God can show us is to show no mercy. It is no kindness to the incorrigible transgressor to continue sheltering him from the results of his transgression. God’s very love for Israel compelled him to exchange kindness for a holy severity which would not spare. This was needful, as Hos 2:1-23. shows, for Israel’s salvation. The experience of the bitter fruits of sin may be the only thing which will bring the wayward one to repentance (cf. Luk 15:11-32).

3. God would pity Judah while rejecting Israel. (Hos 2:7) The distinction made was not arbitrary. Judah, too, had deeply sinned, but she had not yet filled up the cup of her iniquity. Mercy, therefore, was still to be extended to her. The ground of this mercy, however, was to be sought, not in Judah, but only in God. “I will save them by the Lord their God.” There is indicated here

(1) the long-sufferingness of the Divine mercy;

(2) the sovereignty of the Divine mercy;

(3) the omnipotence of the Divine mercy.

“Will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” We read of many such signal deliverances granted to Judah (Isa 7:7, Isa 7:8; Isa 37:6).

III. LO–AMMI. (Hos 2:8, Hos 2:9) The third name, “Not my people,” is most significant of all. It bespeaks a present, though, as the sequel shows, only temporary, dissolution of the covenant bond subsisting between the people and Jehovah. Through this rejection Israel would cease to be God’s peoplewould sink to the level of the Gentiles.

1. In declaring Israel to be not his people, God but ratified the choice of the people themselves. They had refused to be God’s people. They had resisted all attempts to bring them back to their allegiance. God at length ratifies their choice. It is the same with every sinner. He chooses his own position. He makes his choice, and God confirms it.

2. In declaring himself to be not their God, God took up the only attitude now possible to him. Many would gladly have God as their God, i.e. would retain the benefits of his favor, friendship, and protection, while refusing the counter-obligation of living as his people. This cannot be. If we refuse to be God’s people, he has no alternative but to refuse to be our God.J.O.

Verse 1:10-2:1

Mercy triumphant over judgment.

This which has been described would fall (and did fall) on Israel. Yet would not God’s purpose in the calling of the nation thereby be defeated. Woeful as was the apostasy, it did not take God by surprise. It had been foretold (Deu 4:25-28; Deu 31:16-19). But the same word which had predicted the rejection, predicted also the recovery (Deu 30:1-16). Hosea, in this new word from God, repeats and confirms the promise. The blessings predicted are

I. NUMERICAL INCREASE. “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea,” etc. This was the original promise to Abraham (Gen 15:5). Israel’s unfaithfulness could not make it void (Rom 3:3). Neither did it.

1. God has made up for the rejection of Israel by giving Abraham a spiritual seed vastly outstripping in numbers the natural seed. The spiritual seed was included in the promise:” And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 12:3). God has given Abraham this seed. Even now, while Israel’s rejection lasts, a vast seed has been raised from the Gentiles, “which in time past were not a people” (1Pe 2:10). God has, as it were, from the stones raised up children to Abraham (Mat 3:9). This seed will go on increasing till it embraces all peoples of the earth.

2. Mercy waits even for the natural Israel, who will yet, in great numbers, enter the kingdom of God (Rom 11:1-36).

II. RESTORATION TO SPIRITUAL HONOR. “In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”

1. The privilege. “Sons of the living God.” Formerly they were called God’s “people;” now they are called his “sons.” The last honor is greater than the first. Sonship, which formerly was predicated of the nation, is now predicated of the individuals composing it.

2. The heirs of the privilege. Gentiles as well as Jews (Rom 9:26; 1Pe 2:10). For Gentiles are now admitted to Israel’s privileges, they are part of the spiritual seed. Israel, in its state of rejection, stands towards God on no higher a footing than the Gentiles. “Not my people.” Conversely, the scheme of grace through which it is recovered has a range wider than the natural Israel; it applies to the whole class of “Not-my-people,” and includes Gentiles as well as Jews. The middle wall of partition is broken down (Eph 2:14); there is no more any difference (Rom 3:22, Rom 3:29).

3. Greatness of the privilege.

(1) Great, in contrast with former condition. “Once,” not the people of God; “now,” not his people only, but his sons.

(2) Great in its own nature. “Sons of the living God.” What honor, what dignity, what favor, is implied in this! We have this sonship in Christ, the beloved Son. Angels do not possess this honor. It is reserved for sinful but redeemed man. “Behold, what manner of love,” etc. (1Jn 3:1).

III. REMOVAL OF DISUNION. “Then shall the children of Israel and the children of Judah be gathered together,” etc. The words imply:

1. That Judah, like Israel, would be found at length in exile.

2. That mercy was in reserve for both.

3. That a new Heada Kingwould be given, under whom both would return from captivity. The return will certainly take place, in a spiritual sense, in Israel’s conversion; whether also in a literal sense remains to be seen.

4. That the leadership of the new King would be voluntarily accepted”appoint themselves one Head” (cf. Psa 110:2).

5. That in the restored kingdom of God no place would be found for existing divisions. The old enmities would disappear. Enmity has already disappeared between Judah and Israel. The present Jews have in them the blood of all the twelve tribes. We may learn

(1) that in the kingdom of God there ought to be no disunion;

(2) that in the perfected kingdom of God there will be no disunion;

(3) that in the kingdom of God the Center of unity is Christ“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5).

IV. GLADNESS AND REJOICING. “Say ye unto your brethren, Amlni; and to your sisters, Ruhamah” (Hos 2:1).

1. Because of God’s great goodness in the extension of his Church. “Great shall be the day of Jezreel,” this time in the sense, “God will sow.”

2. Because of reversal of former rejection. No longer Lo-ammi, but Ammi”my people;” no longer Lo-ruhamah, but Ruhamah”pitied.” This joy will be universal. Will fill all hearts, will occupy all lips. Each will greet, rejoice with, and congratulate the other.J.O.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Hos 1:1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri Hosea signifies a saviour, and Beeriof a well. Calmet observes, that if Hosea prophesied in the reign of all these princes, he must have lived a very long time; for there are one hundred and twelve years from the beginning of Uzziah’s to the end of Hezekiah’s reign; add, if you please, twenty or twenty-five years, which might be the age of Hosea when he began to prophesy, and this will make a hundred and thirty-two or a hundred and thirty-seven. And if we were to take ten years from Uzziah, and as many from Hezekiah, during which Hosea might not have prophesied, there will still remain a hundred and twelve or a hundred and seventeen years.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

SUPERSCRIPTION. Hos 1:1

1The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri,1 in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.

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PART FIRST. Hos 1:2 to Hos 3:5

Hos 1:2 to Hos 2:3

A. The Rejection of the Kingdom of Israel, and especially of the House of Jehu, on account of their Whoredom, is symbolically announced.Hos 1:2-9

2 The beginning2 of the Word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea [In the beginning when Jehovah spoke with Hosea, then Jehovah said to Hosea ]: Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms; for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord [Jehovah]. 3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which [and she] conceived, and bare him a Song of Solomon 4 And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the 5 kingdom of the house of Israel. And it will come to pass in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. 6And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah [Unpitied];3 for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away [that I should keep on forgiving them ]. 7But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord [Jehovah] their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle [war ], by horses, nor by horsemen. 8Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son [And she weaned Lo-Ruhamah and conceived and bare a son ]. 9Then said God, call his name Lo-ammi [Not-my-people ], for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God [yours].4

B. And yet Israel will be again accepted by God

Hos 2:1-3

1 Yet [And] the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where5 it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said 2 unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head; 3 and they shall come up out of the land: for great is the day of Jezreel. Say to your brethren, Ammi [My-people ], and to your sisters, Ruhamah [compassionated ].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Hos 1:1. Superscription. It has been shown al ready in the Introduction ( 1) that the chronological limits assigned in the title must be admitted to be essentially correct. Difficulties have been suggested to the minds of some from the circumstance that when the duration of Hoseas ministry is given, it is, in the first line, placed in relation to the reigns of Judah, and that a king of Israel is mentioned only in the second line. To argue from this, however, that Hosea belonged to the kingdom of Judah, is inadmissible; for as we saw in the Introduction, all other evidence goes to prove that he was a resident of the Northern Kingdom.

But a further difficulty is felt. Only one king of Israel is named, whom Hosea long survived, and the succession of Judaic kings brings down the life of the prophet far beyond the time of that single monarch, Jeroboam II. Hence it is: alleged that the second part of the superscription does not agree with the first.
Keil seeks to solve this difficulty by assuming that the Prophet acknowledged only the legitimate rulers of the kingdom of Judah as the real kings of the people of God; and that he defined the limits of his ministry according to the real succession of that kingdom. He introduces along with the names of those kings, that of the Israelitish monarch, under whom he began his prophetic course, not only to indicate that occasion more definitely, but chiefly on account of the significant position occupied by Jeroboam in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. He was the last king through whom God vouchsafed any aid to that state. The succeeding rulers scarcely deserved the title of king.

But this explanation, brought forward in order to defend the originality of the superscription, can scarcely be acquitted of the charge of arbitrariness. (The precedence assigned to the Judaic kings would be better explained on the hypothesis that Hosea, at a later period, took up his residence in Judah and there composed his book.) Ewald, who, to be sure, does not admit in its full extent the correctness of the chronological statements of the superscription, supposes that the allusion to the kings of Judah was added by a later hand (which also inserted Isa 1:1), while the remainder is the old original superscription, which, however, he thinks belonged at first only to chaps, 1, 2.

The question, whether the superscription in its present form is quite original, must be allowed to remain undecided.
[As serving however to defend the genuineness of the superscription, comp. with the view of Keil adduced above, the following full and forcible presentation of the probable design of the prophet in its insertion given by Hengstenberg in his Christology: Hosea mentions, first and completely, the kings of the legitimate family. He then further adds the name of one of the rulers of the Kingdom of Israel, under whom his ministry began, because it was of importance to fix precisely the time of its commencement. Uzziah, the first of the series of the kings of Judah mentioned by him, survived Jeroboam nearly twenty-six years. Now, had the latter not been mentioned along with him, the thought might easily have suggested itself, that it was only in the latter period of Uzziahs reign that the prophet entered upon his office; in which case all that he says about the overthrow of Jeroboams family, would have appeared to be a vaticinium post eventum, inasmuch as it took place very soon after Jeroboams death. The same applies to what is said by him regarding the total decay of the kingdom which was so flourishing under Jeroboam; for, from the moment of Jeroboams death, it hastened with rapid strides toward destruction. If, therefore, it was to be seen that future things lie open to God and his servants before they spring forth (Isa 42:9), it was necessary that the commencement of the Prophets ministry should be the more accurately determined; and this is effected by the intimation that it took place within the period of the fourteen years during which Uzziah and Jeroboam reigned contemporaneously.6 That this is the main reason for mentioning Jeroboams name is seen from the relation of Hos 1:2 to Hos 1:1. The remark made in Hos 1:2, that Hosea received the subsequent revelation at the very beginning of his prophetic ministry, corresponds with the mention of Jeroboams name in Hos 1:1. But this is not all. There was a considerable difference between him and the subsequent kings. Cocceius remarks very strikingly: The other kings of Israel are not viewed as kings but as robbers. Jeroboam possessed a quasi legitimacy. The house of Jehu to which he belonged, had opposed the extreme of religious apostasy. It was to a certain degree recognized even by the Prophets. Jeroboam had obtained the throne not by usurpation but by birth. He was the last king by whom the Lord sent deliverance to the Ten Tribes; comp. 2Ki 14:27.

The English commentators hold to the originality of the superscription, with the exception of Noyes, who speaks of it as doubtful. The arguments which establish it are mainly these: (1.) The very fact of its existence in its present form from the earliest known period. (2.) The analogy of other prophetic books as well as of many other portions of the Old Testament, the genuineness of whose superscriptions has never been successfully impugned either by German critics or their English followers. (3.) The improbability of any other hypothesis. Any redactor (Ewald and others) could have had no reason to insert such a peculiar title. Its anomalous character shows it to have been the work of the author himself. Any other would either have made no allusion to the kings of Israel, or would have given a complete list of the contemporary ones. There is a purpose manifest here which a collector would not have conceived, and which it was beyond his province to convey to the world by embodying it in an addition to his authors writings. (4.) The exact correspondence between the character of the superscription, the contents of the book, and the position of the author, as partly shown above, and as might be further proved abundantly.
The superscription therefore is original, and original in its present form. As to the place of its composition there is no improbability in the opinion, mentioned by Schmoller above, that with the rest of the book it was composed in Judah. But this cannot explain, as he supposes, the anomalies of the superscription. It only increases the difficulties. Why was an Israelitish king mentioned at all? This question remains unanswered, while the old difficulty of the non-allusion to succeeding kings of Israel remains in all its force. The true solution must therefore be sought not in any local conditions of the Prophet, but in his necessary relations as a Prophet of God to the two kingdoms, as determined by their respective characters, and in his desire to assign definitely the limits of his ministry.M.]

A. Hos 1:2-9. The Prophet announces symbolically to the Kingdom of Israel that it will be rejected on account of its Whoredom.

Hos 1:2-3. In the beginning of Jehovahs speaking with Hosea and bare him a son, literally, in Hosea, that is, into Hosea. The simple translation in, as expressive of an inner revelation which he received, is excluded even by the usage of the language (comp. Zec 1:9; Zec 1:14); as also is the explanation: by Hosea. This into, however, must not be modified into simple to him. This would have been. evidently expresses here a closer, personal relation into which the speaker enters with another person, while , to, merely indicates the direction of the discourse. It therefore betokens an energy of speaking, probably also in connection with a certain continuity; answering best to our speaking with (comp. besides the passages cited above, also Num 12:6; Num 12:8; Hab 2:1). The whole clause, , could be regarded as a kind of superscription = The beginning of that which Jehovah spoke with Hosea. The discourse would then begin with . But it is preferable to attach the whole clause, as a specification of time, to the following and to take which is therefore = in the beginning, as an accusative of time: In the beginning, when Jehovah spoke. The sense would be: When Jehovah began to speak with Hosea, then, etc. [For the internal structure of the clause, see the first Grammatical Note.J. F. M.] This means that God has begun his revelation to the Prophet with the command immediately following; in other words, that the prophet must enter upon active duty with the following testimony against the spiritual adultery of the kingdom of Israel: Go take to thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom. Wife of whoredom: occurs only in the plural, expressing a plurality of acts. , a woman whose element is whoredom, with whom the is a thing not merely incidental. From this designation, as applied to the woman it is evident that it was just in her marriage with the prophet that she would show herself to be an , and would thereby become an adulteress (though naturally this does not exclude the idea that the Prophet begets children by her). The truth to be represented demands this view of the case. For it is Israel married to Jehovah that commits whoredom.

But who are the ? Children mentioned along with the wife, naturally make the latter appear to be the mother. But they cannot be called children of whoredom simply for the reason that their mother is an . They can have that designation only because they themselves stand essentially connected with . But in what relation? It is readily suggested: they are related to it as its results = they are the fruit of the , of the mother, are born of the mother in consequence of her unchastity, are of illegitimate birth. But, according to this explanation, the genitive would have a sense different from that which it has in the former connection, and this creates a difficulty. If a woman, who practices lewdness and is in fact wholly given up to it, is called it is most natural to assume that the construction exactly similar and immediately following should be understood in like manner to express action and disposition. therefore = children who act and are disposed like their mother, children of the same character as their mother. And this must be admitted to be the correct explanation when it is remembered what is to be represented by the woman and her children, namely, Israel conceived of as the mother of a people, and its children. And the fact which is to be established with regard to Israel and its children is, that they all practice whoredom; comp. the explanatory clause, . It is not said that the children are of adulterous origin, but that the whole peoplethe people as a whole and in their individual members, or, according to the Hebrew personifying mode of conception, the mother and her children, commit lewdness. Go, take to thee: is, according to the constant Hebrew usage, equivalent to our phrase, to take a wife, i.e., to take a woman to be a wife, to marry. And (Hos 1:3), which expresses the fulfillment of the command given with , has certainly no other sense. In our verse, another object, still, , is joined to . This is done by zeugma, in the sense: Accipe tibi uxorem et suscipe ex ea filios scortationum. He is, accordingly, to ally himself with an unchaste wife, and the children which he begets with her are to be like their mother. This is just the position of Israel. Israel, Jehovahs spouse, committed lewdness, and the children, who belonged both to Jehovah and to her, acted just as their mother did. Wife and children grieved equally the Husband and Father. The reference here is therefore not to children which the woman is supposed to have had before her marriage with the Prophet. The force of the painful experience of grief over his own children, through which the Prophet was to pass, would then be lost. By these children of whoredom we are not to understand directly just the three children mentioned afterwards, for the expression is a general one, but they do certainly fall under this category, and it is only they who are named.

The command which the Prophet receives is supported by the words: for the whole land is whoring, whoring away from Jehovah (falling away from Jehovah). : evidently a metaphorical expression here designating apostasy from Jehovah to idolatry, according to the conception of Israels relation to Jehovah as that of a marriage. He who serves idols accordingly commits whoredom and breaks the marriage vow, is unfaithful to a lawful spouse, because surrendering himself to a stranger, with whom no marriage relation can exist. This notion of infidelity is further indicated expressly by the addition: . is a significant composite preposition, which expresses not merely absence from Jehovah, but conveys the notion that a relation, the direct opposite of , has been entered into, and therefore expresses forcibly a position of infidelity, of a discontinuance of fidelity. On this notion of in a spiritual sense, see the Doctrinal Section. As expressed the intensity of the apostasy, so expresses forcibly its extent. As the sequel shows, it is the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel who are meant. This whole sentence gives the ground of the command which the Prophet receives to take a wife of whoredom. He is to take a wife who commits bodily unchastity because the whole land commits whoredom spiritually. Why? The most natural answer is: In order to hold up to the people a mirror in which they might behold their guilt, and thus to bring to their consciousness more surely and powerfully than could be done by mere didactic discourse, how greatly they, by their idolatry, had sinned against their God. and dishonored Him. God would thus be represented as standing in a position which would hardly be imputed to a man, namely, that of living in marriage with a woman given up to adultery; or that such a relation would be as dishonoring to God as marriage with a whorish woman would be to a prophet. But the taking of this wife had, besides, the express purpose of begetting children with her, who by their names should annonnce to Israel the punishment incurred by its guilt. For to the people (represented by the woman and her ) was to be presented the consequence of their whoredom, and it was to be brought to their consciousness what punishments then rightful husband, Jehovah, would inflict as the consequences of their infidelity. The children, as , represent the children of Israel in their guilt, but, at the same time, by their names, the punishment thereby entailed, and as those names, significant of punishment, are affixed to those who represent the guilt, the fact is expressed that the punishment is directly consequent upon the guilt.

It is clearly incorrect to lay stress upon and the alliance of the Prophet with the woman, by itself considered, and so give to the thought a positive turn: that, by the Prophets marriage with a lewd woman, and by the announcement of its results and by the names of the children, it was intended to be illustrated how Jehovah entered into a marriage with the faithless nation of Israel through Hosea, and that the children and the consequences of such marriage would represent severe chastisements from the hand of love (Lwe). This notion is imported into the sentence. In so far as it is correct, it belongs to chap. 3 and not here. But of an alliance being entered into between Jehovah and the disloyal people, there is nothing said even there, simply because Jehovah had, on his part, entered into such a marriage with the people long before. To infer from the fact of the Prophets marriage that God entered into the same alliance would be a false application of the image. The Prophet cannot be conceived of as standing already in that relation. He must contract this marriage in order to symbolize Jehovahs marriage with the people already existing. It would be just as baseless, however, to infer from this marriage contracted by Hosea with the woman, that the original covenant between God and his people at Sinai is to be represented; that God had concluded the alliance with the people as with a pure virgin, and that they became unchaste after they came under the covenant; that therefore also is not a woman who has already practiced lewdness, but that an undefiled virgin is to be understood, of whom, however, it was foreseen that she would become unfaithful and bear children of adultery. Apart from the emphasis placed upon the words , this view is seen to stand in direct contradiction to the causal sentence: for the land, etc. Because the land commits whoredom must the prophet take a maiden who will become unchaste? No. The marriage which the prophet was to contract was simply intended to symbolize the relation already existing between Jehovah and Israel, and not the way in which it had come into existence. The wife does not represent the nation of Israel in its virgin state, when the covenant was being concluded at Sinai, but the nation of the Ten Tribes in its relation to Jehovah at the period of the prophet, when that kingdom, considered as a whole, had become a wife of whoredom, and in its several members resembled children of whoredom. (Keil.)

Hos 1:3. Took Gomer, a daughter of Diblaim. The command is obeyed without delay. occurs elsewhere only as the name of a nation: Gen 10:2-3; Eze 38:6. If the name be taken here symbolically, the derivation from might afford the signification, completion, i.e., not annihilation, utter ruin; but, completion of whoredom=completed whoredom (so already Aben Ezra, Jerome). According to Frst it is also possible to explain, fire-glow, literally, a being consumed with passion. occurs only as a proper name. In attempts to interpret it, it is usually explained as =, fig-cakes (so already Jerome), in which an allusion is perceived to chap. 3 Hos 1:1, where raisin-cakes appear as an image of that idolatry which ministers to sensuality. Daughter of fig-cakes would then=loving fig-cakes, or more generally, deliciis dedita. The identification of and has its difficulties, however. Frst supposes that the root , besides the sense, press together, from which we have , fig-cake, has also the signification, enclose, and thus gains the meaning, embracing (strictly, as in the dual form: double-embracing, copulation), therefore: daughter of embraces. And this would naturally mean, not the fruit of such embraces, but (as in the other explanation, expressing a connection or intercourse), abandoned to embraces, complexibus dedita. The interpretation of these names is accordingly attended with difficulties. For we cannot say that in themselves they necessarily demand such an explanation, at least so far as our knowledge of the Hebrew language permits us to judge. But it cannot be adduced against the admissibility of such interpretation that the names are not elucidated for us as are those in Hos 1:4 ff. This may be simply explained from the circumstance that the name was not given to the woman, but that she had it already when the prophet married her (Keil). If the names have really these meanings, it is clear that a woman designated, consummata in scortatione, complexibus dedita, would be a striking picture of Israel, uttering a severe rebuke.

[Henderson, holding the literal interpretation of the narrative, maintains that there is no need of assuming any symbolical meaning whatever for these names. On the other hand, if the narrative be not the record of actual occurrences, the necessity of a symbolical interpretation of the names is manifest. Most of the English expositors who note the names show a general agreement with the explanations: completed whoredom, and: given up to dainties.J. F. M.]

And she conceived and bore to him a son. The taking of the wife had evidently in view the birth of children. That the woman conceived by the prophet, and that the son is to be regarded as his, is clear even from the simple connection of the words, but is placed beyond question by the express addition: bore to him. The opinion that the children were illegitimate, has arisen only from the false assumption, at variance with the context, that the woman must have formerly been a virgin; for the designation, , must then be justified, and if she were not such before marriage, she must have become unchaste after it.

Hos 1:4-5. Then the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezreelin the valley of Jezreel. The names of the children were to be significant, in view of the announcement of punishment, and must therefore be determined by God. That of the first child was to be Jezreel. This was to the house of Jehu a nomen cum omine, on account of the significant connection of the plain of Jezreel with that family. It should remind them of that place and of that which occurred there. It cried out to them according to the meaning of the word, God will disperse, and thus threatened punishment for what was there transacted; and also, according to what follows, presented to their fears the plain of Jezreel as the place where the punishment should be inflicted. Blood-guiltiness of Jezreel. Jehu had, by one fearful massacre, exterminated the whole house of Ahab in the city of Jezreel (2Ki 9:30; 2Ki 10:17). This city was situated in the plain of Jezreel, which lay in the well-known Valley of Kishon. Now there appears this difficulty: Jehu did this at the express command of God through Elisha (2Ki 9:1 ff.), and the deed was afterwards commended by God (1 Kings 10:30), and yet it is to be avenged as murder upon Jehus house. It might be said that in the mind of the author of the books of the Kings, and in that of the prophet, there were different views with regard to the violent overthrow of Ahabs house. But the prophet also could regard the overthrow of a family like that of Ahab only as a merited judgment of God, and hold the same view with reference to the extension of the massacre to Ahaziah of Judah and his brethren, by reason of their connection with the house of Ahab. The correct solution may be seen in the words of Keil: The apparent contradiction is resolved simply by distinguishing between the act itself and the motive by which Jehu was instigated. Regarded in itself, as a fulfillment of the command of God, the extermination of Ahabs family was an act for which Jehu could not be held criminal. But the motive which actuated Jehu was not at all the desire to fulfill the will of the Lord; for, even if he did not use the command of God as a cover for his own selfish and ambitious feelings, he did yet in no way enter into the intention of the Divine injunction. God desired that the kingdom of Israel should be cleansed from idolatry by the extermination of the house of Ahab and the elevation of a new dynasty. In that purpose lay the justification of the deed, which was to be simply a judgment of God upon idolatry. But Jehu, though ceasing from the worship of Baal, retained the worship of the calves. He fulfilled Gods command indeed, but only went half way. After he had gained the throne, to which God had destined him, he struck out for himself a false path, from a false policy in which he thought it advisable to retain the worship of the calves, and thus rendered Gods intentions nugatory. Thus was the bloody deed of Jehu divested of all real value, and thus it entailed a burden of guilt upon him and his house (wherefore also the possession of the throne was promised to him only to the fourth generation). This section of the book shows directly that the idolatry countenanced by Jehu and his house is to be brought into connection with his deed as an act of blood-guiltiness, for the whoring of the land is expressly designated as the sin to be punished (Hos 1:2). Such apostasy from Jehovah (this is the first announcement), is to be punished by the way in which the deed of blood in Israel is regarded and avenged as a sinful act of blood-guiltiness. The ground of the resentment towards that act therefore does not lie in the deed itself, but the punishment is inflicted for something else without which it would not have been incurred. The objection therefore is not just which maintains that this deed cannot be the crowning crime of Jehu and his house. Nor is there any discrepancy between the prophet and the books of the Kings, where all the members of that louse are adduced as guilty by not departing from the sin of Jerusalem. [Pusey: Jehu, by cleaving against the will of God to Jeroboams sin, which served his own political ends, showed that in the slaughter of his master he acted not as he pretended, out of zeal (2Ki 10:16) for the will of God, but served his own will and his own ambition only. By his disobedience to the one command of God he showed that he would equally have disobeyed the other, had it been contrary to his own will or interest. He had no principle of obedience. And so the blood which was shed according to the righteous judgment of God, became sin to him who shed it in order to fulfill not the will of God but his own. Thus God said to Baasha: I exalted thee, out of the dust and made thee prince over my people Israel, which he became by slaying his master the son of Jeroboam and all the house of Jeroboam (1Ki 16:2). Yet because he followed the sins of Jeroboam, the word of the Lord came against Baasha for all the evil that he did in the sight of the Lord in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he killed him (Hos 1:7). The two courses of action were inconsistent: to destroy the son and the house of Jeroboam, and to do those things for which God condemned him to be destroyed. Further yet; not only was such execution of Gods judgments itself an offense against Almighty God, but it was sin, whereby he condemned himself, and made his other sins to be sins against the light. In executing the judgment of God against another, he pronounced his judgment against himself, in that he that judged, in Gods stead, did the same things (Rom 2:1). M.]

Will visit: alluding to extermination which corresponds to the act of Jehu. It followed not long after the death of Jeroboam II. in the murder of his son through the conspiracy of Shallum (2Ki 15:8 ff.). But the threatening goes further: will utterly destroy the kingdom of the house of Israel. House of Israel here designates the kingdom of Israel in a special sense, the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, as distinguished from the house of Jehu (ver 7). The kingly office in general should cease in the kingdom of Israel, and that would naturally be a cessation of the kingdom itself. But this was connected with the fall of the house of Jehu, because, in consequence of that event, a state of the wildest anarchy ensued, so that only one king, Menahem, had a son for successor, the rest being all overthrown and slain by conspirators. The fall of that house was therefore the beginning of the end, the beginning of the process of rejection (Hengstenberg).

Hos 1:5. And it happens in that day, that I break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. That day is the day on which the destruction of the kingdom takes place. Bow of Israel by synecdoche for the military force on which the strength of the kingdom and consequently its existence rested (Keil). The valley of Jezreel is the plain in which the city Jezreel lay, in the Apocrypha and Josephus: , or simply: . There the threat was to be fulfilled, because it was there that the bloody deed was committed. It was, moreover, the natural battle-field of the northern kingdom (comp. Jdg 4:5; Jdg 6:33). Israel forms here an unmistakable paronomasia with Jezreel. The words, and especially also the mention of a locality, point clearly to a battle, here an overthrow, by which the before-named destruction of the kingdom should be effected, and thus in this sentence not only is the punishment indicated, but the mode of its infliction stated. The enemy who should effect this annihilation of the kingdom is not yet indicated. No definite enemy is named before the second part of the book where Assyria is brought forward. (It is not mentioned in the books of the Kings where Assyria dealt this blow.)

Hos 1:6-7. And she conceived again and bore a daughter,by horses and riders. The second child is a daughter who receives the symbolical name: [See Gram. Note]. That the second child should be a daughter is not a voucher for the necessity of the literal view, but is grounded in the inner connection between the female sex and compassion. The announcement that there was no more compassion, becomes so much the more emphatic as the representative of the nation which was not to find compassion was a daughter. For the female sex finds more compassion than the male, and yet there is no compassion to be found. That must be a sad case indeed! The explanation is incorrect which supposes that the daughter signifies a more degenerate race (e. g., Jerome). For I will no longer have any compassion. An explanation, telling what the name of the daughter implies, namely, the exhaustion of Divine compassion. The kingdom owed its preservation in the midst of the prevailing idolatry only to the undeserved compassion of God. [On the rest of Hos 1:6, see Gram. Note.]

Hos 1:7. But I will have compassion on the house of Judah. A keen reproach for the house of Israel; if they were like the house of Judah, they too would find compassion; but they are not so; they live only by the compassion of Jehovah as is plain from the words. Why Judah finds favor, and Israel does not, is indicated in the words that follow, in the peculiarly emphatic expression: I will deliver them through Jehovah their God (comp. Gen 19:24). Here allusion is made to the connection in which Judah stands with Jehovah, while it contains, at least by implication, the thought that Judah owes its deliverance directly to the fact that it acknowledges Jehovah to be its God, and not, as is further said, to its military force, while Israel on the contrary, trusting in its military strength instead of in Jehovah who is its God no longer, shall for that very reason, and in spite of its warlike resources, utterly perish. By war is an unexpected expression as occurring along with, the other words; but it naturally means not: by weapons of war, but obviously: by waging war. The bow and the sword are named, as the weapons, and the words: by war, show more definitely that the employment of those weapons is meant. Horses and riders, according to a familiar mode of expression, indicate the force which completed the military strength in which so much pride was taken. The occurrence of these words at the close is specially emphatic. When Jehovah delivers, He needs no weapons of war, no horses or riders, nor can these give any help without Him.

Hos 1:8-9. And she weaned Lo-Ruhamah, will not be yours. The weaning and the conception are to be taken together, that is, as soon as she had weaned, she again conceived, in order to indicate the continuity of the announcement of evil. There is no interruption until the end of the rejection. [Henderson: The mention of the weaning of Lo-Ruhamah seems designed rather to fill up the narrative than to describe figuratively any distinct treatment of the Israelites. J. F. M.]. Not my people: thus should the people in the kingdom of Israel be designated. The covenant relation between God and his people is to be completely dissolved. =I will not belong to you [see Gramm. Note]. On the relation of the three threatenings to one another, see the Doctrinal Section (2). On the whole narrative see Introd. 3.

B. Hos 2:1-3. And yet Israel shall be accepted again.

Immediately upon the announcement of the judgment extending even to the complete rejection of the kingdom of Israel, follows, to the surprise of the reader, an announcement of deliverance. The verses, in distinction from the Hebrew arrangement, should form one section with chap. 1. The arrangement by which Hos 1:1-2 are joined to chap. 1, and a new chapter begun with Hos 1:3, as is done by the LXX. and Jerome, and after them by Luther, is more incorrect still.

Hos 2:1. And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea,children of the living God. The promise in Hos 1:1 a, agrees almost verbatim with the promise of Gen 22:17; Gen 32:13, an agreement which is designed. The rejection of the Ten Tribes just announced forms a strong contrast to the promise there made to the patriarch with regard to the boundless increase of his posterity. Now if the promise is firmly believed one might have doubts of the rejection, or if the threatening of the Prophet were to be accepted one might feel that he had mistaken the promise. Hence the Prophet goes back directly to that promise, and shows how the promise is in no way annulled by the threatening, but that the latter agrees well with the former, which will certainly reach its fulfillment. (Comp. also the reference to that promise in Isa 10:22, in opposition to false security, and in Jer 33:22). The promise given to the fathers is just the pledge that a time of deliverance will come again! The announcement of deliverance in Hos 1:1 ff. is rooted in that promise. Thus the words are strictly to be regarded as a citation=and yet what was promised will come true, that, etc., is therefore naturally to be understood of the people of Israel generally (against Keil). For the promise is made with reference to the whole people, and in Hos 1:2 mention is made expressly of a union between those who had been divided. But that enlargement of the whole body cannot take place with the return of those whose rejection is now announced. Hence the second member of the verse turns to them. For those who are here called not my people are naturally identical with those referred to in Hos 1:9. In the place in which it is said to them, etc. There is no need of inquiring what place is meant, whether Palestine or the Land of Exile. The expression has rather the more general sense: Just as it has been saidso will it now rather be said, etc. The one will answer exactly to the other. Children of the living God. Instead of simply: my people, or, people of God, which would be expected at first, we have here a much stronger expression, naturally in opposition to dead idols, whose service brings the people to ruin. They are not merely a people of God, but his children: they shall have in Him not merely a God but a Father (see below in the Doctrinal Section). There is no allusion here to the moral ground of this gracious acceptance, and such a notion must not be introduced. For to the darkness of the first part (chap. 1) the light is here contrasted quite abruptly and in a way quite unprovided for. The connecting link is not found before the more profound exhibition of the subject in chap. 2. It is understood, of course, that only a remnant is to meet with compassion, but it is not here expressed.

Hos 2:2-3. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel are gathered togetherRuhamah. The acceptance of the rejected ones by God will be followed by a reunion of those who had been separated (inwardly as well as outwardlyon the one side belief in God, on the other idolatry). Comp. Jer 50:4, which rests upon our passage, and 3:18, and still more fully Eze 37:15 ff. The children of Israel, by being contrasted with the children of Judah, receive here their more restricted and special meaning, as belonging to the Ten Tribes. The words: appoint for themselves one head, denoting one common king, express this union still more definitely (comp. Hos 3:5; Eze 34:24; Eze 37:24). And go up out of the land. These words are difficult. The land is, according to most, the land of Exile, and a return from it would therefore be expressed. It is certain that the Prophet does not in our section predict a leading away into exile; for the place, etc., in Hos 1:1 is not necessarily to be understood of a foreign land. Yet the remark of Reinke is not incorrect: When it is said of Israel that they are no more a people of God, and will no more receive compassion, the fact is presupposed that they could remain no longer in the Holy Land which they had received as Gods people and had retained through his mercy. Already in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 banishment into an enemys country was threatened to the people as the punishment of obdurate apostasy. It may be objected, however, that by this explanation, the Prophet would seem to have presupposed an exile of Judah, while he says absolutely nothing of it, but, on the contrary, distinguishes in Hos 1:7, Judah from Israel. Difficulty is felt further in the indefinite expression: , which gives no hint of a land of exile. Reinke, however, as after him Keil, gives this explanation: The prophet refers to Exo 1:10 and borrows the expression from that passage, a supposition put beyond doubt by Hos 2:16-17, where the re-acceptance of Israel is represented as a leading through the wilderness to Canaan, and a parallel is drawn to the leading forth out of Egypt, as in chaps. Hos 8:13; Hos 9:3, the carrying into Exile is described as a carrying into Egypt (comp. also already Deu 28:68). Egypt was thus a type of the heathen world, over which Israel was to be dispersed; the deliverance from Egypt a type and earnest of deliverance from captivity and dispersion among the heathen. Well: but would , an altogether general expression, in telligible in itself, have been a strictly technical term for going up out of Egypt. And upon the single passage, Exo 1:10, in which, moreover, no allusion is really made to a withdrawal from Egypt as from a land of captivity, but Pharaoh only speaks of a departure of the Israelites from it, could such a linguistic usage have been based that would have been understood correctly without any explanation? No other passages occur upon which such a usage could have been founded, and none in which it actually occurs. In Hos 2:15, e. g., Egypt is expressly mentioned. No matter how much, therefore, may be said for this explanation as being actually correct, it cannot be approved unconditionally. Others therefore understand the land, simply of Palestine. Going up out of the land, is thus viewed either as a marching up to Jerusalem (Simson), and to this the context gives much support, especially in the reference to the reunion of Israel and Judah under one head (David). This would imply that Jerusalem would become again the common central point of the nation. But to this also objection may be made (in another direction) to the too general expression . The terminus a quo would then be quite irrelevant. Why then mention this terminus a quo, and omit the terminus ad quemto Jerusalem (Zion), which is the important point? Hence is regarded by others as a marching forth to victory (Ewald), as David did. The comparison with Mic 2:13 f. is certainly a fitting one. The preceding words, about their marshalling, and uniting and appointing one head, also suit this view well; one is led to think in this of a rising up to vigorous action (because viribus unitis). This explanation demands the mention of the place whither this was to be directed less than the others. But perhaps it is indicated in the following still more obscure sentence: for great is the day of Jezreel. This naturally refers back to Hos 1:4-5. But there Jezreel was the place of overthrow of divine judgment. Keil supposes the same thing is meant here also, that that day of defeat was great, i.e., decisive, glorious, because it formed the critical occasion by which the return of the recreant and their reunion with Judah were rendered possible! Others think of the appellative meaning of the name Jezreel, which certainly appears in 2:24, 25: God sows. This use of the term is supposed to express the notion that the Valley of Jezreel, in consequence of the overthrow there suffered, becomes a place where God sows the seed of the peoples renovation. Keil also admits this as a secondary allusion. But to understand by , that day of disaster, and to suppose that a day of defeat is called great on account of its good remote results, is a far-fetched notion. Here in Hos 2:1-2, in the announcement of deliverance, we find ourselves upon other ground than that of Hos 2:4 ff. What is here praised as great, is not and cannot be the same as that which in chap. 1 is announced as punishment, but must be something of an opposite character. But if we leave out of view that day of battle, we have left only the vague notion: time of Gods sowing, i.e., when God plants as He had before rooted out, i.e., the time of reacceptance; and such a time is designated as great by . But our sentence cannot be supposed to give utterance to such a general thought. The confirmatory does not suit such a view; for alludes too definitely (as Keil has perceived correctly) to Hos 1:4, and therefore refers to a definite event; only not the same event, but one which is its counterpart. The sense evidently is this, that there where Israel was overthrown, and its bow broken, a victory will yet be achieved: thither will the children of Israel and Judah gather themselves together under one king, marching up out of the country. And still the appellative significance of Jezreel may be retained; for by this victory God makes a new sowing or planting. Thus, as the threatening is connected with the names of the children, Hos 1:4 ff., so also is the promise: in the first name without any modification, in the other two by the change into their opposite by the omission of the . [The English expositors usually take the reference to be primarily to the return from the Babylonian captivity. Some of them (of whom Cowles is the latest) refer the fulfillment only to the consequences of the reign of Messiah, the Head chosen not only by the united children of Israel and Judah but also by the world. Henderson, denying any multiple sense in prophecy, interprets the head to be Zerubbabel, because the Messiah, whom most suppose to be intended, is nowhere spoken of as appointed by men, but always as the choice and appointment of God. But (1) it is not said that they will appoint their leader to be the Messiah. That is of course Gods appointment. (2.) The Messiah thus appointed must necessarily be the chosen leader of his people. It is the service of a willing people in which they engage. Even God always offers Himself to his people as their king. They are to choose whom they will serve. This argument is evidently only the plea of one who has a theory to uphold. As to the main application of these verses, it is probably best to regard its promise as partially and but to a very small degree fulfilled in the case of those out of the Ten Tribes who returned to Jerusalem after the Exile, and to be constantly undergoing its fulfillment in the increase of the true Israel until the great multitude which no man could number of all nations (the 144,000, the mystical number of those sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel), shall be completed. That the Messianic application is almost exclusively the true one is evident both from the grand comprehensiveness of the promise, and from the paucity of evidence as to subsequent reunion to any extent of the representatives of the two kingdoms.M.]

Hos 2:3.Say to your brethren, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. According to some the children of the Prophet are addressed. Those who had first called out to the people by their own names: Not-my-people! and Unfavored! are now to call out to them the opposite, the son to his brethren, the daughter to her sisters, that is, to the rest of the Israelites. According to others, it is the people who obtain mercy that are addressed, whose members are to salute one another with the new name bestowed on them by God (Hengstenberg, Keil, Umbreit). The latter is to be preferred. For the verse is naturally connected with the close of Hos 1:2, and it should therefore present the rejoicing shouts of the victors. Their victory is to them a pledge of their acceptance by God, which is to be celebrated by these joyful shouts, according to the requirement of the Prophet, or rather of God through him.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. One of the most profound conceptions of the Old Testament is that which regards the covenant relation between Jehovah and Israel as a marriage. As a consequence, Israels idolatry and apostasy from God appear as whoredom or adultery; for idols are paramours as contrasted with Jehovah the husband.

The fundamental elements of this conception are found as early as in the Pentateuch: Exo 34:14-15; Lev 17:7; Lev 20:5-6; Num 14:33; (Num 15:39); Deu 31:16; Deu 32:16; Deu 32:21. Exo 34:14-15 must be regarded as the most important and the fundamental passage.

Other passages are Jdg 2:17; Jdg 8:33; 1Ki 14:24; 1Ki 15:12; 1Ki 22:47; 2Ki 9:22; 2Ki 23:7; 1Ch 6:25; 2Ch 21:11; 2Ch 21:13. Further in the Psalms (if we leave Psalms 45 out of the question); Psa 73:27; Psa 106:39.

Such passages of later time, as those from Chronicles, naturally presuppose the prophetic development of this doctrine. This is found first in our Prophet, who has made that conception the fundamental idea of his discourses, in some of which it is directly discussed, while it permeates others as an essential principle (e. g., in chap. 11). On the ground of these discourses it is more fully presented by Jeremiah (especially chaps. 3; Jer 5:7; Jer 13:27, etc.), and Ezekiel (chaps. 1623). It is only hinted at in Isaiah (chaps. Isa 1:21; Isa 54:5; Isa 57:3; Isa 62:5). It is not met with in the other prophets. For Nah 3:4 ff. does not belong here (although the expressions show allusions to our prophet). Nor does Isa 23:16 ff.; for there it is not idolatry that is represented by the whoredom of Nineveh and Tyre. In addition, on the positive side, namely, the love of Jehovah to Israel, we must name the Song of Solomon, which bears besides, unmistakable allusions to our Prophet. In the New Testament this conception returns, naturally modified in form, in the description of the great Whore, Revelation 17. ff. (embracing, at the same time, the ideas that are found in the last-named passages concerning great and commercial cities). But the positive notion of a marriage of Jehovah to his people is found again in a New Testament form in Eph 5:22 ff, though there in an inverted order; for an actual marriage is first taken, and a parallel is then drawn between it and the relation of Christ to the Church.

For the meaning and significance of this whole conception of Jehovahs relation to his people, our Prophet is, according to the above remarks, the best commentator in all his writings, and especially in chap. 2. See therefore the remarks upon that chapter.
2. God will not be mocked is the truth which the writings of the Prophet, written in letters of flame, bear upon their front in the announcement of the destroying judgments which God must and will inflict upon his apostate people. The mode of this announcement in our chapter through the three children with symbolical names, is full of instruction. The very fact that they represent the apostate children of Israel and declare by their names the punishment for this apostasy, sets forth unmistakably the close connection between sin and guilt, namely, that punishment is, so to speak, attached to sin. And the sudden appearance of the three children without any interval expresses evidently the certainty and unavoidableness of the infliction of the divine judgment. The three symbolic names, moreover, were given for the purpose of intensifying and emphasizing the announcement of the judgment. If the first name simply presages the fact of a retribution by an overwhelming judgment, the second unveils with terrible clearness its ground in the divine nature: it is that they shall no more find compassion, that God has turned away from them. And the result of all this is that the nation ceases to be a people of God. Thus the whole significance of this judgment is exhibited. Destruction, the cessation of I mercy, might be felt by any other people or kingdom; but with the people of God its influence was different, it was to them the loss of its special prerogative. Such a judgment has therefore a significance which is not merely political or social but also theocratic, and must be inflicted with a terrible severity elsewhere unfelt.
But it is most palpably enounced in our chapter how far judgment is from being the end of Gods ways toward his people. Immediately after the three strokes of destruction, so to speak, had been dealt, the sun of divine favor breaks forth from the darkest clouds of divine judgment in the brightest splendor of words of deliverance, as three names are again sounded forth each more distinctly than the former. This great transformation is presented without the least preparation, evidently as an enigma, thus exciting the greatest desire for its solution. The connecting link between these two announcements so broadly contrasted; namely, on the side of God, love, in which even his wrath against his faithless people is rootedif He were indifferent He would not be angry,and on the side of man, a return to Him in consequence of the chastening of his judgments, is not yet displayed here. This is done by the longer exposition given in the following chapter.
3. A man may be the instrument of God and, by his acts, execute his will, and yet be rejected: so Jehu. Our position is determined by the relation which we inwardly bear to that will, according to the simple truth that God regards the heart, whether we make the desires of God our own and are willing to be nothing but his instruments and to serve Him, or whether we assert and claim a place for our own interests, and thus in truth seek our own will and not the will of God. If we in this seek our own ends, the result is inevitable; our execution of the divine will is impeded and disturbed, if it is not rather only a seeming fulfillment and our labors abortive.
4. The New Testament conception of sonship with God, has as its Old Testament correlative that of a people of God. This places God in a close, unique relation to men. But God appears there as only Lord and King, though bestowing blessings and offering the conditions of life; and man, to whom He thus stands in relation, is not the individual but only the people of God as a whole. Therefore also this government of God has for one of its aims the restoration and preservation of the outward conditions of national existence, including the natural basis of such a community, the land itself. Under the New Covenant there is also a people of God, but the individuals, who constitute the whole, are all regarded as children of God.

But in another direction the Old Testament notion of a people of God tends undeniably towards the New Testament conception of sonship, and thus shows itself to be a germ ever developing with living power as the earnest of its fruit. All Israel appears as a son of God in the significant passage, Exo 22:11; comp. further Hos 11:1. The Israelites themselves are also called sons of God, Deu 14:1; Deu 32:19, and here in our chapter. But these are only single whispers, and the grand distinction must not be overlooked, that this expression is applied only to the totality of the people, even when it relates to their great multitude. Moreover our passage is contained in an announcement with regard to the future, and we must hold beyond question that the prophets go beyond the stand-point of the Old Covenant. It is just as Paul declares in Gal 4:1 ff. Israel indeed actually held the position of sonship toward God, but . . Only the incarnation of the Son of God Himself in an individual person could confer the privilege of the relation of individual and personal sonship towards God, the of individual personality.

5. How is the promise in Hos 2:1-3 fulfilled? We might at first be inclined to seek the fulfillment in the return of the people from Babylonish Exile. For that event certainly marks the turning-point where Gods judgment upon his people reached its end and his favor again shone upon them. But in truth we cannot yet discern the accomplishment of the prophecy in that event. It could hardly be the subject of the promise, inasmuch as the Prophet only speaks and knows here of a judgment upon the Ten Tribes. But if a return from the Assyrian Exile and a consequent reunion with the kingdom of Judah had taken place, we might expect to see in these events a fulfillment of the promise. But such a return and consequent remission of the judgment upon the kingdom of Israel never took place; and the return from the Babylonish Exile affected that kingdom but very slightly, and brought about only to a very small degree a season of deliverance. Gods favor returned, indeed, inasmuch as this period was an assurance that God had not utterly rejected his people, and the hope of the fulfillment of the prophetic promises became so much the brighter. But it was not the fulfillment itself. No; to arrive at that we have only to look at our promise a little more closely.

Before the eye of the Prophet there is evidently standing here a picture of a people of Israel, not only innumerably increased and united into one kingdom, but also actually realizing the idea of a people of God (sons of the living God). That is, the time which he promises is in his mind directly the time of fulfillment, which we, upon the ground of other prophecies, since Hosea himself scarcely speaks of the Messiah (not even in Hos 3:5), must designate the Messianic. Hence we can in no case seek the fulfillment in events which transpired before the advent of the Messiah.

But now the Messiah has come in Jesus of Nazareth. Is this promise of prophecy already fulfilled? Is this picture of the future already realized? If we keep to the words of the Text we must answer, No.
In fact the coming of the Messiah did not bring for Israel, as a whole, the time of deliverance, but on account of its guilt, rather a time of rejection, and the consequence was the infliction of a new and still more complete judgment. It is quite clear also that we cannot find the fulfillment of the present promise in the acceptance of the Messiah by the comparatively few who did accept Him. Must we then say that God did indeed design for the people in the Messiah such blessings as are here promised; but that, since they rejected Him, the promised time will never be theirs? In one respect this is perfectly true. But we cannot rest satisfied with it. The prophetic promise with all its rich fullness of meaning would then simply fall to the ground.
But still more unjustifiable is the assumption that the promise is to be regarded as only suspended for the people of Israel during the time of their obduracy, and to expect its fulfillment in that nation when it shall be converted to the Messiah. For this opinion, though so much favored of late, simply holds mechanically and restrictively to the letter, with a complete misconception of the nature of the Old and New Testament and their mutual relations, and of the higher plane to which divine Revelation rose with Christ, and supposes it possible that Revelation could retreat from the stand-point of the fulfillment to that of the Old Testament preparation, where Israel as a people represented the kingdom of God. It would assume also that allusion was made to the one kingdom only, for the purpose of showing that the distinction between children of Judah and children of Israel was lost by the extinction of the whole kingdom, even of the kingdom of Judah, independently of the consummation of the reunion under one head here promised. And therefore a promise which takes that division for granted and holds out the prospect of its removal and conversion into a higher unity, cannot be regarded as one whose fulfillment (according to the plain sense of the words) is still to be expected; or is that division of the two kingdoms, which no longer exist, yet to take place, in order that it may at some time be removed? If we have to give up the main position of this assumption of a literal fulfillment yet to be accomplished, on account of its intrinsic impossibility, all support is taken away from the notion that the promise will be realized in and for the people of Israel upon the soil of the Holy Land. It falls to pieces from internal weakness.

Instead, therefore, of dreaming of a future fulfillment in the literal sense, we must rather say, that the Prophet knows of a people of God only in the form of Israel, and hence what he hopes and promises for the people of God he hopes and promises for Israel, and in the form conditioned by Israels history. But it has become clear to as under the New Testament through Christ: Israel was only a type, necessary for its time and chosen by God, of the true people of God, only a shell which contained the kernel in the mean while, but at the same time was also to protect it until the time of its maturity. But the shell was too small and must be burst; the kernel had not and has not sufficient room, and it would be reversing the order of things, after the kernel is laid bare to retain the shell. It is not the outward Israel that is Gods people; it was just the period of its ruin, just the rejection of the Messiah at his coming by the external Israel that opened the way for this. It was made clear that a people as such was insufficient for this high calling, to be the chosen people of God, as the prophets themselves distinguished more and more between the mere external Israel and the true Israel, and saw the heathen coming to Zion and entering the breach. And though Israel is still held as the central point, the fulfillment is not in outward form, but ideally, inasmuch as Christ came the Saviour of the Jews; Israel therefore remaining the root in which the others were engrafted. We can understand now the promise of the innumerable increase (Hos 2:1). Literally it would apply to the people of Israel, but can only apply to them as the people of God; and even though the older prophets say nothing as yet of the calling of the Gentiles, as Micah and Isaiah do, we have now assuredly a right to abandon the notion of an increase of the external Israel, and to see the fulfillment in the founding of a people of God by Christ just in the time of the final ruin of Israel, who have become, especially by the conversion of the heathen, a numberless multitude, and will become still more numerous. Then the reunion of the divided kingdoms is an essential element in the Messianic picture of the future held up in prophecy, as this very passage shows. This is altogether natural. Since prophecy knows a people of God only in the form of the people of Israel, it was necessary, if salvation was to be brought by the reign of the Messiah, that the breach, so harmful to Gods people, and the fruitful source, even more than the consequence, of apostasy from Jehovah, should be removed. If Israel was to be described as becoming converted to God, it must also be represented as returning to its unity under the divinely chosen House of David. This element also in the promise belongs naturally to its form, the form which it must naturally assume under the Old Covenant. As in the New Testament it was declared that the outward Israel was not to constitute Gods people for all time, this element lost its significance; we cannot expect a literal fulfillment of this promise, but the idea which lies at its foundation has been and is being realized, that is, the idea of the real unity of Gods people under one head of the house of David, who was, however, more than the son of David, namely, under Christ. These promises have thus a higher range than the Prophet conceives, and find their fulfillment in a far higher sense than he hopes, and as they are thus more than mere human aspirations and pious wishes, they are seen to proceed from the Spirit of God, who preformed and prevised the New Covenant in the Old. So little does this view do away with the divine authority of the prophetic word, that it is rather its only real attestation and adequate expression, unlike the other literalizing view disproved above.

But if the reproach of spiritualizing should be brought against this conception, our defense is that we only spiritualize in reference to Old Testament promises, along with the Apostles, and would not be more realistic than they, who (1Pe 2:10; Rom 9:25-26), although fully aware of the literal sense of our passages, yet do expressly refer them to the conversion of the heathen. Peter in the same connection (Hos 1:9) sets the New Testament people of God, Christians, directly in the place of those of the Old Testament, and therefore the former are now the true Israel. This extension with reference to the heathen is also quite consequent. If the words: not my people, were once pronounced over Israel, it was because they had sunk quite to the level of the heathen. And if they are to be received again, they would be received just as those who had actually become like heathen; and it is no longer right to exclude the heathen, who are behind them in no respect. But there is this difference between the reacceptance and the first choice. When the Israelites were chosen they were not in positive opposition to God, but now they are so; and therefore a longer exclusion of the heathen would be a particularizing to a greater extent than their disciplinary training demanded; it would be a violation of justice. For the rest: Paul declares clearly that Israel itself shall not be excluded (Rom 11:26). Only thus should the people of God attain to its full increase (And surely, in the fact of the preservation of Israel in its nationality even under the New Testament, we may see a promise of this conversion, although that wonderful preservation by Gods providence is to be regarded in its most patent aspect as a part of the judgment decreed upon Israel by God. It is preserved as a living witness of the rejection decreed by God on account of its unbelief and rejection of the Messiah.) Only Paul says not a word, when promising Israels conversion, that would lead us to think that a people of God, , will be continued, not a word of the glory of the kingdom of Israel, though his heart beat so warmly (comp. chap. 9) towards his nation in its outward sense.

Finally we have only further to remark that in our references to the Messianic period inaugurated by Christ, as the time of the fulfillment of the prophetic promises, Messianic time is taken in the fullest sense of the term, and the whole course of the New Testament dispensation, from its foundation to its completion, is regarded as one whole, so that we have not yet attained to the perfect fulfillment, although the promises of prophecy have been undergoing their realization since the time of Christ. For it doth not yet appear what we shall be. The fulfillment is not yet complete, but we stand in expectation of it. This perfect realization consists least in the literal fulfillment with respect to the external Israel alone, but it too, in so far as it is converted to the Messiah, will have a share in the complete salvation ready for all who will be converted to God through Christ.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Hos 1:2. Starke: All departure from Gods Word and from true religion is a spiritual whoredom. Blessed are they who beware of this!

Hos 1:4. Starke: As a good intention without Gods counsel does not make a cause good, so it cannot be said that the divine will has been fulfilled, when it has been executed with a perverted heart and not in accordance with the divine purposes. (Comp. the Doctrinal and Ethical section, No. 3.)

Wrt. Summ.: Gods wrath often falls upon posterity, and they must suffer for the sins of their forefathers, if they walk in their evil footsteps (Exo 20:5).

Tub. Bible: Public sins of a whole nation or of its kings and princes are followed by a general judgment of God, by which whole lands are destroyed.

[Pusey: So awful a thing it is to be the instrument of God in punishing or reproving others if we do not by his grace keep our own hearts and hands pure from sin.M.]

Hos 1:6. Wrt. Summ.: Behold here the severity of the divine wrath. God is certainly compassionate, but his compassion is regulated by his holy righteousness. His compassion exceeds all human petitions and understanding; but his wrath goes beyond all human reckoning. Men may keep on sinning against our beloved God too long, so that when He has waited long exhorting them to repentance, and they do not follow Him, his words at last are: Lo-Ruhamah Lo-Ammi. Beware of this and do not defer your repentance; for God may soon become as angry as He was merciful.

Hos 1:7. Cramer: When human help ceases, divine help begins. He is not limited to the use of means, but is Himself our Help and Shield.

[Burroughs: The more immediate the hand of God appears in his mercy to his people, the more sweet and precious ought that mercy then to be. Dulcius ex ipso fonte. Created mercies are the most perfect mercies.M.]

Starke: Woe to him whose God the Lord will no longer be. Let men therefore beware lest by presumptuous sin they trifle away all intercourse with God.

Rieger: When God thus renounces those who were his people, it is much more lamentable than any severance between those who are married or betrothed. I will be your God and ye shall be my people, was the formula of the covenant. They had broken the last condition by their unbelief; and thus they stirred up the Lord to anger so that He renounced the first. Yet He has not expressly retracted the whole formula of the covenant. He did not say: I will not be your God, but He cut short his words in anger: I will not be yours. Thus room is left for that mercy which shall awake anew for them.

Hos 1:9. The threatenings are indeed terrible: but how merciful it was in God to announce the judgment before it comes; and the plainer and more striking these threatenings are the greater the mercy. This is a ground for hoping that the judgment will be averted.

Chap. 2 Hos 2:1. This is the order and method of Gods dealings: He slays, not that He may keep under the power of death, but that He may bring to repentance. Thus He dispersed Israel among the heathen, and without any compassion and mercy, as it seemed to outward observation, rejected them utterly. For the Ten Tribes have not yet returned to their own land. But how abundantly has God compensated to them this misfortune! For those who were scattered among the heathen, He gathered again by the Gospel, and so gathered them that a great multitude of the heathen came to the knowledge of the kingdom of Christ along with the remnant in the kingdom of Israel. He points the people of Israel to this compensation, that they may not despond in such affliction, as we also assuage, by the hope of the future glory, prepared for us by the death of Christ, the sorrows of those calamities which we see before our eyes.

[Burroughs: If we expect God to be a living God to us, it becomes us not to have dead hearts in his service. If God be active for our good, let us be active for his honor.M.]

Hos 2:2. Starke: The Church of the New Testament has only one Head, who is Christ. Blessed are we if we cleave to and follow Him!

[Matthew Henry: To believe in Christ is to appoint Him to ourselves for our Head, that is, to consent to Gods appointment and willingly to submit to his guidance and appointment; and this in concurrence and communion with all good Christians who make Him their Head; so that though they are many, yet in Him they are one, and so become one with each other. Qui conveniunt in aliquo tertio inter se conveniunt.M.].

Hos 2:3. The prophet gives the best application of the names which God bade him apply to his children in order that the Christian Church may be convinced thereby that all the former things are reversed, that wrath is done away, and that the unfathomable compassion and mercy of God stand open to every man. For how should God, after He gave his son, not with Him have given all things? This word say belongs to the office of public preaching. We are to understand by it that the servants of God in the New Testament are commanded to comfort believers, and to declare to them that they stand in mercy and are a people of God.

[Pusey: The words my people are words of hope in prophecy; they become words of joy in each stage of fulfillment. They are words of mutual joy and gratulation when obeyed; they are words of encouragement until obeyed. God is reconciled to us, and willeth that we should be reconciled to Him.M.].

Footnotes:

[1][Hos 1:1.explained by Gesenius as meaning, fountain; by First et al.: one who explains, comp. Deu 1:5. If a symbolical meaning is sought, the latter is probably to be preferred; if not, the signification must remain undecided. There seems to be no necessity for holding a symbolical sense.M.]

[2]Hos 1:2. . By the construct state in which the first word stands the following ( being not an infinitive but a prterite), becomes a sort of substantive phrase subordinate to . [ is thus made equivalent to an adverb of time=when at first (Ewald). The construction would thus be similar to that of the phrase , Exo 6:28; 1Sa 25:15 et al. See Ewald, Gr., 286, 3. For the view which regards the first clause of the verse as a kind of superscription, see the exposition and Green, Heb. Gr., 255, 1,2.M.] , according to the familiar Heb. emphatic mode of expression, the is here marked as complete.

[3] Hos 1:6. is usually regarded as a participle with fallen away. But according to Keil it is rather the 3 fem. prt. (in the pausal form on account of the Athnach, as in 2:3, 24)=she finds no sympathy, is not compassionated. [This is a question which must remain undecided, as the word occurs only in pause. Yet the common view is preferable, because (1) the part. is the better form for an appellative, as it approaches more nearly to a noun, and (2) if the verb became an appellative it would probably remain a fixed form, or at least not be subject to such changes as the 3 prt. undergoes in pause. The part, would of course retain the Kamets in any case.M.]

The difficult words probably give a further explanation of the . = to forgive: I will no longer have compassion on them that I should forgive them (Meier: is climactic=how much less forgive them). The object: sin, is certainly then to be supplied as also in Gen 18:24. But, according to the context, it is easier to supply this than to translate with Hengstenberg: I will take away from them, namely, what they have, or everything they have. In Gen 5:16, in the sense of taking may without difficulty be construed absolutely. But here, especially with the dative, an object is expected.

[Pusey, Henderson, Cowles, et al. follow E. V. in rendering: But I will utterly take them away. Newcome: But I will surely take them away. Ewald agrees with Meier in the translation given above. Henderson admits that followed by elsewhere means to forgive, and that it might have the same sense here if it were only preceded by the copulative , but that meaning but excludes such repetition. Here it is forgotten that may mark consecution or result, as it does frequently, comp. Gen 40:15; Isa 29:16; Psa 8:5, with many other passages. But Schmoller as well as Keil, who discern the true connection and meaning of the words, have overlooked the occurrence of the inf. before the future of the same verb. All the other critics give to this combination the force of emphasis or intensity. Is it not better to suppose that repetition is implied, which is the fundamental notion? And if the last clause is explanatory of the preceding, the of the one must find its counterpart in the frequentative construction of the other: I will no longer have mercy on them that I should continue to forgive them. Greater fullness of meaning and appropriateness is also seen to mark this part of the verse: God had overlooked their sins often before, but He would not keep on overlooking them forever.M.]

[4][Hos 1:9. ; I will not be for you, i.e, not be yours, not belong to you. There is no need of maintaining that God is understood, as Henderson, Cowles, and the English expositors generally do. The sense is complete without supposing an ellipsis. Houbigant (followed by Newcome) has gone so far as to transpose the letters of the last two words into . But this has no support in the MSS. or Versions, and is besides very improbable, not to mention that it supposes the omission of the latter .M.]

[5] Hos 2:1. . We might be inclined to render: in the place of [its being said]; the usage of the expression elsewhere is however too clearly opposed (comp. Lev 4:24-33; Lev 14:13; Jer 22:12; Ezek. 21:35; Neh 4:14). But with the subject following is perhaps=instead of, in Isa 33:21.

[6][This will show the groundlessness of the opinion of Noyes, that from the contents of the book it is probable that he did not exercise his office until after the death of Jeroboam, when the kingdom of Israel was in, a state of great distraction and anarchy.J. F. M.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The prophecy opens with an account of the Prophet himself, and the period in which he ministered to the Church. The Prophet becomes a Type, as well as a Preacher, in the Church of God.

Hos 1:1

This is the preface to what follows. It is the Lord’s word, and therefore worthy of the greatest attention. And the time of the Prophets ministry is also mentioned. Hosea laboured long in the word and doctrine. For if it be calculated, only the time of his ministry, supposing only from the last year of Uzziah, to the first year of Hezekiah, this included a period of near seventy years: so that if Hosea began his prophetical character even at the age of twenty, he must have lived to between ninety and an hundred years.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Ministry of Sorrow

Hos 1

A wonderful book is this prophecy of Hosea [b.c. 800-725]. The man himself at once attracts our sympathy and regard by his personal sufferings. There is no teacher of divine truth to be compared for one moment for excellence so deep and great as trouble. You can learn but little in the schools. Information, except for temporary purposes, is worthless. Well-informed men, if they be nothing more, are oftentimes hindrances and discouragements to those who, not having had their advantages, are conscious of aspirations and possibilities which do not lie within the range of mere intelligence, and which cannot be satisfied or realised by any amount of information. A well-informed man may be a nuisance; his information may tend to the increase of his vanity; but when information is followed by a sanctified moral excellence it becomes valuable and helpful for educational and religious purposes. Hosea had an infinite sorrow at home; therefore he was so great and tender a teacher of divine truth. He read everything through his tears; hence the enlargement, the colour, the variety, the striking beauty of his visions. Men who have never been in the valley of the shadow of death may amuse us, delight us, cheer us, and in some subsidiary ways may help us; but sorrow only can enrich the voice. When the sorrow is home grief it assumes a tenderer quality; yea, there is on it a bloom such as can only be wrought by the ministry of the sun at midday.

Hosea had sorrow of the deepest kind. Gomer the daughter of Diblaim was the daughter of the devil. Hosea had no peace, no rest, no singing joy within the four corners of his own house. He lived in clouds; his life was a continual passage through a sea deeper than the Red Sea; if we may vary the figure, his wandering was in the wilderness, unblessed, cursed by the very spirit of desolation. He had children, but they had evil names; their very names were millstones round the prophet’s neck. If one of them had a name historically and ideally beautiful, it was to be used for the expression of judgment and vengeance; for even Jezreel, so glorious geographically, was to be a very tragedy in the judgments which it introduced and exemplified. As for the others, one represented the vanished mercy of God, and the other represented the alienation of the people from God, and the alienation of God from the people. Sometimes when there is no joy between the adults of the house, there may be a kind of intermediate joy in consequence of the presence of the children; they will laugh and say childish things, and will touch some vein of humour or fancy; they who look sourly at one another, and with the bitterness of distrust, may be melted into sympathy because of the miracle wrought by infantile genius. It was not so in the house of Hosea. A common sorrow like an unbroken cloud rested upon the house and upon its weary life. This man will do us good then.

Only sorrow should read some parts of the Bible, because only sorrow could have written them. How many sing the words of poets they never understand! You cannot sing a man’s music properly until you know the man himself; until you are familial with the genius of the musician; until, indeed, you have some acquaintance with his deepest experiences. Notes are more than notes. A fool can be taught the staff; but who can be one with the musician, live with him, in the sanctuary of his genius, in all the variety of his experience; who can be wild with his madness, sober with his gravity, sullen with his melancholy, and joyous to rioting and trumpeting and rapture with his ineffable gladness? Then we may begin to sing something of what he has written. But the great psalmists of the age are not to be interpreted by frivolous children; they can only be interpreted, rendered, and expressed by those who have been comrades of their sorrow and companions of their joy.

Hosea will have a tone of his own; he will talk like nobody else; he will be an eccentric, peculiar individual; he will begin when he pleases, and he will take a circuit marked out for him by an invisible guide; but now and again he will come down to the road we travel, and will present us with flowers and fruits, and will say little sweet sentences to us that shall be as angels, covered with light, and tremulous with music. The sorrow of Hosea was symbolic. The Lord meant it to be so. All sorrow, as well as all joy, is meant to be typical. Hosea’s cloud was not meant for his own house alone; he was to hear voices in that cloud which he was to repeat to all Israel, and all Judah, and all time. We divest the little books of the Bible and the great books of all their noblest meaning by dwarfing them into local pamphlets, tracts which referred only to the passing day, with its darting showers and glancing sunbeams and variety of nothingness. Whoso has sorrow is meant to be a teacher; whoso has joy is meant to be a gospeller, an evangelist, a good-news-man. You have no right to the exclusive use of your own sorrow; you weep that you may shed tears with the common trouble of the world. Men are not to be laughed out of their losses, their gains, their troubles, and the clouds that overshadow and overweight them; they will know the voice of comradeship; they will say instantly: This is the language of truest experience and richest friendship; the man who speaks to me now speaks from a great height; he is eminent, if not in the manner of his words, in their spirit and accent and emphasis. You have no right to the exclusive proprietorship of your own household joys. They were meant to make the people in the other house as glad as you are. You cannot drink that goblet of joy, and then dry your lips as if nothing had happened; what you have imbibed of gladness should be an inspiration to all who come within your influence. Weep with them that weep; rejoice with them that do rejoice; enter into the common fellowship of the world, and make your contribution ungrudgingly and lavishly and eagerly, as if you had been waiting for the opportunity.

Sorrow should only be silent for a time; by-and-by it should find all its words, refine, enlarge and dignify them, and pass them on as messages, bright as gospels, rich as the oldest wine of heaven’s infinite vineyard. Thus the Bible maintains its supremacy. At noon of summer’s longest day we do not ask for the Bible; the open air is enough, the green leaves, and the singing birds, and the blushing flowers, and the garden that seems to multiply itself until it occupies the whole earth these are quite enough for us; but when the company breaks up, and the leaves fall and the birds begin to go elsewhere for they, poor little faithless ones, follow the sun, they do not follow men; they never say, Here is a little cluster of men gathered in garden party, let us sing to them; not they, they follow the light, and when the birds have gone and the flowers are dead and the garden has withdrawn, then we want comfort, cheer, hospitality, stimulus. Where can we find all these as in the divine old book? It is because it speaks to men in their deepest experience that it cannot be deposed from its primacy of spiritual influence. It knows us; it searches us through and through; it has the noblest words for our sorrow, the purest music for our joy, and all the notes between it can utter with a precision and exquisiteness impossible to all other books. Hosea would, then, in a sense, share his sorrow. But for his own sorrow he never could have understood God’s grief. Again and again God asks us to look at him through ourselves: “Like as a father… so the Lord”: that is the key of the Bible; that is the key of Providence; that is the key of the Cross: omit that basis line from your theology, and your theology is a cloud without water; only a shadow, dark, spectral, barren, promising much and giving nothing. You could never understand God’s love until you found that your own child had stabbed you to the heart; you never knew the meaning of sorrow as it is experienced in heaven until you looked round and found your disappointed eyes confronted by emptiness. When it was told you that the vacant chair would not be filled that day because the prodigal had gone, then you read the Bible as no lettered priest or scribe ever read it. You knew nothing of life until you had been desolated by death. When there were only two of you in the house, and one lay dead and speechless, then you knew what the critics could never tell you of Bible truth, divine presence, and divine purpose; then you saw beyond the veil, and there stole into your soul a courage that loved the very image of death; there came into your spirit an inspiration that made death itself a silent friend.

So the Lord will put Hosea to school; and so he will put all his prophets and apostles through their education. Happy they who come up out of household trouble, public disappointment, and social criticism, and loss and desolation, to pray larger prayers, and offer to those who are outside a larger hospitality of love and rest. If sorrow make us narrower in thought and purpose, then sorrow has failed to convey God’s meaning to the soul. Sorrow should open the heart-door, so that no man can shut it, that all may enter in who need comfort and quietness, and peace and hope.

Yet the Lord cannot be angry all day. He breaks down like a woman; he thunders in terrible judgment, and at the end of the thunder he pronounces the benediction. Hosea is full of but’s and yet’s and therefore’s, which the critics say ought to be nevertheless’s; but after all these words there come gospels broad as dawning day, dewy as the eyelids of the morning. After such words as the Lord puts into the mouth of the prophet you would say a gospel was impossible; yet as the rippling plough goes before the sowing hand, so God’s judgment goes before God’s mercy, God’s desolations prepare the way for God’s benefactions. When I am weak, then am I strong. After poverty shall come wealth; after well-borne disappointment shall come sunny contentment, serenest tranquillity and peace: “But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them.” We knew he would break down. Jonah knew it, and was angry. The Lord said, Art thou angry because I have had compassion upon that great city? And Jonah said, I am. The Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? And Jonah said, I do because Jonah was little, incomplete, imperfect, infirm in temper, wanting not only in imagination, but in the true compassion which would sacrifice all heaven if by doing so one poor lost child could be brought home again. Prophets like their own prophecies to be fulfilled. Jonah did not like to be made a fool of; it was very important that Jonah, having gone up and down the streets of Nineveh, saying, “In forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” should be looked upon in the evening of the last day as a very respectable person. He studied the dignity of the ministry. Jonah’s respectability was infinitely greater than Nineveh’s salvation. So he was petulant and furious and wholly absurd.

How will the Lord carry out his purpose of mercy? Already he begins to be spiritual in his method of salvation “not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” This is a point in history. All outward, visible, material salvations are driven away; a grand supersession of these is now to take place. For a long time men could understand no salvation but that which was physical. When they heard that ten thousand horses were coming down the hill they began to feel, as it were, safe; when some quick-eared sufferer caught the first blast of the trumpet of an approaching host they who were in prison began to sing, because they were made perfectly sure that their salvation was at hand. There came a time in the history of the world, as given in the development of the Bible, when God dispensed with all manner of mechanical auxiliaries, as bow and sword and battle, and horses and horsemen. God hath chosen the foolish things and the weak things and the non-existent things that he may work out all his glorious purpose. Without a single horseman on the field he will open the gate and deliver the prisoner, and give joy to those who have only fed on tears and bread of affliction. The Lord delighteth not in the legs of a man; the Lord is not dependent upon the strength of a horse, though his neck be clothed with thunder, and his nostrils be scarlet with energy. The Lord delivers spiritually; he comes invisibly; a thousand angels start on their journey when he bids them arise and depart, and save those who are in extremity. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea.” Amid all the seas, oceans on oceans piled, and thunder on thunder heaped, there is a river, a little silver stream, that maketh glad the City of God: the river shall be more useful than the sea, the stream shall have in it more water than the Atlantic; there shall be a deeper calm amid the apparently little inheritance which God gives to his people than there is in all the plentifulness of antiquity.

Then we come upon one of Hosea’s yets. Lo ruhamah had been weaned, Lo-ammi had been born, and it seemed as if the night continued in all its wild and stormy darkness; but in Hos 1:10 we have “Yet.” What weaving is this, of storm and peace, winter and summer, wilderness and paradise! what wondrous weaving have we here! Oh, that flying busy shuttle! What is it doing? now a judgment, and now a hymn of peace. What is to come of it all? How will the day end?

“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God” ( Hos 1:10 ).

What a chapter! How like an April day, beginning in anger, in swift darting showers, every drop a spear point; and ending in brightest June, in such a wealth of light, in such an infinity of peace. This may be an apocalypse, a hint. This may come true of us. We have had sorrow, difficulty, toil, travail, misery: who can say that at eventide there shall not be light, and in the calm sunset we shall not forget the battle of early day?

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

VII

THE BOOK OF HOSEA PART I

Hos 1:1-4:5

Books commended: (1) “Pulpit Commentary,” (2) “Bible Commentary,” (3) “Cambridge Bible,” (4) Sampey’s Syllabus. Hosea, the prophet, was one of three who bore this name. The other two were Hoshea, afterward called Joshua (Num 13:8-16 ), and Hoshea, the last king of Israel. These are shortened forms of the name “Jehoshea” which means, the Lord is my help, but the short form means savior, or deliverer. Hosea, the prophet, was a son of Beeri, but we know nothing of Beeri; nor do we know where Hosea was born or buried. We know that he was a prophet of Israel and, perhaps, was a native of the Northern Kingdom, but his tribal relation is only a guess with much uncertainty. He had frequent messages for Judah as well as for Israel, and at first he praised Judah but later on he warned and threatened her.

In the title Hosea is said to have prophesied “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.” Now the reign of these kings of Judah covered a period of one hundred and twelve years; so he must have lived to be quite an old man. Hosea probably commenced his prophetic work in the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam and in the early part of the reign of Uzziah, and extended it through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and into the reign of Hezekiah, which would give us a period of fifty or sixty years for his work, say from 780 B.C. to 725 B.C., about fifty-five years. The internal evidence fully corroborates the statement of Hos 1:1 .

The period covered by his prophetic utterances was undoubtedly the darkest in the whole history of the kingdom of Israel. Political life was characterized by anarchy and misrule. The throne was occupied by men who obtained possession by the murder of their predecessors and the people were governed by military despotism. Zechariah was slain after a reign of six months; Shallum, after only one month. A dozen years later Pekahish was assassinated by Pekah, who met the same fate at the hands of Hoshea. All these were ungodly rulers, and the morals of the nation were sinking to the lowest ebb. The conditions were terrible in the extreme; luxurious living, robbery, oppression, falsehood, adultery, murder, accompanied by the most violent intolerance of any form of rebuke. The language of the prophet is influenced by the confusion about him in the nation and the disgrace of his own home. Then Israel being situated midway between Egypt and Assyria, two factions existed: one favoring alliance with Egypt; the other, with Assyria. Such were the circumstances which furnished the occasion of this prophecy.

The genuineness and canonicity of the prophecies of Hosea have never been widely called in question, nor has the book of Hosea been successfully distributed among the several authors differing in character, culture, and date, a division of labor which has played a great part in the criticism of other prophets. The book of Hosea, of a date and authenticity unquestioned, is a witness of the utmost value for previous portions of the Old Testament. A number of allusions put it beyond all reasonable doubt, that Hosea, in the eighth century before Christ, had in his hands a Hebrew literature identical with much of which we possess at this time.

In this book we find several allusions to the history of Genesis: (1) Adam’s sin in paradise and expulsion there from (Hos 6:7 ) ; (2) the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Hos 11:8 ) ; (3) God’s promise to Abraham (Hos 1:10 ); (4) Jacob’s experience (Hos. 12:3-4:15).

In Exodus, besides general allusions to Moses, we have the following verbal references: (1) Hos 1:11 is a reference to Exo 1:10 ; (2) Hos 2:17 , to Exo 23:13 . The curse denounced in Lev 26:14 ff is alluded to in Hos 7:12 . The sin in the matter of Baal-peor discussed in Numbers is alluded to in Hos 9:10 .

There are several verbal citations of passages in Deuteronomy: (1) Deu 31:18 , in Hos 3:1 ; (2) Deu 17:8-13 , in Hos 4:4 ; (3) Deu 19:14 ; Deu 27:17 , in Hos 5:10 , and in many other instances. So we can find allusions to Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, showing that all these books were in the canon of sacred Scriptures in the time of Hosea just as we have them today.

Many of the finest passages in Hosea, practically all of the promises, are treated by the radical critics as interpolations by later writers; most of the references to Judah are stricken out, and the historical allusions to great men and events in the past are also cut out. This is revolutionary criticism and completely reverses the message of Hosea. There is not a scintilla of evidence to justify such a mutilation of “this book.

To show the fallacy of the radical critic theory of the Pentateuch I take the following from Sampey’s Syllabus:

Professor James Robertson, in his able work on the Early Religion of Israel, has delivered heavy blows against the current radical theory of the origin of the Pentateuch, by emphasizing the following facts concerning Amos and Hosea, who are admitted by all parties to have lived and labored in the eighth century, B.C.:

1. These prophets had a rich vocabulary of moral and theological terms, implying a high degree of religious culture prior to their time.

2. They displayed literary skill such as would argue for a high development of the Hebrew language and literature before their time.

3. Both of these prophets, as well as Micah and Isaiah, far from regarding themselves as pathfinders in thought and practice, speak of their work as a return to the law of God given in former times. They plainly regard themselves as reformers, not innovators. These three lines of argument unite in favoring a date for the Pentateuch much earlier than that assigned by Wellhausen and his school.

Hosea, of all the prophets, is the most difficult to translate and interpret. His style is marked by obscure brevity; his mind was so aflame with the fiery message which he brought that he did not stop to weigh words for the sake of clearness. Jerome says, “Hosea is concise, and speaks in detached sentences.” The prophet felt too deeply to express himself calmly. Amos 1-3 is in prose; the rest of the book is rhythmical, but almost destitute of parallelism, a general characteristic of Hebrew poetry. The first three chapters are symbolical and strikingly graphic; the rest is literal, that “he may run who reads,” i.e., “run through it in reading.”

This book naturally divides itself into two parts: a shorter one (Hosea 1-3), and a longer one (Hosea 4-14), as follows:

ANALYSIS HOSEA SPIRITUAL ADULTERY

I. The preparation of the prophet (Hosea 1-3)

1. His domestic relations and the symbolical import (Hos 1:2-2:1 )

(1) His orders, his marriage, and his family (Hos 1:2-9 )

(2) His vision of hope (Hos 1:10-2:1 )

2. His domestic tragedy, a revelation (Hos 2:2-23 )

(1) The charge explained (Hos 2:2-7 )

(2) The severity of love (Hos 2:8-13 )

(3) The tenderness of love (Hos 2:14-20 )

(4) The promise of enlargement (Hos 2:21-23 )

3. His reclamation of Gomer and its revelation (Hos 3:1-5 )

(1) His orders (Hos 3:1 )

(2) His obedience (Hos 3:2-3 )

(3) His vision of future Israel (Hos 3:4-5 )

II. The preaching of the prophet (Hos 4:1-14:8 )

NOTE: Of all the parts of the Bible, this, perhaps, is the hardest to analyze. Sampey says, “These chapters defy logical analysis,” and Bishop Lowth calls them “scattered leaves of a sibyl’s book.” This section consists of detached selections from Hosea’s prophecies, without regard to logical order. They are perhaps more chronological than logical. There have been several attempts to analyze these chapters but all alike seem to have been baffled with the difficulty of the task. The author ventures, as a kind of analysis to guide us in our study of this section, the following selected outline:

1. Pollution and pursuit (Hos 4:1-6:3 )

2. Pollution and punishment (Hos 6:4-10:15 )

3. Pollution and pity (Hos 10:1-14:8 )

On the three main views of the marriage of Hosea I take the following from Sampey’s Syllabus:

1. That the whole is an allegory or parable. This is the view of Calvin, who objects to an actual marriage of the prophet with an unchaste woman on the ground that it would discredit him with the very people whom he wished to influence. He says: “It would have then exposed the prophet to the scorn of all if he had entered a brothel and taken to himself a harlot.” Calvin insists that the expression “wife of whoredom” could mean nothing less than a common prostitute. He replies to the argument that this was an exceptional case by saying that it seems inconsistent with reason that the Lord should thus gratuitously render his prophet contemptible. He thinks the expression, “Children of wantoness,” also militates against the literal view. Calvin seems to think that the woman referred to in the third chapter was different from the one named in the first, but that we are not to imagine a real occurrence in either case. Calvin’s interpretation, in detail, of the language of Hosea seems to be greatly weakened by his theory of the imaginary character of the marriage.

2. Some think that Hosea actually married a woman who was leading an unchaste life; that she bore three children to him and then lapsed into her old life once more, sinking into a condition of slavery from which she was bought by Hosea and restored to his home, though not at first to the full intimacy of married life. This view, it must be confessed, would seem the most natural to a plain reader. The chief objection is moral. How could the Holy God direct a pure-minded prophet to form such an unnatural union? Some authorities think that Hosea’s language, in describing his marriage has been colored by his later experiences; and that he has interpreted God’s command to him to marry in darker words by reason of the experiences which followed the union. However that may be, it seems exceedingly difficult to believe that God would direct His prophet to marry a woman already living in unchastity.

3. Others hold that Hosea was directed to marry a woman given to idolatry, an idolatry which was often associated with licentiousness, although his bride was not an actually unchaste woman at first, but only a spiritual adulteress. She bore to the prophet three children, to whom symbolical names were given. Later on, idolatry brought forth its natural fruitage, and Hosea’s wife became an actual adulteress. Whether she then deserted Hosea, or whether he divorced her, we are not told. Now Hosea could understand why Jehovah was grieved with unfaithful Israel to the point of casting her off. The unspeakable love and compassion of God for His unfaithful spouse prepared Hosea in some measure to obey the divine command to recover his own unfaithful wife and restore her to his home.

The third view has more to recommend it than either of the other two. Hosea’s bitter domestic sorrow became an object-lessen for himself and his people. His heart was almost broken by shame and grief, but he was thereby fitted to portray the heinousness of apostasy, on the one hand, and, on the other, Jehovah’s tenderness and compassion toward His unfaithful people.

In Hos 1:2-9 we have set forth the condition of the people of Israel at this time and their relation to Jehovah. There are several words and phrases in it that need explanation. “When Jehovah spoke at the first” means the beginning of Hosea’s prophecies in the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam II, and refers to God’s first command to him. “Gomer” means failing, or consummation and indicates the decline of Israel at that time because of her sins. “Jezreel,” the name of the first-born means scattered by God and is contrasted with “Israel” which means, prince with God, i.e., “Jezreel” indicates a prophecy of Israel’s scattering which was fulfilled in the destruction of the house of Jehu in which God would avenge the awful deeds of Jehu though he did his work at the command of God, but with the spirit of vengeance and with no thought of the glory of God. The kingdom of Israel, though spared about fifty years, soon ceased, when her bow, the symbol of her strength, was broken in the valley of Jezreel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, & Israel was scattered.

Then a daughter was born to Gomer whom the prophet was instructed to call “Lo-ruhamah,” which means hath not obtained mercy and as applied to Israel at this time, signifies that God had visited her in her wickedness; that Israel was pass-ing beyond the hope of mercy and pardon. Then the prophet contrasts with this condition of Israel the mercy of Jehovah to Judah which was fulfilled in the destruction of Sennacherib’s army and the extension of the life of Judah one hundred and thirty-two years beyond that of Israel. This prophecy concerning Judah was, doubtless, intended to encourage the faithful in Israel.

Then followed a third child born to the woman, whom the prophet was instructed to name “Loammi,” which means not my people and indicates Jehovah’s complete rejection of Israel because of her violation of the marriage covenant. So the prophet’s children symbolized, step by step, the sad gradation of Israel’s fast-coming calamity. The name, “Jezreel,” scattered of God, denotes the first blow dealt to them by divine Providence, from which it was possible for them by repentance to recover; “Loruhamah,” without mercy, imparts another and heavier blow, yet not beyond all hope of recovery; but “Loammi,” not my people, puts an end to hope, implying the rejection of Israel by the Almighty. The national covenant was annulled; God had cast off his people who were left hopeless and helpless, because of their sinful and ungrateful departure from the fountain of all blessing.

In Hos 1:10-2:1 we have set forth clearly the promise of the return and conversion of the Jews. There is, perhaps, a primary fulfilment in the return under Zerubbabel and Joshua but the larger and clearer fulfilment is yet to be realized in the gathering of the Jews and their consequent conversion at which time the millennium will be introduced and the great multitudes of spiritual Israel here referred to will be converted. Then Jezreel will be reversed in its application and made to apply to the planting of Israel in her own land; and right where they are now said not to be God’s people they shall be called God’s people. Israel and Judah shall have one head, the Messiah, and not only will Jezreel be reversed in its application, but also the names of the other two children will lose their negative meaning, and, instead of Loruhamah and Loammi, there will be Ammi, my people and Ruhhamah, the beloved. Such will be the conditions of fellowship on their return. This accords with Rom 9:26-27 and other New Testament quotations.

The charge against the Israelites in Hos 2:2-7 is their idolatries in which they have forgotten him and their obligations to him. The mother here is Israel taken collectively and is represented as a wife, unfaithful to the marriage relation. The threat of stripping her naked is in accord with the Oriental custom of dealing with the harlot, which is the method also of the Germans in dealing with an adulteress. This is described by Tacitus thus: Accisis crimibus nudatam coram propingius expellit domo maritus . Her children are the children of Israel individually who are also barred from the privileges of the covenant and there are no blessings for them. Her lovers mentioned here are her idols to which she had turned for support, for which the Lord pronounces the curse upon them, that will turn them back to himself.

The severity of Jehovah’s love for them is shown in Hos 2:8-13 . For her disregard of Jehovah’s blessings, and attributing them to Baalim, he removes them and subjects Israel to the most severe chastisements, here described as “nakedness,” “shame,” “mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies,” the waste of the land, the visit of the days of Baalim, etc., which are expressions of the severity of his love to bring Israel to repentance. The fulfilment of these predictions we find in part in the conditions of the captivity but the author believes the reference here to the feasts and solemn assemblies to include the fulfilment of them by Christ on the cross as expressed in Col 2:14-17 .

The passage, Hos 2:14-20 , is in contrast with the preceding paragraph and should be translated: “Notwithstanding, I will allure, etc.,” which expresses Jehovah’s kindness to Israel in her captivity, which is intended to allure her to return to him. He shows here his tender love for Israel by making her troubles valley of Achor) the door of her hope. The new relation is expressed by the word, “Ishi,” which means my husband instead of “Baali,” my master. These terms are appellatives and should not be translated as proper names. There is a play upon the word, “Baal,” by which it is made to express their former relation to Jehovah as servant and master, because of Israel’s going after Baalim, as if to say, “If you make Baal your God, then I will be to you as Baali, i.e., master, but in this captivity I will take Baalim out of your mouth.” This is one of the blessings of the captivity, viz: The permanent cure of Israel of all forms of idolatry.

Then his love finds expression in the covenant with the beasts of the field, the doing away with war and the establishing of the betrothal relation in perfect righteousness. The covenant with the beasts here seems to correspond exactly with Isa 11:6-9 in which there is a clear reference to the messianic age, and does not find its larger fulfilment until the millennium. May the good Lord hasten the time when No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds Disturb these peaceful years; To plowshares men shall beat their swords, To pruning-hooks, their spears. No longer hosts, encount’ring hosts, Shall crowds of slain deplore; They hang the trumpet in the hall, And study war no more.

In Hos 2:21-23 we have a clear and distinct promise of the conversion of the Jews and their consequent evangelization (together with Gentile Christians) of the world in the millennium. The blessings of this period are given in the terms of both the temporal and the spiritual, the temporal referring to the response of the heavens and the earth to the call of God and his people in giving blessings and the spiritual blessings are expressed in the sowing of Israel among the nations and the blessings upon them who were not God’s people. This certainly comprehends the time of the millennium in which the Jews shall play such a signal part in the evangelization of the world, as expressed in Rom 9:23 .

Hos 3 sets forth God’s command to Hosea to go and buy back Gomer, his unfaithful wife, who had been sold as a slave, the prophet’s prompt obedience and his vision of future Israel. This is an illustration of God’s great and boundless love for depraved unfaithful Israel, though like the unfaithful wife, she had forsaken Jehovah, her husband. The prophet kept her many days exercising the restraint upon her necessary to bring her to repentance. So the prophet explains that the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, etc., after which they shall return and seek Jehovah, their God, and shall have his favor upon them in the latter days.

There was a partial fulfilment of Hos 3:4 in the period of the captivity, but surely there is a clear prophecy here of the long period of the tribulation which followed the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and which will continue until the Jews shall look on him whom they have pierced and by faith embrace him as their long looked-for Messiah. As we behold the Jew today we see him “without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim,” but after many days he shall turn and seek Jehovah his God and David (Christ) his king and in the days of their ingathering will be the joy of the harvest.

QUESTIONS

1. Who was Hosea?

2. What was the date of his prophecy?

3. What was the occasion, or circumstances, of his prophecies?

4. What of the genuineness and canonicity of this book?

5. What was its relation, in general, to the sacred canon?

6. What allusions do we find in this book to the book of Genesis?

7. What allusions to the history in Exodus?

8. What allusion to Leviticus?

9. What allusion to Numbers?

10. What allusions to Deuteronomy?

11. How do the Radical Critics deal with the book of Hosea?

12. What was the relation of Amos and Hosea to recent theories of radical criticism respecting the origin of the Pentateuch, as shown by Prof. James Robertson?

13. What can you say of the character and style of this prophecy?

14. What is the outline, or analysis, of the book?

15. What are the three main views of the marriage of Hosea and which is the more commendable?

16. What is the interpretation and application of Hos 1:2-9 ?

17. What was the promise of Hos 1:10-2:1 ?

18. What was the charge against Israel as revealed in the domestic tragedy of Hos 2:2-7 ?

19. How is the severity of Jehovah’s love for them shown in Hos 2:8-13 , and what the fulfilment of the predictions contained therein?

20. How does Jehovah show the tenderness of his love in Hos 2:14-20 and what the fulfilment of its predictions?

21. What is the promise of Hos 2:21-23 and when the ideals here set forth to be realized?

22. What is the contents of chapter III and what is revelation?

23. What is the fulfilment of the predictions of Hos 3:4-5 ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Hos 1:1 The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Ver. 1. The word of the Lord ] Not “cunningly devised fables,” 2Pe 1:16 , or human testimonies, that can make but a human faith; but the “word of the ever living God,” 1Th 2:13 , the “Scripture that cannot be broken,” Joh 10:35 , the very heart and soul of God ( cor et anima Dei ), as Gregory calls it.

That came unto Hosea ] The Lord is said to come to Laban, Abimelech, Balaam, &c. But he never concredited his word to any such profane wretches, as he did to the holy prophets which have “been since the world began”; of whom it is said, as here, “The word of the Lord came to Hosea.” His name signifieth a Saviour, Mat 1:21 : a fit name for a minister, whose work is to “save himself and them that hear him,” 1Ti 4:16 . To save them if he can, Oba 1:21 ; to deliver their souls from going into the pit, Job 33:24 ; to pull them, if possible, out of the fire, Jdg 1:23 ; to “give them the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sin,” Luk 1:77 : to give it, I say, not by infusion (for that he cannot do), but by instruction; and that he must endeavour to do, as this prophet did: than whom few ministers ever ran so long a race without cessation, or cespitation, so constantly, so courageously, so unweariably. For he continued prophesying sixty-five years at least, saith Pareus; seventy, saith Oecolampadius; it is very probable fourscore years, saith Mr Burroughes. The Hebrews say ninety years, quibus multa dixit quae non scripsit, wherein he uttered much more than he wrote. This we may easily believe: for we have but the short notes or heads of his sermons and larger discourses, which he seems also to have set down for the use of the Church in his extreme old age, whereof they carry a smatch in the shortness of his speech, applied, as much as might be, to the measure of his breath. Hence Jerome fitly called him, Commaticum et quasi per sententias loquentem, concise and sententious. Amputatas loquitur sententias et verba ante expectatum cadentia, as one saith of Sallust; Multo est verbis quam sensu restrictior atque concisior, as another saith of Livy: he speaketh much in few; and seems to have more sentences than sayings. The more often you read him the more you may get by him: et nunquam tamen dimittat te sine siti; and yet the more you get the more you covet (Lips. de Thucyd.). Obscure he is (as delivering things briefly), and such as will not be easily acquainted with you but upon further suit: hence that Epiphonema a in the perclose of his prophecy, “Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them?” But this must waken and not weaken our more diligent search, not being content with the first ore that offereth itself to our view, but digging deeper and deeper, till we become owner of the whole treasure, which will sufficiently pay for the pains. Wherefore “search the Scripture,” “follow on to know the Lord”; get all the dimensions of knowledge, which (now in the great abundance of the means we have) doth even bow down to us, as trees do that are laden with fruit, so that a child may gather from them.

The son of Beeri ] That is, of a well that hath pure and clear water in it, and that never faileth; living water, as the Scripture calleth it, and not mixed with mud. Ministers should be children of Beeri, of a well digged by the direction of the lawgiver, Num 21:17 , whence people should draw waters with joy, the pure waters of life, the unadulterated milk of God’s word; not troubled, brackish, and sourish doctrines, such as the Popish clergy (called therefore “the sea,” Rev 12:12 ) do set abroach which rather bring barrenness to their hearers and gnaw their entrails, than quench their thirst or cause fruit. These and all false teachers make God’s flock drink that which they have fouled with their feet, Eze 34:19 , yea, impoisoned with their hands: as the malicious Jews once cast bags of poison into many wells here, to do mischief, and were therefore banished the country. False doctrine is like a filthy pond, wherein fish die soon and frogs live long: it is like the Dead Sea, or the great falling star, called Wormwood, Rev 8:10-11 , which made “the third part of the waters become wormwood,” so that “many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter” by that son of perdition, who was himself the “gall of bitterness, and bond of perdition.” Who this Beeri was it appears not in Scripture. It seems he was a man famous in those days among the Israelites (and is here named honoris gratia, for honour’s sake to the prophet), as Alexander and Rufus, the sons of Simon the Cyrenian, were men famously known in the Church of the New Testament; and are therefore but named only by Mark. Mar 15:21 The Jews have a tradition, that whensoever a prophet’s father is named, that father was likewise a prophet as well as the son. And Beeri might be binominis, and have some other name of more note: like as Pethuel, the father of the prophet Joel, is thought by some to have been Samuel, and to have been called Pethuel, that is, a persuader of God, because what he asked of God he obtained.

In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, &c. ] A young prophet he must needs be (especially if he prophesied fourscore years. See the note above). Haply he began as early as did Samuel, Jeremiah, Timothy, Origen, or Cornelius Mus; of whom Sixtus Senensis testifieth, that he was an admirable preacher at twelve years old.

Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah ] The throne of Judah had some interchanges of good princes: Israel none at all. The same justice therefore that made Israel a scourge to Judah, made Assyria a scorpion to Israel; as is here set forth under the type of Hosea’s two last children, Loruhamah and Loammi; whereof in their place, Meanwhile this prophet went through variety of conditions under so many different kings’ reigns (as did likewise Athanasius and Latimer), Jeroboam’s (especially), the second of that name, and here only named, when six other kings of Israel (in whose time Hosea prophesied) are not once mentioned, but lie wrapt up in the sheet of shame, because wicked idolaters, such as God took no delight in, and hath therefore written them in the earth.

And in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash ] Not the son of Nebat, that ringleader of the ten tribes’ revolt from the house of David; but another, little better, and yet very prosperous aud victorious, 2Ki 14:25 ; 2Ki 14:28 . He reigned also forty-one years, and did great exploits: yet is Hosea sent to contest with him, to declaim against his sin and wickedness, and to proclaim heavy judgments against him and his people. This the prophet did for a long while together with all fidelity and fortitude; when the king was triumphing over his enemies, and the people were not only drunk, but even mad again, by reason of their extraordinary prosperity ( non tantum temulenti erant sed etiam prorsus insani ), as Calvin expresseth it. Now that so young a prophet should so sharply contend with so fierce a people, in the ruff of their pride and jollity; that he should so rouse and ripple up these drunkards of Ephraim with their crown of pride, Isa 28:1 ; this shows him to have been of a heroic spirit. Jonah, his contemporary, flinched when sent against Nineveh. “Micah the Morasthite” (another of Hosea’s contemporaries) “prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Yet did not Hezekiah, king of Judah, and all Judah, put him at all to death,” &c., Jer 26:18-19 . He and Hosea, though they prevailed little with the people they preached to, yet they were better dealt with than the prophet Isaiah (their contemporary too), of whom Jerome tells us, out of the Rabbis, that he was sawn asunder, because he said he had seen the Lord: and, secondly, because he called the great ones of Judah, princes of Sodom, and rulers of Gomorrah, Isa 1:10 .

a An exclamatory sentence or striking reflection, which sums up or concludes a discourse or a passage in the discourse. D

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Hos 1:1

1 The word of the LORD which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hos 1:1 The word of the LORD This is a common opening phrase (used over 250 times in the OT) for the prophets (i.e., Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi). It shows that the prophets did not speak out of their own understanding, but from God’s initiating revelation. The term word (BDB 182) relates to the Hebrew concept of the independent power of the spoken word (cf. Genesis 1; Isa 55:11; Joh 1:1; Joh 1:14; Rev 19:13).

For Lord see Special Topic: NAMES FOR DEITY .

Hosea The name means salvation (BDB 448). When one adds the covenant name for God, YHWH, to the Hebrew root salvation, the word Joshua (cf. Num 13:8; Num 13:16) or Jesus (cf. Mat 1:21) results.

the son of Beeri The name means my well (BDB 92). We know nothing about him. The only other occurrence of the name is Esau’s Hittite father-in-law (cf. Gen 26:34).

during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah It seems rather unusual that a prophet from the Northern Kingdom would list the Judean kings in such detail. This list of kings covers a long period of time (see Special Topic: Kings of the Divided Monarchy ).

This list of Judean kings is identical to the introduction to Isaiah, therefore, many scholars have asserted that Hosea is trying to show that he is a contemporary of this southern prophet. Also it possibly shows that (1) Hosea was against the division of the kingdoms and saw Judah as the only legitimate covenant hope or (2) this verse was added by later Judean scribes. With so many theories it is obvious that moderns do not know!

during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel It is surprising that no other Israelite kings are listed (i.e., Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, Hoshea). There have been several theories concerning this: (1) there was political confusion after Jeroboam II’s death and several kings only reigned for a short period of time (see Appendix: Kings of the Divided Monarchy); (2) the prophet spoke to both kingdoms; or (3) Judah is the legitimate Davidic line (cf. Amo 9:11-15).

For the historical setting of Jeroboam II’s day see Introduction to Amos, VI.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

Hosea. Hebrew. Hoshe’a’ = Salvation.

Beeri. Jewish tradition identifies Be’eri with Be’erah, of Reuben (1Ch 5:6). Christian tradition makes Hosea of Issachar. Both names are symbolical, like the other names in this hook. This clause not “evidently inserted by a later hand”, as alleged.

Uzziah. See note on p. 1208.

Jeroboam: i.e. Jeroboam II, the last king hut one of the house of Jehu. See note on 2Ki 10:30; 2Ki 14:23-29. This carries us hack to the first fourteen years of Uzziah’s long reign. See notes on p. 1208, for the significance of Jeroboam’s name here.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Now he tells us in the first verse during the time which he did prophesy. So immediately we realize that as he was prophesying, and his prophecy was essentially to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but while he was prophesying to the Northern Kingdom of Israel was the same time that Isaiah was prophesying to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. For he names those same kings that reigned during the time of Isaiah’s prophecy. And so Hosea was a contemporary to Isaiah.

For he declares:

The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah ( Hsa Hos 1:1 ),

You remember Isaiah begins his prophecy, at the beginning of his prophecy, chapter 6, he said, “In the day that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting on the throne.” And then Isaiah does go ahead and has quite a great influence upon Hezekiah.

So during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, who were the kings of Judah; and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, the king of Israel ( Hsa Hos 1:1 ).

Now, it is interesting that he only names Jeroboam as the king of Israel, but Jeroboam, after his death, there were many other kings of Israel. But Israel, at this point, had slipped into a state of anarchy. Jeroboam was the last king of Israel through which God really spoke or to whom God really spoke. After Jeroboam’s assassination there was so much anarchy, intrigue, and one assassination after another, that he does not really acknowledge any of the others as kings in Israel. And yet, his prophecies were mainly directly to Israel.

The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD ( Hsa Hos 1:2 ).

Now further on in Hosea the Lord is speaking how that He has spoken to the people, verse Hos 1:10 of chapter 12, and have multiplied, spoken to the people by the prophets and had multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets. Now a similitude is something that is similar to, by which you then draw a picture, something that you can see and then you draw from that a spiritual analogy. Now this is similar to, and with Hosea God did speak by the similitudes in his own life. In taking a wife, and it does not indicate necessarily that she was a prostitute when he married her and had children, but God is speaking of her knowing her heart and the bent of her nature that she would be unfaithful to him and would leave him and become a prostitute. And thus, God, in speaking of that nature that was there, commanded him to marry her. This character later developed.

Now, there are some who say this is all just an allegory, that he really didn’t marry and this is just a whole story. I cannot accept that. I think that it’s just that God told him to take this woman that God knew would be unfaithful in order that God might draw the similitude between this unfaithful wife of Hosea and the nation Israel who had been unfaithful unto God. For God had taken the nation Israel as His bride, had blessed her, heaped His love upon her, and yet she turned from God. And thus, the picture is given here.

for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. So he took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; who conceived, and bare a son. And he called his name, Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel ( Hsa Hos 1:2-5 ).

Now, this is a reference to a historic period when Jehu became the king of Israel. Now the king listed here, Jeroboam was a descendant of Jehu. When Jehu became the king of Israel he took it by force, and there were about seventy sons of this wicked king Ahab. And so Jehu sent a message to the elders of this city and he said, “Pick out one of the sons of Ahab and let him gather together an army and come out and face me.” Well, the men of the city said, “That Jehu is tough. There are two kings that weren’t able to stand before him. How can we stand before him?” And so they sent a message back to Jehu and they said, “Look, we don’t want to fight with you. We’re willing to come to terms. What do you want?” And Jehu said, “If you’re willing to come to terms, bring me the heads of the seventy sons of Ahab and lay them before me.” The bloody slaughter of all of Ahab’s sons. And so they brought them and they laid them in the valley of Jezreel. That’s why he named his son Jezreel, as a memorial or to remember this atrocious act of Jehu in obliterating all of the descendents of Ahab.

Now, when he did this, the Lord then declared through the prophet that he was going to bring judgment upon Jehu, but he had… because he had been zealous for God, he also took the prophets of Baal and wiped them all out that Ahab had gathered together. He slaughtered all of these prophets. He said, “Let me show you my zeal for the Lord,” and he killed all the prophets of Baal and all. And the Lord said, “I will allow him to reign.” That is, for four generations. So Jeroboam was the forth generation. Jeroboam, at his death, his son Zachariah became the king of Israel, but he reigned only a very short time before he was assassinated. So, the writing of Hosea is shortly before the death of Jeroboam, the ascension of Zachariah, who was assassinated.

So God is saying, “I’m about ready. Name your son Jezreel. Remind them of that atrocity that was committed in the valley of Jezreel, the heads of these seventy sons of Ahab in a pile there. And now I’m about to avenge this bloody act, so name your son Jezreel.” So it called into remembrance that judg ment that God had declared would come upon the house of Jehu in the fourth generation and it was about to transpire. So that is the reason for naming the son Jezreel.

for yet in a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, [that king who had caused them to be put to death] and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel ( Hsa Hos 1:4-5 ).

So Israel is about to be judged. The time has come and this avenging of the blood.

Now she conceived again, and she bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah ( Hsa Hos 1:6 ):

Now Loruhamah means “no mercy” or “no pity.”

for the Lord said, I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel ( Hsa Hos 1:6 );

Now that’s a sad and a tragic day when God says, “Hey, I’m not going to have any more mercy upon them.” They had existed solely because God’s mercy. God had been so merciful to them. When God’s mercy is taken away, there’s nothing left. And so it was really a very severe judgment.

Call her Loruhamah: for I’m not gonna have any more mercy on the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away ( Hsa Hos 1:6 ).

And Israel is soon to be destroyed by the Assyrian kings and, of course, the fact that he reigned through the reign, lived through the reign of Hezekiah, he lived through the destruction of the Northern Kingdom.

But [the Lord said] I will have mercy upon the house of Judah [that is the Southern Kingdom], and I will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, or by sword, nor by battle, by horses, or by horsemen ( Hsa Hos 1:7 ).

Now the Assyrians who destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel came against the Southern Kingdom of Judah during the reign of Hezekiah. And Isaiah came to Hezekiah and said, “Look, you’re not going to have to fight in this battle. The battle is the Lord’s and the Lord is going to destroy the Assyrians from before you.” And the Assyrians had encompassed the city and there was a real shortage of food and a famine. And, of course, this was the typical manner of siege in those days. They would cut off the supplies of the city rather than trying to assault the walls and have the heavy loss of life in trying to batter the walls down. They would just encircle the city and cut off all their supplies and starve them out.

And so they had sent messages to Hezekiah to capitulate and all, and the Lord just told him, “Just stand still. Just, you know, watch My salvation.” And one morning when they awakened and looked over the wall, they saw the Assyrian army totally wiped out. An angel of the Lord had passed through the army of the Assyrians that night and had killed 185,000 in one evening. And those that did remain fled back to Assyria. And so, as the Lord here prophesied by Hosea, “Now I won’t have any more mercy on Israel, but I will have mercy on Judah. And I’m going to save them,” saith the Lord, “but not with a bow, nor by a sword, not in a battle.” God saved them by the angel of the Lord passing through the Assyrian army and destroying them. So, not by their fighting, not with bows or within the swords or by battle or horses or horsemen, but by the hand of the Lord Judah was saved because of God’s mercy.

Now when his wife had weaned Loruhamah [no more mercy], she conceived again, and she had a son. Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God ( Hsa Hos 1:8-9 ).

No more mercy. I’ve had it. I’m through. Call the son Loammi because it’s not My people. I’m not gonna be your God.

Now, of course, the indication here is that his wife had already started messing around and Loammi was not his son. And so he’s just not my son. But it was also a picture of God saying to Israel, “You’re no more My people. I’m through. You’re not My people and I will not be your God.” That point of severance when God says, “That’s it.”

Now, here is one of the, you know, the cutoff. That’s as far as you can get when God says, “Hey, that’s it. You’re not My people. I’m not your God. Split. I’m through. Nothing more to do with you.” Probably the darkest prophecy against Israel. You can’t get any more darker or worse than that when God says, “That’s it. You’re no more My people. I’m not your God.” But in that very same place, we get one of the brightest prophecies of God’s future work in Israel.

Yet, though I’ve cut them off, I have no more mercy, they’re no more My people,

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel ( Hsa Hos 1:10-11 ).

So in this very place, Jezreel, where God says, “That’s it, you’re no more My people,” in that place God is going to say to them, “You are My people and the number of Israel will be as the sand of the sea.” This is a prophecy of the glorious restoration of God’s grace, God’s love and God’s work on the nation of Israel.

Now there are many today who in interpreting the Bible, the New Testament, like to exclude the nation Israel from the grace and the mercy of God. And they declare that God is through with the nation of Israel forever and that the church is now Israel. And Paul, in writing to the church, does make reference to the fact that we who were once alienated had been brought nigh and we have been grafted in and partakers of the fatness of the vine and so forth, and he does speak of our being blessed by God, that is, the church. But it is wrong to say that the church is Israel. Paul says, “We are sons of Abraham through faith,” but we are not Israel, nor are we the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. And to spiritualize and make the church Israel is manifestly wrong and I will give you one reason and you need no more. There are many, but I’ll give you one and you’ll need no more.

Here in Hosea, in this similitude of Hosea taking a wife and her leaving him and becoming a prostitute, but then God saying to Hosea, “Go and get her again, purchase her and take her again for your wife,” precludes the church spiritually being Israel. For the church is the virgin bride adorned and prepared for her husband Jesus Christ–not a harlot, not bought out of harlotry, not purchased back from adultery, but the virgin bride being prepared for Christ. So don’t let these men who profess to be Bible scholars convince you that God is through with the nation of Israel and that there is nothing left for them, they’ve been cast out and God has placed us in and God is through with them. Not so. God has not finished yet with Israel. Even in the place of the darkest area where God says, “You are not My people, Loammi: not My people,” yet in that place God will say, “You are My people.” And God is going to restore His work on Israel.

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Hos 1:1-9

LOVE REBUFFED

GOMERS INGRATITUDE-SPIRIT OF HARLOTRY

TEXT: Hos 1:1-9

Hosea is commanded to marry a whorish woman which symbolizes the attitude of the people of Israel toward God. The prophet is further commanded to give his children symbolical names depicting Gods attitude toward the idolatrous people.

Hos 1:1 The wordH1697 of the LORDH3068 thatH834 cameH1961 untoH413 Hosea,H1954 the sonH1121 of Beeri,H882 in the daysH3117 of Uzziah,H5818 Jotham,H3147 Ahaz,H271 and Hezekiah,H3169 kingsH4428 of Judah,H3063 and in the daysH3117 of JeroboamH3379 the sonH1121 of Joash,H3101 kingH4428 of Israel.H3478

Hos 1:1 THE WORD OF JEHOVAH THAT CAME UNTO HOSEA; The word came is from a Hebrew word which is often used to mean took possession of, and is so used of the evil spirit sent by the Lord upon Saul (1Sa 16:23; 1Sa 19:9). What Hosea says to Israel is not simply Hoseas idea of what he thinks God might want to say to Israel-what Hosea says is exactly what God put into his mind to say. Peter writes (2Pe 1:21), Being borne along by the Holy Spirit, men spake from God (translation by Edward J. Young in Thy Word is Truth). The prophets possessed the Spirit of Christ (1Pe 1:10-12), were possessed by the Holy Spirit (2Pe 1:21), so what they wrote did not come by the impulse of men, did not originate in their minds; what they spoke and wrote originated in the Mind of God and they became the spokesmen. Warfield says, The term borne is very specific . . . not to be confounded with guiding, directing or controlling or even leading . . . it goes beyond all such terms . . . The things which they (the prophets) spoke under this operation of the Spirit were therefore His things, not theirs. That individuality of expression is apparent in the Biblical writings is obvious. Peter does not express Gods message with the same vocabulary and style as John or Paul and vice versa. But this cannot be construed as evidence to deny their infallibility. We quote again from B. B. Warfield: Revelation is made in both words and deeds; it is necessary therefore that both the words and deeds be recorded inerrantly. If the Lord makes any revelation to man (or through man) He would do so in the language (and style) of the particular man He employs as the organ of His revelation . . . The accommodation of the revealing God to the several prophetic individualities . . . is a concursive operation. The Spirit works confluently in, with and by them elevating them, directing them, controlling them, energizing them, so that, as His instruments, they rise above themselves and under His inspiration (influence) do His work and reach His aim. The product, therefore, which is attained by their means is His product through them . . . Although the circumstance that what is done by and through the action of human powers keeps the product in form and quality in a true sense human, yet the confluent operation of the Holy Spirit throughout the whole process raises the result above what could by any possibility be achieved by mere human powers and constitutes it expressly a supernatural product . . . Even the very words were Gods intended words-the apostles were acutely conscious that they were citing immediate words of God; (cf. Gal 3:16) here Paul hangs an argument on the very words of Scripture and so does Jesus (cf. Joh 10:34; Mat 22:32; Mat 22:43).

Zerr: Hos 1:1. According to the compilation of the books of the Bible, Hosea is the first of the “Minor Prophets. The term is a little misleading as it implies a difference of importance between them and the others. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia says this on the subject: “The Minor Prophets (“brief in words, mighty in meaning), are twelve in number; viz., Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkult, Zephaniah, Hag- gai, Zechariah and Malachi. In the Hebrew canon [books accepted as being Inspired] they constitute only one book. They are called the Lesser, or Minor Prophets’ because their prophecies were brief, not because they were less important, than those of the four Greater Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.) All these writings together do not equal In length those of Isaiah. Yet Hosea exercised the prophetic office longer than any other prophet. This verse gives the period covered by the vision of Hosea, which agrees with the statement just quoted from the reference book. The first four kings named were rulers of the 2-tribe kingdom of Judah, and the last one was a king of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel. The captivity of the kingdom of Israel took place in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and Hoseas work extended over that period, hence he lived to see the fulfillment of some of the predictions that he made concerning that kingdom.

Hosea means literally, Salvation, or, the Lord saveth. His fathers name, Beeri, means, my well or welling-forth. We have already considered the background of the time in which Hosea prophesied (cf. Introduction). There can be very little doubt as to the time of the composition of this book and Hoseas ministry for it is specifically declared to be in the reign of Jeroboam II (see Introduction).

Hos 1:2 The beginningH8462 of the wordH1696 of the LORDH3068 by Hosea.H1954 And the LORDH3068 saidH559 toH413 Hosea,H1954 Go,H1980 takeH3947 unto thee a wifeH802 of whoredomsH2183 and childrenH3206 of whoredoms:H2183 forH3588 the landH776 hath committed great whoredom,H2181 H2181 departing fromH4480 H310 the LORD.H3068

Hos 1:2 JEHOVAH SAID UNTO HOSEA, GO, TAKE THEE A WIFE OF WHOREDOM AND CHILDREN OF WHOREDOM; We have discussed in our Introduction to this book whether Hoseas marriage was an actual, historical event or whether it was visionary and symbolical. Our view is that it was an actual event which was intended to symbolize the then existing spiritual relationship of Israel to God. G. Campbell Morgan, emphasizing the phrase in this verse spake at the first, says, . . . notice very carefully that little phrase, at the first. The writer was looking back, from the end of his ministry, when he was writing out his notes, committing them to manuscript form, and said in effect: When away back there my ministry began, when, before the tragedy came into my life, Jehovah spoke with me, it was He Who commanded me to marry Gomer. The statement distinctly calls her a woman of whoredom, but it does not tell us that she was that at the time. It certainly does mean that God knew the possibilities in the heart of Gomer, and that presently they would be manifested in her conduct, and knowing, He commanded Hosea to marry her, knowing also what his experience would do for him in his prophetic work. When Hosea married Gomer, she was not openly a sinning woman, and the children antedated her infidelity. The earlier life of the prophet was in all likelihood one of joy and happiness.

Zerr: Hos 1:2. It has been seen in numerous instances that prophets have been required to do some acting in con-nection with their prophetic office, and Hosea is another in that class. The case is so strange that I consider it advisable to copy most of my comments on the subject given on 1Ki 20:35 : At various times inspired men have been called upon to go through certain physical performances as a form of prediction. Some of such instances will be cited. The torn garment. 1Ki 11:29-31; the wounding of the prophet, 1Ki 20:35; the cohabiting with the wife, Isa 8:3; wearing a girdle, Jer 13:1-7; eating of filth, Eze 5:1-4; moving of household goods, Eze 12:3-7; eating a book, Rev 10:8-11. We are not told specifically why all this was done; but it was in line with the statement of Paul in Heb 1:1. It might be suggested that visible exhibitions of divine predictions are sometimes impressive where the simple wording is not. Harlotry is compared to Idolatry and other forms of unfaithfulness all through the Bible. The Jews were so generally guilty of this spiritual adultery that the Lord wished them to be impressed with its serious-ness through seeing this kind of performance by the prophet. We know that such was His purpose in the in-structions, for they are immediately followed by the words, for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.

So Dr. Morgan believes that Gomer had the spirit of harlotry in her heart before Hosea married her but that she did not actually commit adultery until after the children were born. This would be one way to solve the seeming incongruity of God commanding Hosea to marry a woman who had already become a harlot-a command which some think would put God in the position of violating His own Holy Nature. Others say that God simply commanded Hosea to marry a woman of Israel-equating a woman of whoredom with the spiritual harlotry of all Israel at that time-and that she became an adulteress after the marriage. The visionary or allegorical interpretation of the marriage does not solve the alleged moral problem here since a command from God to engage in such a relationship would have been just as contrary to the thinking of Hosea as to command the actual thing (see Introduction). Furthermore, as Kirkpatrick points out, . . . if the prophet had a faithful wife, it seems incredible that he should have exposed her to the suspicion of infidelity, as he must have done by using an allegory which certainly does not bear its allegorical character upon the face of it. Kirkpatricks view of the situation is like that of G. Campbell Morgans. Pusey deals with the moral difficulty thusly, Holy Scripture relates that all this was done, and tells us the births and names of the children, as real history. As such then, must we receive it. We must not imagine things to be unworthy of God, because they do not commend themselves to us (cf. Isa 55:8-9). . . . as Sovereign Judge, He commanded the lives of the Canaanites to be taken away by Israel . . . He has ordained that the magistrate should not bear the sword in vain, but has made him His minister, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil (Rom 13:4) . . . He willed to repay to the Israelites their hard and unjust servitude, by commanding them to spoil the Egyptians (Exo 3:22) . . . The Prophet was not defiled, by taking as his lawful wife, at Gods bidding, one defiled, however hard a thing this was.

God is absolute Sovereign. He may supersede natural law as He wishes, He is Lord of all and may command men and nature to do what seems to finite thinking unjust, perhaps immoral, while in His omniscience He is not at all self-contradictory.

Laetsch says that even if Gomer had been guilty of harlotry before Hosea married her, his marrying her would still not have constituted an immoral act for, . . . An act is immoral, . . . only if it violates a clear command of God. There is no divine commandment forbidding such a marriage, hence no reason to condemn it as immoral, particularly since God commanded this marriage, Only priests were forbidden to marry a harlot (Lev 21:7) . . .

Kirkpatrick writes, The true view, which at once relieves the moral difficulty, gives the natural explanation to the narrative, and supplies the key to Hoseas teaching in the experience of his life, is that while we have in these chapters a record of actual facts, Gomer was as yet unstained when Hosea took her to be his wife. The expression used in chapter Hos 1:2 is peculiar. She is not called a harlot, but a wife or woman of whoredom (a wife of harlotry, R.S.V.). The hideous tendencies to evil were latent in her heart. The prophets love did not avail to restrain them . . . She abandoned him for the wild orgies of the licentious worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. Then, as he sat in his homeless home, and pondered over this . . . as he watched the ghastly ruins of his life, he saw that even this cruel calamity was not blind chance but the will of God . . . Then he recognized that it was by Gods command that he had chosen the wife who had proved so faithless.

Lange adds, . . . it is one thing to have intercourse with an unchaste woman, in order to practice fornication with her, and quite another to marry such a woman. The one is as assuredly sinful as the other is in itself not so, any more than it was for Jesus to be a friend of publicans and sinners, For the prophet would not have entered into such an alliance that he might be assimilated to the woman, but in order to raise her up to his own level, to rescue her from her sinful habits . . .

It would seem to us that whether God commanded Hosea to marry a woman who, until after marriage had not committed harlotry but who had the spirit of harlotry hidden in her heart-or whether Hosea married a woman whom he knew to already have committed harlotry-God cannot be represented as commanding Hosea to do something immoral for two reasons: (a) To marry even an unchaste woman was not a sin in the Old Testament; (b) to obey any command of God is not immoral-to disobey is immoral.

Whatever the case, the prophet is commanded by God to take a woman of harlotry to wife for the express purpose of mirroring to the people of Israel their spiritual relation to Jehovah. It was intended to shock the peoples consciences. That which would be shocking enough (a prophet marrying a whorish woman) in the temporal realm representing what they were actually doing in the spiritual realm! Symbolizing the shameful whoredom of Israel in going after (worshipping) calf-gods and Baal is the express purpose of Hoseas marriage to a woman of whoredom. As a part of this symbolizing, Hosea was to have children by this unchaste woman and to give them symbolical names.

Hos 1:3 So he wentH1980 and tookH3947 (H853) GomerH1586 the daughterH1323 of Diblaim;H1691 which conceived,H2029 and bareH3205 him a son.H1121

Hos 1:3 SO HE WENT AND TOOK GOMER . . . DAUGHTER OF DIBLAIM; AND SHE CONCEIVED . . . Gomer means, completion; completed whoredom. Diblaim means, Daughter of fig-cakes, or some say it may mean, daughter of embraces. However, there is not the slightest indication from the text that these two names were to have any symbolical significance. We have here a simple statement of historical facts. Hosea married Gomer, she conceived and bare him a son. Lange says the latter part of this verse should be translated, and she conceived and bore to him a son. This removes all doubt, says Lange, as to the father of the child. He was Hoseas child-not an illegitimate one. Laetsch disagrees with Lange; he says that the child was illegitimate but was presented by Gomer to Hosea with the demand that this illegitimate child be accorded all the privileges of one who was his own child. This, says Laetsch, better symbolizes the brazen impudence of Israel. The individual Israelites (illegitimate children of their harlot-mother, Israel) acting with the same impudence demanded recognition from God as children of His while in fact they were not!

Zerr: Hos 1:3. There was a specific woman and her specific name is given whom Hosea married, so that no basis exists for building up some fanciful theory about the transaction. The people of Israel were grossly guilty of idolatry and some shocking demonstration was needed to impress them with the gravity of the abomination, hence the prophet was commanded to be the in-strument of God for the performance. There is no occasion for ns to make more out of the case than the facts set forth. No personal immorality can be charged against Hosea in this situa-tion. He waB not a priest and hence the restrictions of the law against marriage to such a character would not apply to him. In Leviticus 21 the Lord forbade the priests to take a wife that is a whore, or profane. This very law indicates that at least. It might be expected that other men would marry such a character if they so desired. Another thing to be remem-bered, is that no intimation is in evidence that the wife of Hosea was required to continue in her former practice. There are numerous instances on record where women of immoral pasts have married, settled down and made good wives and mothers. Whether Gomer proved to be that bind remains to be seen; but whatever it may turn out to be, the Lord will know how to use the situation with good effect in His infinite wisdom. Hence, let the reader keep his attention focused on this most unusual and interesting life drama.

Hos 1:4 And the LORDH3068 saidH559 untoH413 him, CallH7121 his nameH8034 Jezreel;H3157 forH3588 yetH5750 a littleH4592 while, and I will avengeH6485 (H853) the bloodH1818 of JezreelH3157 uponH5921 the houseH1004 of Jehu,H3058 and will cause to ceaseH7673 the kingdomH4468 of the houseH1004 of Israel.H3478

Hos 1:4 . . . CALL HIS NAME JEZREEL . . . I WILL AVENGE THE BLOOD OF JEZREEL UPON THE HOUSE OF JEHU . . . In 2Ki 9:1 ff you may read of Jehus purging Israel of the prophets of Baal and in 2Ki 10:30 you may read where God commended him for carrying out His orders. Yet here Hosea is told that God is going to avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. Why? Plainly because Jehu is held responsible for the present whoring of the whole land in that he perpetuated the calf-worship and Baalism. After Jehu gained the throne through this uprising against Baalism, he arrogantly struck out for himself a false path by returning to the worship of the calves. This shows that Jehus obedience to Jehovahs command was motivated from the very beginning by selfishness and pride. Jezreel means to sow. God will Sow the nation of Israel among the heathen in captivity-He will disperse them. Its opposite use is found in Hos 1:11.

Zerr: Hos 1:4, In Biblical times many proper names had significant meanings and they were applied to persons and places frequently to express some lesson, either of prophecy or history. The name Hoseas son was given by the Lord, which was Jezreel, The word is defined in the lexicon as, God will sow or scatter.” It was also the name of a place where Jehu, king of Israel, committed some of his most horrible outrages, and God intended this name of Hoseas son to be an omen of what He would do to the house Of this wicked king. The prediction was even made that the kingdom of the house of Israel would be caused to cease. And since the name assigned to this son means to sow (as seed strewn abroad) or scatter, it was a fitting symbol of the time when the kingdom would be scattered over the land of Assyria.

God is about to visit upon the idolatrous offspring of the idolatrous Jehu extermination-the same judgment Jehovah visited, through the hand of Jehu upon the house of Ahab. This promised judgment, symbolized by the name of Hoseas first born, followed not long after the death of Jeroboam II in the murder of his son through the conspiracy of Shallum (2Ki 15:8 ff). But Gods punishment will not end with the extermination of the dynasty of Jehu, He is going to cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. When Shallum murdered the son of Jeroboam II, there began a plunge into political anarchy from which Israel never recovered. Only Menahem had a son for a successor. All the rest of the kings of Israel were overthrown and slain by conspirators. The fall of the house of Jehu was the beginning of the end for Israel.

Hos 1:5 And it shall come to passH1961 at thatH1931 day,H3117 that I will breakH7665 (H853) the bowH7198 of IsraelH3478 in the valleyH6010 of Jezreel.H3157

Hos 1:5 . . . AT THAT DAY . . . I WILL BREAK . . . ISRAEL . . . IN THE VALLEY OF JEZREEL. When the kingdom falls it is to happen in the valley of Jezreel in which the city of Jezreel lay near Mount Gilboa. Ahab built a palace there. Jezebel met her death by being thrown from a window of this palace, and her body was eaten by dogs (2Ki 9:30-35). The valley of Jezreel was the natural battlefield of the northern kingdom (cf. Jdg 4:5; Jdg 6:33). No definite enemy of Israel is named as the executor of the judgment here pronounced but in the second part of the book of Hosea we learn it will be Assyria. It is not mentioned in the books of the Kings where Assyria dealt the final blow but we must assume Hosea knew where it would occur.

Zerr: Hos 1:5. Break the bow is figurative and means that the men of the 10-tribe kingdom would not be able to with-stand the attacks of the invading forces, The fulfillment of this prophecy is recorded in 2 Kings 17 th chapter.

Hos 1:6 And she conceivedH2029 again,H5750 and bareH3205 a daughter.H1323 And God saidH559 unto him, CallH7121 her nameH8034 Loruhamah:H3819 forH3588 I will noH3808 moreH5750 H3254 have mercy uponH7355 (H853) the houseH1004 of Israel;H3478 butH3588 I will utterly take them away.H5375 H5375

Hos 1:6 . . . SHE BARE A DAUGHTER . . . LO-RUHAMAH . . . I WILL HAVE NO MERCY Lo-ruhamah means literally, she finds no pity, or, is not compassionated. It may be significant, as Lange points out, that a female child was chosen to be given this symbolical name for the female can usually find pity when no more is given to men. It makes the fact that God will soon withdraw His compassion all the more emphatic. The prophesied withdrawal of pity here is simply an enlargement of the punishment coming upon Israel foretold earlier by the symbolical name of the son, Jezreel. The ten tribes of Israel would shortly be cut off from the tender mercy of God and scattered by Him, never to be restored as a whole nation. Only those of the ten tribes who returned with Judah in the restoration or were subsequently united to Judah found a place in the holy land again. How long God had suffered with this rebellious and stiff-necked people! How long He had withheld His terrible wrath! How long He had compassionately sent them warning after warning; prophet after prophet; but they would not hearken.

Zerr: Hos 1:6. A daughter was born to the house of Hosea and the Lord named her also with a word with an appro-priate meaning. The lexicon of Strong defines Loruhamah as not pitied. The meaning is that Israel continued in her idolatry, even after the birth and naming of the first child, so the Lord would not change His mind concerning what was determined to be done to the nation.

Hos 1:7 But I will have mercy uponH7355 the houseH1004 of Judah,H3063 and will saveH3467 them by the LORDH3068 their God,H430 and will notH3808 saveH3467 them by bow,H7198 nor by sword,H2719 nor by battle,H4421 by horses,H5483 nor by horsemen.H6571

Hos 1:7 BUT I WILL HAVE MERCY UPON THE HOUSE OF JUDAH . . . This verse was intended to be a rebuke to Israel. If Israel had only been like Judah they too would find compassion. Israel was a rebel from its very inception as a nation. It began with idolatry and continually grew more idolatrous and decadent. Judah, on the other hand, retained the true place of worship, the lawful priesthood and the God-ordained lineage of the monarchy. Judah was on the whole, a true witness to God. Judah still trusted in Jehovah for her security and deliverance from her enemies (cw. also Hos 11:12). The latter half of this verse found fulfillment more than once. When Assyria beseiged the city of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah God delivered Judah not by the military might of Judah but by His Own power in sending the death angel to slay 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Furthermore, it was not by battle or military strength that Judah was delivered from her captivity in Persia, but God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to send the people of Judah back to their promised land (cf. Ezr 1:1 ff; 2Ch 36:22-23). This verse probably has its ultimate fulfillment in the deliverance to the Jew who is one inwardly, in Christ since the whole context here is interpreted by both the apostles Paul and Peter as Messianic (cf. Rom 9:25 ff; 1Pe 2:10 ff). We will comment at length upon this in Hos 1:10-11 below.

Zerr: Hos 1:7. Will have mercy upon the house of Judah. Tills may sound strange to the reader who will remem-ber that the kingdom of Judah also became corrupt and was finally exiled from her native country as well as Israel That is true, but that was not the same time when Hie Lord meant he would have mercy upon Judah, but it was at tbe same period that the ten tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians. At that time the same heathen country threatened Judah and God here promises that He will have mercy upon her then. Not save by sword nor bow means that Judali would not have to go to war to drive off the Assyrians. 2Ki 10:35-36 shows how the nation was saved by a miracle.

Hos 1:8 Now when she had weanedH1580 (H853) Loruhamah,H3819 she conceived,H2029 and bareH3205 a son.H1121

Hos 1:9 Then saidH559 God, CallH7121 his nameH8034 Loammi:H3818 forH3588 yeH859 are notH3808 my people,H5971 and IH595 will notH3808 beH1961 your God.

Hos 1:8-9 . . . SHE BARE A SON . . . LO-AMMI . . . FOR YE ARE NOT MY PEOPLE . . . Lo-ammi means literally, I will not be for you, i.e., not be yours, not belong to you. The covenant relationship between God and His people is to be completely dissolved, They are no longer His. They have rejected for themselves the counsel of God . . . and judged themselves unworthy of Gods covenant. They spurned His love. They broke the covenant. They deliberately chose other gods. Therefore, they are not His people. It was their own doing. The blame for their judgment is not to be placed upon God. They are responsible, Their sin is not excusable by ignorance at all! Remember the original covenant God made with Israel was I will be your God, and you shall be My people . . . (Lev 26:12; Exo 6:7). But when they wilfully rejected Him as their God, how could they any longer be His people?!

Zerr: Hos 1:8. When she had weaned, etc. This is merely an incidental allusion to the rule as to the liability of con-ception after the bearing of a child. It has no particular connection with the story hut is stated for the sake of coherence. Hos 1:9. Here a fact about literal Israel iH used as a symbol of a spiritual fact, The name which God gave to be used for this son means “not my people.” When the nation of the Jews became corrupt, God suffered it to be taken off into a strange land. By such an event it could be said that He no longer considered the Jews as His people since they ceased to exist aa a free political people. That circum-stance is used as a symbolic prediction of the time when a Jew could not claim to belong to Gcd merely on the ground of his being a Jew. That agrees with the statement of Paul in Gal 3:28 on what it means to be In Christ. In that relationship he says, “There Is neither Jew nor Greek [Gentile], . . . for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Questions

1. What does verse one tell us of the method of prophetic revelation and inspiration?

2. Was Hoseas marriage an actual marriage or symbolical or visionary? Give reasons for your answer.

3. Would it be wrong for God to command a prophet to marry a woman of whoredom? Explain!

4. Were the children born those of Hosea or were they illegitimate?

5. What symbolical significance is attached to the name Jezreel?

6. What does Lo-ruhamah mean and what application does it have to Israel?

7. Why did God say of Israel, ye are not my people, and I will not be your God?

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The statement with which this prophecy opens, “When the Lord spake at the first,” is a declaration by Hosea long after the events. Looking back, he understood that the impulse which resulted in the heart agony was also part of the divine method of teaching him. There is no reason to believe that Gomer was outwardly impure in the days when Hosea married her. If impurity were in her heart, Hosea did not how it, and it was not apparent during the early days of their married life.

In the picture of their domestic life the important matter is its revelation of Hosea’s national consciousness. Three children were born to him, and there is still no reason to believe that during this period Gomer was unfaithful In naming the children he revealed his conviction concerning the condition of his nation. Living in close fellowship with God, he saw his people in the light of the divine purpose, and as the children were born, named them in such a way as to indicate his profound convictions. Jezreel means the threatened judgment; Lo- ruhamah means mercy not obtained; Lo-ammi means cast out, not my people. While the outlook was dark, the section ends with words which show that, in spite of all contradictory appearances, the prophet’s faith in the final fulfilment of the first divine purposes was unshaken.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

God Gathers the Outcast

Hos 1:1-11

The story of Hosea is a pathetic one. He felt impressed that it was his duty to take as wife one whose earlier life had been unchaste. From this marriage resulted three children, the names of whom are terribly significant. They are as follows:-God will scatter; Not an object of favor; and Once my people, but not so now. Here is the history of many a soul. In spite of all Gods tender love, we may wander from Him into the path of sin.

The chapter closes with brighter prognostications. In part, these latter verses were fulfilled by the return from Babylon, and they will be fulfilled in literal fulness someday-probably sooner than we have been wont to suppose. It is good to lay the emphasis on In the place there. How often we are taken back to the very circumstances in which we appear to have failed most conspicuously, in order that there we may receive the crowning blessing of our life, Hos 1:10. Leave God to vindicate you. He will bring you from the land of the enemy, and extort, this confession from the mouth of your critics and foes, Hos 1:10.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 1

The Blood Of Jezreel1

Hosea, whose book is the first of the so-called Minor Prophets, was a contemporary of Isaiah throughout almost his entire ministry, as also of Amos in his earlier years. A comparison of the first verses of each of their books with the one before us makes this evident. During the long reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel, and those of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, there was much to rebuke in the two nations. Hosea seems to have confined most of his direct messages to Judah, speaking rather of the ten tribes than to them; but the scope of his prophecy embraces both, and that very fully. In fact, no other messenger gives so complete an outline of the ways of God with His earthly people as does Hosea, even Daniel not excepted. Read in connection with the visions of the latter, the one throws much light on the other.

Of Hoseas personal history it has not pleased God to give us any particulars, save in relation to his marriage, and the issue therefrom. His fathers name is given as Beeri, but neither the prophets tribe nor the place of his nativity is mentioned. Hosea means help, or salvation. With a single vowel-point added it becomes Hoshea, salvation of Jah. Beeri is said to mean The well of Jehovah. The two names together remind us of the Lords words to the woman of Samaria. He offered her living water from Jehovahs well, which would result in her assured salvation.

The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea was a command for the prophet himself, bidding him do what would be obnoxious to mere nature, and which must have tested the heart of Jehovahs servant in a very marked way. As in the case of Isaiah, he and his were to be for signs in Israel; so he is told to unite himself in marriage to a woman devoid of character-a harlot; thus signifying the wretched condition of unfaithful Israel, who nevertheless remained the object of Jehovahs love, despite their iniquity, and the filthiness that was in them. What more wonderful picture could we have of grace, not only to the undeserving, but to those who had deserved the very opposite? It is important to remember that grace is not merely unmerited favor, but it is favor spite of merited judgment.

Such is the marvelous loving-kindness of our God that He finds the objects of His love, not among the righteous and the holy, but among sinners lost and ruined, deserving naught but judgment, stained with guilt and polluted by sin, having all gone out of the way and become unprofitable; nevertheless He sets His love upon wretches so vile and unworthy, and redeems them to Himself. Jehovahs dealings with Israel of old picture His ways of grace with believers now. All these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.

In obedience to the voice of the Lord, Hosea went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim as his wife; thus giving to her who before had no standing the place and honor of a wife in Israel. Of her he had several children. Having died to her old wretched life, of which she might well be ashamed, she brings forth fruit unto him who has set his love upon her and given her his name and protection. It is easy to see in all this a lovely illustration of the words of the Holy Spirit in Rom 6:21, 22: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. As also in verse 4 of the following chapter: Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Hosea had to bear the shame of having espoused one of so wretched a character, but he did not have to die for her. It was far otherwise with our blessed Lord Jesus. He not only came where we were in our sin and shame, but on Calvarys cross He was made sin for us that we might become Gods righteousness in Him. There He purchased us with His own precious blood, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Tit 2:14).

Of His all-conquering love, the kindness shown by Hosea to Gomer is but a very faint picture; as also of Jehovahs undying affection for Israel, the earthly bride. For the cross was where the purchase-price was paid for both the heavenly and the earthly people.

When the first son was born, the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel (vers. 4, 5). The name Jezreel itself speaks of blessing, yet here it is used to tell of judgment. Jezreel means sown of God, and in chapter 2, as also in the last verse of this present chapter, it is used in a very different connection from that in which it is here found.

God was about to cast Israel, the northern kingdom, out of His sight among the Gentiles, in order that they might be chastened for their iniquities. He had redeemed them in grace and brought them to Himself; but they had proven false and treacherous. Therefore they must learn by judgment what they would not learn by loving-kindness. He connects their destruction with the blood of Jezreel. This is most significant, for the reigning house of Israel had succeeded to the throne through that very blood of Jezreel. It was when Jehu became the instrument for the destruction of Ahabs house, at Jezreel, that he ascended the throne, and Jeroboam II was of his dynasty.

But neither Jehu nor his house had profited by the lesson of Ahabs judgment. They had themselves walked in the ways of the nations, and followed false gods; therefore the blood of Jezreel would be avenged upon them, and they too should be cut off.

But there is more yet connected with Jezreel. It will be remembered that this was originally the inheritance of the righteous man Naboth. In 1 Kings 21 we learn that this Naboth had a vineyard which was in Jezreel. Ahab coveted the vineyard, and sought to buy it, that he might transform it into a garden. Naboth rightfully refused to sell his inheritance, saying, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee (ver. 3). Heavy and displeased, Ahab laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. The proud and wilful monarch could not brook the thought that one so insignificant as this Jezreelite should thwart his wishes. Jezebel, his heathen wife, however, wrote letters in his name, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: and set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die (vers. 9, 10). The ungodly plot was duly perpetrated. False witnesses swore away the life of the righteous one, and they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died (ver. 13).

His inheritance was declared forfeited, and Ahab went down to take possession of it. But on the way he was met by Elijah the prophet, who was sent with a message of judgment upon his lips. Jehovahs eye had been looking on, and He commanded His servant to declare to the godless king that his doom was sealed, and his house should fall. The blood of Jezreel should be his ruin, for, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine (ver. 19).

And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel (ver. 23). All this was literally fulfilled. Ahab was slain in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead; and we read, So the king died, and was brought to Samaria; and they buried the king in Samaria. And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood; and they washed his armor; according unto the word of the Lord which He spake (1Ki 22:37, 38). This was in the portion of Jezreel, Ahabs summer home.

Ahab was succeeded by his ungodly son Joram, or Jehoram, as he is sometimes called. Jehu having been anointed king of Israel by Elisha, the man of God, set out first of all to put Joram to death. The latter had returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria (2Ki 9:15). In the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite the two met; Ahaziah king of Judah also being with the Israelitish monarch. And it came to pass, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu? And he answered, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many? Joram attempted to flee, but Jehu pierced him through with an arrow, and, in fulfilment of the word of Jehovah, cast his bleeding corpse into the plot of Naboth. Ahaziah too was smitten, but fled to Megiddo to die. It was against the house of Ahab the Lords vengeance was to fall in the portion of Jezreel!

Here too Jezebel met her dreadful fate, as the prophet had predicted. When Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. As she taunts Jehu as a regicide, he calls for one upon his side to throw her down. At once several eunuchs lay hands upon her, and they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot. Afterwards Jehu sent his servants to bury her, but they found that dogs had devoured her in the portion of Jezreel, as the Lord had spoken (2Ki 9:30-37). The present dynasty (Jehus) had therefore come to the throne through this blood of Jezreel; but, alas, they had failed to profit by the solemn lesson of Gods hatred of sin, and abhorrence of idolatry in particular! Therefore this same valley of Jezreel should be the scene of their judgment; as it was some few years later, when in that very spot (called then Esdraelon) the Assyrian defeated Israel, and their captivity began.

Dispensationally, all this is fraught with truth of a solemn and important character. Israel, according to Isa. 5, is Jehovahs vineyard. Of Israel therefore the vineyard of Jezreel speaks. They were sown of God in the land of Canaan, to be Jehovahs portion. But they hired false witnesses against the Lord of the vineyard, the Righteous One, who would not give to the enemy His rightful inheritance. By wicked hands they slew the Husbandman, and claimed the vineyard as their own. Because of this the Gentile oppressor was permitted to overturn the kingdom, and power was transferred to the nations. The awful prayer, His blood be on us, and on our children! has been terribly answered, as the antitypical blood of Jezreel witnesses. In the very place where they slew the Lord of glory their blood has been poured out as wine bursting from the winepress, and they have been devoured by the dogs-the unclean Gentiles.

Have the Gentiles, on their part, profited by the dreadful lesson of the blood of the seed of God? Far from it. High-minded and indifferent to Gods claims upon them, they have gone on in their own ways, and refused to hearken to His word. Therefore they too shall be cut off, and thus God will avenge upon them the blood of Jezreel.

Coming back to the literal application of the passage in Hosea, we note that Jehovah was about to break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel (ver. 5). Because they had not taken to heart the fact that Ahabs evil house was destroyed because of sin, but had walked in the same unholy paths, the ten tribes were to be carried into Assyria; a prophecy which, as we well know, came to pass about fifty years later, in the days of King Hoshea, who was imprisoned by Shalmaneser the Assyrian ruler, and his people taken captive.

In the next verse we learn that a daughter was borne by Gomer, who was called Lo-ruhamah, in obedience to the word of God. The name means, Not having obtained mercy, and sets forth the present state of Israel since they have been cast out of their land. On Judah the Lord would still have mercy, and would save them from their enemies. They had not yet openly revolted, as had the ten tribes (ver. 7).

A third child, this time a son, was named Lo-ammi; that is, Not My people: for the Lord now declared, Ye are not My people, and I will not be your God. They had broken the covenant, entered into long ago at Sinai and ratified in the plains of Moab. From the beginning they had been treacherous and rebellious; therefore on the ground of merit they can claim nothing. Hence God gives them up for the time being, and refuses to own them as His people. This Lo-ammi sentence remains unrepealed to the present day. At the Babylonian captivity Judah also came under it, and all Israel have been in its shadow ever since. This accounts for the omission of the! name of God in the book of Esther, which sets forth His providential care over them while they are scattered among the nations, and when He cannot publicly identify Himself with them.2

With verse 9 the first chapter ends, according to the Hebrew arrangement; the two verses that follow being the introduction to chapter 2. They speak of mercy yet to be manifested, and tell us that though all is forfeited on the ground of works, God still has in reserve boundless stores of grace, the enjoyment of which they are to enter into in the latter day. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.3 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel (vers. 10, 11).

The reference to the sand of the sea carries us right back to the original covenant of pure grace made with Abraham, and confirmed by the oath of El Shaddai. God will not forego the promise made to the fathers, however great the failure of the children. A numberless host of reunited Israel and Judah shall yet be brought into blessing, never more to be forfeited, in the very land pledged to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and stained with the blood of Jesus. This is not the return that took place under Cyrus. Very few from the ten tribes came back at that time, and all have since been driven out of their land because of the rejection of Messiah when He came, in accordance with prophecy, to offer Himself as King. When the Lords set time has come, they shall return from all the lands whither they have been scattered, and shall no longer be divided, but be one happy, united people, under one Head, the once-rejected Jesus-the Christ of God. That will be the true day of Jezreel, when the field of blood will become again the vineyard of Jehovah, and they shall be sown of God in the land of their fathers, never to be rooted up again.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Analysis and Annotations

I. THE REJECTION OF ISRAEL AS THE ADULTEROUS WIFE AND HER FUTURE RECEPTION AND RESTORATION

CHAPTER 1

Israels Sin and Promise of Restoration

1. The introduction (Hos 1:1)

2. The prophets marriage and birth of Jezreel (Hos 1:2-5)

3. The birth of Lo-Ruhamah (Hos 1:6-7)

4. The birth of Lo-ammi (Hos 1:8-9)

5. The future restoration (Hos 1:10-11)

Hos 1:1. This superscription gives the period of Hoseas ministry. First stands the statement that the word of the Lord came to him. Hosea means salvation; his fathers name, Beeri, means my well. Both are typical names. Critics have pointed out that Hosea was undoubtedly a resident of the northern kingdom of Israel, yet he mentions but one of the kings of Israel, Jeroboam, while four kings of Judah are given in this introduction. Inasmuch as Hosea long survived Jeroboam, the king of Israel, and the Judaic kings extend far beyond the time of the one Israelitish king, it has been alleged that the second part of the superscription does not harmonize with the first. Such is not the case. The superscription is made in this manner for some purpose. Hosea marks his Prophecy by the names of the kings of Judah, because in Judah the theocracy remained. He mentions Jeroboam (the Second), whose reign ended in the fourteenth year of Uzziah, because he was the last king of Israel through whom God acted and vouchsafed help to the rival kingdom. All the other kings of Israel who came after Jeroboam, by whom the Lord sent deliverance to the ten tribes 2Ki 14:27 were therefore recognized by the prophets of God; the kings which followed were robbers and murderers, whose names the Spirit of God finds unfit to mention in the prophetic ministry of Hosea.

Hos 1:2-5. In the beginning of his ministry, when Hosea was a young man, the Lord commanded him to take unto him a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms, and that for the reason, because the land hath committed great whoredoms, departing from the Lord. This command was at once executed by the prophet; he took to wife Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim.

We are confronted with an interesting question. What is the nature of these transactions? Were they real events, that Hosea literally took this woman and had children by her, or were they nothing but pictorial, visionary illustrations of the spiritual adultery and unfaithfulness of Israel? Did the prophet actually and literally enter into such an impure relationship, or, is it wholly an allegory? Luther supposed that the prophet called his lawful wife and children by these names at a certain time to perform a kind of drama before the people and thus remind them of their apostasy. The objectors to the literalness of this incident, and defenders of the allegorical explanation, have pointed out that it would be unworthy of God to command and sanction such an unchaste union. The allegorical meaning is entirely excluded by the text, which speaks of a literal transaction. All is related as real history, the marriage and the birth of the children. We quote first Dr. Puseys words in support of the literal meaning of this command by the Lord.

We must not imagine things to be unworthy of God, because they do not commend themselves to us. God does not dispense with the moral law, because the moral law has its source in the mind of God Himself. To dispense with it would mean to contradict Himself. But God, who is absolute Lord of all things which He made, may, at His sovereign will, dispose of the lives or things which He created. Thus, as sovereign judge, He commanded the lives of the Canaanites to be taken by Israel, as, in His ordinary providence, He has ordained that the magistrate should not bear the sword in vain, but has made him His minister, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. So, again, He, whose are all things, willed to repay to the Israelites their hard and unjust servitude by commanding them to spoil the Egyptians. He, who created marriage, commanded to Hosea whom he should marry. The prophet was not defiled by taking as his lawful wife, at Gods bidding, one defiled, however hard a thing this was.

This is the strongest defense of the literal interpretation of this incident. But there is another interpretation possible, which we believe is the correct one. As the context shows the symbolical meaning of Hoseas marriage is to illustrate Israels unfaithfulness. But Israel was not always unfaithful; she played not always the harlot. Of necessity this had to be symbolized in the case of the prophets marriage. The question then arises, was Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim an impure woman when Hosea married her, or did she become unchaste after her marriage to the prophet? We believe the latter was the case. The Hebrew does not require the meaning that she was impure at the time of the marriage; in fact, as already indicated, the supposition that Gomer lived the life of a harlot before her marriage to the godly prophet, destroys the parallelism, which the prophets message embodies, with the relation of God to Israel. The expression a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms simply intimated to Hosea what the woman he married was going to be. If not taken in this sense it would mean that Gomer had already children when Hosea married her.

Gomer was called a wife of whoredoms by the omniscient Lord, in anticipation of her future conduct. She fell and became immoral after her union with Hosea, and not before. In this way she became a symbol of Israel, married unto the Lord, but afterwards became the unfaithful wife. With this view, the entire prophetic message of Hosea in the beginning of this book harmonizes. The name of the woman is likewise suggestive. Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, means Completion–a double cake of figs. Israels wickedness is symbolized as complete and the double cake of figs is symbolical of sensual pleasures. And the prophet in spite of her unfaithfulness still loved her and did not abandon her. This illustrates Jehovahs love for Israel.

Then she bore him a son. Expositors have stated, The children were not the prophets own, but born of adultery and presented to him as his. But that can not be the meaning in view of the plain statement she conceived and bare him a son.

The Lord commands him to call this son Jezreel. Jezreel has likewise a symbolical meaning. It means God shall scatter Jer 31:10; but it also means God shall sow Zec 10:9. Thus Israel was to be scattered and sown among the nations. Jezreel was the valley in which Jehu executed his bloody deeds. On account of his hypocritical zeal, the blood of Jezreel is now to be avenged, and the kingdom of the house of Israel would cease. Thus the name Jezreel (resembling in sound and form Israel) indicates the speedy end of Israel, scattered and sown among the nations, on account of their whoredoms (see Eze 23:1-49).

Hos 1:6-7. Next a daughter is born. Here bare him as found in verse 3 is omitted. The prophet receives a name for her–Lo-ruhamah, which means not having obtained mercy. Interesting are the two renderings of the Holy Spirit of this passage in the New Testament. In Rom 9:25 it is rendered not beloved and in 1Pe 2:10, hath not obtained mercy. Love and mercy were now to be withdrawn from Israel and they were to be taken away utterly.

Then the house of Judah is mentioned. They shall be saved by the Lord their God, because He has mercy on them. Their salvation was not by bow, by sword, or by battle, horses and horsemen. It was only a little while later when the Assyrian, who was Gods instrument in the execution of judgment upon Israel, came before the gates of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was saved in the manner as predicted here, not by bow or sword, but the angel of the Lord smote the army of 185,000 in one night. And later Judah was saved and a remnant brought back from Babylon. Then there is a future salvation for Judah in the end of the age.

Hos 1:8-9. Another son is born and God said, Call his name Lo-ammi, for ye are not my people and I am not your God. Lo-ammi means not my people. Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi are symbolical of Israels rejection and the withdrawal of Gods mercy. That this is not to be permanent the next two verses make this clear.

Hos 1:10-11. Abruptly we are transported from the present into the distant future, and a prophetic utterance of great depth follows. The tenth verse is quoted by the Holy Spirit in Rom 9:1-33 and gives full light on the meaning of the passage here. Gods sovereignty is the theme of the ninth chapter of Romans: And that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He has afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As He saith also in Osee (Greek form of Hosea), I will call them My people, which were not My people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, there shall they be called the children of the living God Rom 9:23-33. Here is the commentary of Hos 1:10. It means first that Israel shall be reinstated; but it also means the call and salvation of the Gentiles, and Gentiles called in sovereign grace are to be constituted the sons of the living God. It is a prophetic hint on the blessing to come to the Gentiles, and that blessing is greater than Israels.

The eleventh verse is a great prophecy and remains still unfulfilled. Some expositors claim that it was fulfilled in the return of the remnant of Jews under Zerubbabel. But the Babylonian captivity is not in view here at all. The great day of Jezreel will come, when King Messiah, our Lord returns. Then shall Judah and Israel be gathered together under one head, and gather once more to their national feasts in the land.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

days

i.e. of the 1260,1290, and 1335 days.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

word: Jer 1:2, Jer 1:4, Eze 1:3, Joe 1:1, Jon 1:1, Zec 1:1, Joh 10:35, 2Pe 1:21

Hosea: Rom 9:25, Osee

in: Isa 1:1, Mic 1:1

Uzziah: 2Ki 14:16-29, 2Ki 15:1, 2Ki 15:2, 2Ki 15:32, 2Ki 16:1-20, 2Ki 18:1-37, 2Ch 26:1 – 2Ch 32:33

Reciprocal: Num 13:16 – Oshea 1Sa 29:11 – Jezreel 1Ki 17:2 – General 2Ki 14:23 – Jeroboam 2Ki 16:20 – Hezekiah 2Ch 26:3 – Uzziah 2Ch 27:1 – twenty and five 2Ch 28:1 – Ahaz 2Ch 29:1 – Hezekiah Pro 25:1 – which Amo 1:1 – in the Zep 1:1 – word Zec 5:7 – is Luk 3:2 – the word

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Hos 1:1. According to the compilation of the books of the Bible, Hosea is the first of the “Minor Prophets. The term is a little misleading as it implies a difference of importance between them and the others. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia says this on the subject: “The Minor Prophets (“brief in words, mighty in meaning), are twelve in number; viz., Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkult, Zephaniah, Hag- gai, Zechariah and Malachi. In the Hebrew canon [books accepted as being Inspired] they constitute only one book. They are called the Lesser, or Minor Prophets’ because their prophecies were brief, not because they were less important, than those of the four Greater Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.) All these writings together do not equal In length those of Isaiah. Yet Hosea exercised the prophetic office longer than any other prophet. This verse gives the period covered by the vision of Hosea. which agrees with the statement just quoted from the reference book. The first four kings named were rulers of the 2-tribe kingdom of Judah, and the last one was a king of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel. The captivity of the kingdom of Israel took place in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and Hoseas work extended over that period, hence he lived to see the fulfillment of some of the predictions that he made concerning that kingdom.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

THE SWEEP OF THE BOOK

It will be seen by the opening verse of this lesson that we are back in the land of Israel before the Babylonian captivity. Examine 2 Kings 14-20 and the corresponding chapters in 2 Chronicles for the history of this period, and the more carefully you read those chapters the more interested you will be in Hosea, and the more you will get out of it. While four of the kings named in Hos 1:1 reigned in Judah, and only the last-named, Jeroboam, in Israel, nevertheless it is to Israel rather than Judah that Hoseas prophecies apply.

THE PROPHETS DOMESTIC HISTORY (Hos 1:2-9)

God called upon him to do an unusual thing in taking an unchaste woman to wife (Hos 1:2), but it had a symbolical significance which the last part of the verse explains.

Other prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were called upon to do strange things with the same purpose, so we are not surprised. It was not wrong for Hosea to contract such a marriage because God commanded it, and because his motive was to exalt the woman to his own moral sphere. When he married her, and it became known in Israel, his opportunity came to show the loving-kindness of Jehovah to a nation that had no more to commend itself to Him than this woman had in Hoseas case. See the marginal references for the proof of this.

The children of his union are symbolical in their names (Hos 1:4-9). For historical reference to Jezreel and Jehu (Hos 1:4), see 2Ki 10:11; but notice that there are two predictions in this verse, separated by the comma after Jehu, which are at least forty years apart in their fulfillment. Judgment fell on the house of Jehu in Zachariahs reign (2Ki 15:12), while the kingdom of Israel did not cease till the Assyrian captivity in King Hosheas day (2 Kings 18).

The names of the other two children are given (Hos 1:6; Hos 1:8-9) with reference to this captivity. For the fulfillment of Hos 1:7 see the marginal reference to 2Ki 19:35 in the light of its context.

THE BETTER DAY COMING (Hos 1:10-11)

Like all the prophets, Hosea speaks of Israels happy future, which shall come to pass after the tribulation of which we learned in Daniel. How is her increase indicated? Her restoration to her own land? Her reunion with the two tribes? In explanation of the last clause it should be noted that the meaning of Jezreel is the seed of God.

AN UNFAITHFUL WIFE (Hos 2:1-23)

This chapter begins at Hos 2:2, and we see that Hoseas wife, failing to appreciate her blessings, went after her former lovers, took up with her old life of sin again. In this the prophets domestic history carries further the symbolic reference to Jehovahs relationship to Israel. That nation did in the spiritual realm what the wife did in the physical. It is difficult to determine just where the symbol ends and the history of Israel begins in the chapter, because the two are so closely blended, but there is little doubt that the nation is in view at Hos 2:3 and the following. Students will recall earlier teachings about the law of double reference which finds illustration here.

Going through the chapter, note the punishment to fall on the adulterous nation (Hos 2:6-13); her political bewilderment (Hos 2:6); her disappointments in the expectation of help from the Gentiles (Hos 2:7); her deprivation of the divine blessing and the positive suffering entailed by it (Hos 2:9-13). All of these came to her in her captivity, and are her experiences still among the nations.

But again we see the future bright when, in repentance and faith, she returns to the Lord (Hos 2:14-16). Ishi means My husband. Baali, My master (see margin). Millennial conditions follow (Hos 2:17-23).

A LOVING HUSBAND (Hosea 3)

The law of recurrence, finds an illustration in chapter 3, where the story of the preceding chapter is repeated with additional data.

The prophet is commanded still to love his wandering and faithless wife as Jehovah still loves Israel in her disobedience (Hos 3:1). His love takes shape in material provision for her, though she is separated from him (Hos 3:2), as Jehovah is still caring for Israel that she should not perish from the earth. In the meantime the wife is not to take up with another husband, and the prophet will not marry again (Hos 3:3), the application of which is stated in the next two verses. The foregoing lessons in the prophets have made this plain.

QUESTIONS

1. State the time of this book.

2. Have you re-read the history of the time?

3. To which of the kingdoms was Hosea particularly sent?

4. Relate the story of the prophets domestic history in your own words.

5. What two prophecies are found in 1:4?

6. In the reign of what king of Judah was 1:7 fulfilled?

7. What is the definition of the name Jezreel?

8. What two laws of rhetoric find renewed illustration in this lesson?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Hos 1:1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea The name of the prophet is the same with the original name of Joshua, and signifies a Saviour. The son of Beeri This was the prophets surname; for in those days they had their surnames either from their parents, as we have, or from the places of their abode. Beeri signifies a well. In the days of Uzziah, &c. If we suppose, says Archbishop Newcome, that Hosea prophesied during the course of sixty-six years, and place him from the year 790 before Christ, to the year 724, he will have exercised his office eight years in the reign of Jeroboam the Second, thirty-three years in the reign of Uzziah, the entire reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and three years in the reign of Hezekiah; but will not have survived the taking of Samaria. It is probable, however, that he begun his ministry as early as the year 785; and therefore that he prophesied at least seventy, if not more, years. The Jews, indeed, suppose him to have prophesied near ninety years, and that he uttered much more than he wrote. If he exercised his office such a number of years, many of the other prophets, as Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Micah, must have lived and prophesied during his time.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hos 1:1. Hosea, the son of Beeri. The prophets named their parents, not only to distinguish themselves from others of that name, but to mark that they were sons of prophets, or that their fathers were men of note and worth in the estimation of the church.

Hos 1:2. Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms. Some would suggest, that as idolatry is called whoredom, the prophet married a woman who worshipped idols.

Hos 1:4. Call his name Jezreel, meaning that God would disperse them in the Assyrian empire, as the husbandman disperses seed in all parts of the field. His arm should very soon be made bare to avenge the blood of all the good men which had been shed in Jezreel from the day when Naboth was stoned. But Ahabs palace being in Jezreel, the word may be understood of all the ten tribes, and of the punishment of all their sins. 1Ki 21:3, 2Ki 9:10. This word has other acceptations in the next chapter.

Hos 1:5. I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. When Salmanezer took Samaria, no doubt he vanquished them in or near this city, which lay in his road to Samaria, that the blood of Naboth might be purged with the blood of those who falsely accused and slew him.

Hos 1:6. Call her name Lo-ruhamah. Not beloved, as St. Paul expounds this passage, when speaking of the call of the gentiles. Rom 9:25.

Hos 1:7. I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God. Here we have Jehovah the speaker, as in Psa 32:6, Isa 49:3-8; Isa 63:7-8, and Jehovah the Christ who saved Judah, not by bow nor by spear, but by sending his angel to destroy a hundred and eighty five thousand Assyrians. This is a declaration of the Godhead, or adorable Trinity. The Chaldaic favours this gloss by saying that Jehovah would save them by his Word, as in a hundred other places of that paraphrase.

Hos 1:9. Call his name Lo-ammi, not my people. Thus the ten tribes forfeited their covenant, and God gave them up to captivity.

Hos 1:10. Ye are the sons of the living God. Here is a promise of the conversion of the gentiles, as in Rom 9:26.

Hos 1:11. One head. Zerubbabel was the head when the jews returned from Babylon. But the next words, great shall be the day of Jezreel, have a special reference to the glory of the church in the latter day.

REFLECTIONS.

The extraordinary marriage of Hosea with a polluted woman, and the singular names of his three children would make him a subject of general conversation and notice. In his marriage the apostate tribes might see their crimes of defilement with idols; and in the names of his children they might see the vengeance which awaited them for the blood of prophets and righteous men, also their alienation from the divine favour, and their utter rejection. Thus, as the crimes of men and nations are progressive, so there is a gradation of punishment strikingly proportioned to their sins. Jehu inflicted the first of these punishments; Tiglath-Pilezer the second; and final impenitence completed the third, and caused their utter ruin by Salmanezer.

As the heavens are more serene after storms and tempests, so it is usual with the Holy Spirit to comfort the church under visitations on the wicked world, by the hope of better times. A sentence of reprobation is here passed on the obstinately apostate jews; yet the seed of Israel should be numerous as the sands of the sea by the conversion of the gentiles. Thus Israel, according to the flesh, was a type, and only a type, of Israel according to the spirit. St. Paul thus applies the words of Hosea, in Rom 9:25-26. He also represents the church in Jerusalem, which consisted very much of believing proselytes, as being come to mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. These were called the children of the living God, while the unbelieving jews were a proverb, and a bye word, as Moses had said, among all nations. St. John remarks also, that to as many as received Christ by faith, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. This is evidently the true sense of the text, because when Israel returned from Babylon they were few in number; and of the ten tribes there were only scattered families. The others either pined away among the heathen, or lost their origin, as the Samaritans, by intermarrying with the heathen.

Like a gracious and majestic cloud that scatters its drops on the plain, and discharges its fulness against the mountains; so these and all the promises of like nature, water every age, but reserve the fulness for the latter-day glory of the church. Then the fulness of the gentiles shall be brought in, and all Israel shall be saved in the day of the Lord. After the return from Babylon, carnal Israel, as Pascal calls the jews, were never all gathered under any one prince; but the christian Israel have ever been gathered under Messiah the Prince, who is head over all things for the church, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hos 1:1. Title.The title which was prefixed to the whole Book is due to an editor or editors. The mention of the Jewish kings, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiahonly one of whom, Uzziah, can have been contemporary with Jeroboam II (c. 782743 B.C.)must be due to a post-exilic editor. An earlier heading can be detected in Hos 1:2 a.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

1:1 The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days {a} of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, {b} kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

(a) Also called Azariah, who being a leper was disposed from his kingdom.

(b) So that it may be gathered by the reign of these four kings that he preached about eighty years.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

I. INTRODUCTION 1:1

This verse introduces the whole book. The word of Yahweh came to Hosea, the son (possibly descendant) of Beeri, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (cf. Isa 1:1). It also came to him during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (cf. Amo 1:1). As explained above under "Date," Hosea’s ministry probably extended from about 760-715 B.C. Hosea’s name means "He [Yahweh] has saved" and is a variation of "Joshua" (cf. Num 13:8; Num 13:16; Gr. Jesus). We know nothing else about Beeri ("my wellspring") or any of Hosea’s other ancestors or his hometown.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE STORY OF THE PRODIGAL WIFE

Hos 1:1-11; Hos 2:1-23; Hos 3:1-5

IT has often been remarked that, unlike the first Doomster of Israel, Israels first Evangelist was one of themselves, a native and citizen, perhaps even a priest, of the land to which he was sent. This appears even in his treatment of the stage and soil of his ministry. Contrast him in this respect with Amos.

In the Book of Amos we have few glimpses of the scenery of Israel, and these always by flashes of the lightnings of judgment: the towns in drought or earthquake or siege; the vineyards and orchards under locusts or mildew; Carmel itself desolate, or as a hiding-place from Gods wrath.

But Hoseas love steals across his whole land like the dew, provoking every separate scent and color, till all Galilee lies before us lustrous and fragrant as nowhere else outside the parables of Jesus. The Book of Amos, when it would praise Gods works, looks to the stars. But the poetry of Hosea clings about his native soil like its trailing vines. If he appeals to the heavens, it is only that they may speak to the earth, and the earth to the corn and the wine, and the corn and the wine to Jezreel (Hos 2:23) Even the wild beasts-and Hosea tells us of their cruelty almost as much as Amos-he cannot shut out of the hope of his love: “I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground.” (Hos 2:20) Gods love-gifts to His people are corn and wool, flax and oil; while spiritual blessings are figured in the joys of them who sow and reap. With Hosea we feel all the seasons of the Syrian year: early rain and latter rain, the first flush of the young corn, the scent of the vine blossom, the “first ripe fig of the fig-tree in her first season,” the bursting of the lily; the wild vine trailing on the hedge, the field of tares, the beauty of the full olive in sunshine and breeze; the mists and heavy dews of a summer morning in Ephraim, the night winds laden with the air of the mountains, “the scent of Lebanon.” {Hos 6:3-4; Hos 7:8; Hos 9:10; Hos 14:6; Hos 7:7-8} Or it is the dearer human sights in valley and field: the smoke from the chimney, the chaff from the threshing-floor, the doves startled to their towers, the fowler and his net; the breaking up of the fallow ground, the harrowing of the clods, the reapers, the heifer that treadeth out the corn; the team of draught oxen surmounting the steep road, and at the top the kindly driver setting in food to their jaws. {Hos 7:11-12; Hos 10:11; Hos 11:4 etc.}

Where, I say, do we find anything like this save in the parables of Jesus? For the love of Hosea was as the love of that greater Galilean: however high, however lonely it soared, it was yet rooted in the common life below, and fed with the unfailing grace of a thousand homely sources.

But just as the Love which first showed itself in the sunny Parables of Galilee passed onward to Gethsemane and the Cross, so the love of Hosea, that had wakened with the spring lilies and dewy summer mornings of the North, had also, ere his youth was spent, to meet its agony and shame. These came upon the prophet in his home, and in her in whom so loyal and tender a heart had hoped to find his chieftest sanctuary next to God. There are, it is true, some of the ugliest facts of human life about this prophets experience; but the message is one very suited to our own hearts and times. Let us read this story of the Prodigal Wife as we do that other Galilean tale of the Prodigal Son. There as well as here are harlots; but here as well as there is the clear mirror of the Divine Love. For the Bible never shuns realism when it would expose the exceeding hatefulness of sin or magnify the power of Gods love to redeem. To an age which is always treating conjugal infidelity either as a matter of comedy or as a problem of despair, the tale of Hosea and his wife may still become what it proved to his own generation, a gospel full of love and hope.

The story, and how it led Hosea to understand Gods relations to sinful men, is told in the first three chapters of his book. It opens with the very startling sentence: “The beginning of the word of Jehovah to Hosea:-And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take thee a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry: for the Land hath committed great harlotry in departing from Jehovah.”

The command was obeyed. “And he went and took Gomer, daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bare to him a son. And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little and I shall visit, the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will bring to an end the kingdom of the house of Israel; and it shall be on that day that I shall break the bow of Israel in the Vale of Jezreel”-the classic battlefield of Israel. “And she conceived again, and bare a daughter; and He said to him, Call her name Unloved,” or “That-never-knew-a-Fathers-Pity; for I will not again have pity”-such pity as a Father hath-“on the house of Israel, that I should fully forgive them. And she weaned Unpitied, and conceived, and bare a son. And He said, Call his name Not-My-People; for ye are not My people, and I-I am not yours.”

It is not surprising that divers interpretations have been put upon this troubled tale. The words which introduce it are so startling that very many have held it to be an allegory, or parable, invented by the prophet to illustrate, by familiar human figures, what was at that period the still difficult conception of the Love of God for sinful men. But to this well-intended argument there are insuperable objections. It implies that Hosea had first awakened to the relations of Jehovah and Israel-He faithful and full of affection, she unfaithful and thankless-and that then, in order to illustrate the relations, he had invented the story. To that we have an adequate reply. In the first place, though it were possible, it is extremely improbable, that such a man should have invented such a tale about his wife, or, if he was unmarried, about himself. But, in the second place, he says expressly that his domestic experience was the “beginning of Jehovahs word to him.” That is, he passed through it first, and only afterwards, with the sympathy and insight thus acquired, he came to appreciate Jehovahs relation to Israel. Finally, the style betrays narrative rather than parable. The simple facts are told; there is an absence of elaboration; there is no effort to make every detail symbolic; the names Gomer and Diblaim are apparently those of real persons; every attempt to attach a symbolic value to them has failed.

She was, therefore, no dream, this woman, but flesh and blood: the sorrow, the despair, the sphinx of the prophets life; yet a sphinx who in the end yielded her riddle to love.

Accordingly a large number of other interpreters have taken the story throughout as the literal account of actual facts. This is the theory of many of the Latin and Greek Fathers, of many of the Puritans and of Dr. Pusey-by one of those agreements into which, from such opposite schools, all these commentators are not infrequently drawn by their common captivity to the letter of Scripture. When you ask them, How then do you justify that first strange word of God to Hosea, {Hos 1:2} if you take it literally and believe that Hoses was charged to marry a woman of public shame? They answer either that such an evil may be justified by the bare word of God, or that it was well worth the end, the salvation of a lost soul. And indeed this tragedy would be invested with an even greater pathos if it were true that the human hero had passed through a self-sacrifice so unusual, had incurred such a shame for such an end. The interpretation, however, seems forbidden by the essence of the story. Had not Hoseas wife been pure when he married her she could not have served as a type of the Israel whose earliest relations to Jehovah he describes as innocent. And this is confirmed by other features of the book: by the high ideal which Hosea has of marriage, and by that sense of early goodness and early beauty passing away like morning mist, which is so often and so pathetically expressed that we cannot but catch in it the echo of his own experience. As one has said to whom we owe, more than to any other, the exposition of the gospel in Hosea, “The struggle of Hoseas shame and grief when he found his wife unfaithful is altogether inconceivable unless his first love had been pure and full of trust in the purity of its object.”

How then are we to reconcile with this the statement of that command to take a wife of the character so frankly described? In this way-and we owe the interpretation to the same lamented scholar. When, some years after his marriage, Hosea at last began to be aware of the character of her whom he had taken to his home, and while he still brooded upon it, God revealed to him why He who knoweth all things from the beginning had suffered His servant to marry such a woman; and Hosea, by a very natural anticipation, in which he is imitated by other prophets, pushed back his own knowledge of Gods purpose to the date when that purpose began actually to be fulfilled, the day of his betrothal. This, though he was all unconscious of its fatal future, had been to Hosea the beginning of the word of the Lord. On that uncertain voyage he had sailed with sealed orders.

Now this is true to nature, and may be matched from our own experience. “The beginning of Gods word” to any of us-where does it lie? Does it lie in the first time the meaning of our life became articulate, and we are able to utter it to others? Ah, no; it always lies far behind that, in facts and in relationships, of the Divine meaning of which we are at the time unconscious, though now we know. How familiar this is in respect to the sorrows and adversities of life: dumb, deadening things that fall on us at the time with no more voice than clods falling on coffins of dead men, we have been able to read them afterwards as the clear call of God to our souls. But what we thus so readily admit about the sorrows of life may be equally true of any of those relations which we enter with light and unawed hearts, conscious only of the novelty and the joy of them. It is most true of the love which meets a man as it met Hoses in his opening manhood.

How long Hosea took to discover his shame he indicates by a few hints which he suffers to break from the delicate reserve of his story. He calls the first child his own; and the boys name, though ominous of the nations fate, has no trace of shame upon it. Hoseas Jezreel was as Isaiahs Shear-Jashub or Maher-shalal-hash-baz. But Hoses does not claim the second child; and in the name of this little lass, Lo-Ruhamah, “she-that-never-knew-a-fathers-love,” orphan not by death but by her mothers sin, we find proof of the prophets awakening to the tragedy of his home. Nor does he own the third child, named “Not-my-people,” that could also mean “No-kin-of-mine.” The three births must have taken at least six years; and once at least, but probably oftener, Hosea had forgiven the woman, and till the sixth year she stayed in his house. Then either he put her from him or she went her own way. She sold herself for money and finally drifted, like all of her class, into slavery. {Hos 3:2}

Such were the facts of Hoseas grief, and we have now to attempt to understand how that grief became his gospel. We may regard the stages of the process as two: first, when he was led to feel that his sorrow was the sorrow of the whole nation; and, second, when he comprehended that it was of similar kind to the sorrow of God Himself.

While Hosea brooded upon his pain one of the first things he would remember would be the fact, which he so frequently illustrates, that the case of his home was not singular, but common and characteristic of his day. Take the evidence of his book, and there must have been in Israel many such wives as his own. He describes their sin as the besetting sin of the nation, and the plague of Israels life. But to lose your own sorrow in the vaster sense of national trouble-that is the first consciousness of a duty and a mission. In the analogous vice of intemperance among ourselves we have seen the same experience operate again and again. How many a man has joined the public warfare against that sin, because he was aroused to its national consequences by the ruin it had brought to his own house! And one remembers from recent years a more illustrious instance, where a domestic grief-it is true of a very different kind-became not dissimilarly the opening of a great career of service to the people:-

“I was in Leamington, and Mr. Cobden called on me. I was then in the depths of grief-I may almost say of despair, for the light and sunshine of my house had been extinguished. All that was left on earth of my young wife, except the memory of a sainted life and a too brief happiness, was lying still and cold in the chamber above us. Mr. Cobden called on me as his friend, and addressed me, as you may suppose, with words of condolence. After a time he looked up and said: There are thousands and thousands of homes in England at this moment where wives and mothers and children are dying of hunger. Now, when the first paroxysm of your grief is passed, I would advise you to come with me, and we will never rest until the Corn Laws are repealed.” {from a speech by John Bright}

Not dissimilarly was Hoseas pain overwhelmed by the pain of his people. He remembered that there were in Israel thousands of homes like his own. Anguish gave way to sympathy. The mystery became the stimulus to a mission.

But, again, Hosea traces this sin of his day to the worship of strange gods. He tells the fathers of Israel, for instance, that they need not be surprised at the corruption of their wives and daughters when they themselves bring home from the heathen rites the infection of light views of love. {Hos 4:13-14} That is to say, the many sins against human love in Israel, the wrong done to his own heart in his own home, Hosea connects with the wrong done to the Love of God by His peoples desertion of Him for foreign and impure rites. Hoseas own sorrow thus became a key to the sorrow of God. Had he loved this woman, cherished and honored her, borne with and forgiven her, only to find at the last his love spurned and hers turned to sinful men: so also had the Love of God been treated by His chosen people, and they had fallen to the loose worship of idols.

Hosea was the more naturally led to compare his relations to his wife with Jehovahs to Israel, by certain religious beliefs current among the Semitic peoples. It was common to nearly all Semitic religions to express the ration of a god with his land or with his people by the figure of marriage. The title which Hosea so often applies to the heathen deities, Baal, meant originally not “lord” of his worshippers, but “possessor” and endower of his land, its husband and fertilizer. A fertile land was “a land of Baal,” or “Beulah,” that is, “possessed” or “blessed by a Baal.” Under the fertility was counted not only the increase of field and flock, but the human increase as well; and thus a nation could speak of themselves as the children of the Land, their mother, and of her Baal, their father. When Hosea, then, called Jehovah the husband of Israel, it was not an entirely new symbol which he invented. Up to his time, however, the marriage of Heaven and Earth, of a god and his people, seems to have been conceived in a physical form which ever tended to become more gross; and was expressed, as Hosea points out, by rites of a sensual and debasing nature, with the most disastrous effects on the domestic morals of the people. By an inspiration, whose ethical character is very conspicuous, Hosea breaks the physical connection altogether. Jehovahs Bride is not the Land, but the People, and His marriage with her is conceived wholly as a moral relation. Not that He has no connection with the physical fruits of the land: corn, wine, oil, wool, and flax. But these are represented only as the signs and ornaments of the marriage, love-gifts from the husband to the wife. {Hos 2:8} The marriage itself is purely moral: “I will betroth her to Me in righteousness and justice, in leal love and tender mercies.” From her in return are demanded faithfulness and growing knowledge of her Lord.

It is the re-creation of an Idea. Slain and made carrion by the heathen religions, the figure is restored to life by Hosea. And this is a life everlasting. Prophet and apostle, the Israel of Jehovah, the Church of Christ, have alike found in Hoseas figure an unfailing significance and charm. Here we cannot trace the history of the figure; but at least we ought to emphasize the creative power which its recovery to life proves to have been inherent in prophecy. This is one of those triumphs of which the God of Israel said: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Having dug his figure from the mire and set it upon the rock, Hosea sends it on its way with all boldness. If Jehovah be thus the husband of Israel, “her first husband, the husband of her youth,” then all her pursuit of the Baalim is unfaithfulness to her marriage vows. But she is worse than an adulteress; she is a harlot. She has fallen for gifts. Here the historical facts wonderfully assisted the prophets metaphor. It was a fact that Israel and Jehovah were first wedded in the wilderness upon conditions, which by the very circumstances of desert life could have little or no reference to the fertility of the earth, but were purely personal and moral. And it was also a fact that Israels declension from Jehovah came after her settlement in Canaan, and was due to her discovery of other deities, in possession of the soil, and adored by the natives as the dispensers of its fertility. Israel fell under these superstitions, and, although she still formally acknowledged her bond to Jehovah, yet in order to get her fields blessed and her flocks made fertile, her orchards protected from blight and her fleeces from scab, she went after the local Baalim. {Hos 2:13} With bitter scorn Hosea points out that there was no true love in this: it was the mercenariness of a harlot, selling herself for gifts. {Hos 2:5; Hos 2:13} And it had the usual results. The children whom Israel bore were not her husbands. {Hos 2:5} The new generation in Israel grew up in ignorance of Jehovah, with characters and lives strange to His Spirit. They were Lo-Ruhamah: He could not feel towards them such pity as a father hath. They were Lo-Ammi: not at all His people. All was in exact parallel to Hoseas own experience with his wife; and only the real pain of that experience could have made the man brave enough to use it as a figure of his Gods treatment by Israel.

Following out the human analogy, the next step should have been for Jehovah to divorce His erring spouse. But Jehovah reveals to the prophet that this is not His way. For He is “God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I surrender thee, O Israel? My heart is turned within Me, My compassions are kindled together!”

Jehovah will seek, find, and bring back the wanderer. Yet the process shall not be easy. The gospel which Hosea here preaches is matched in its great tenderness by its full recognition of the ethical requirements of the case. Israel may not be restored without repentance, and cannot repent without disillusion and chastisement. God will therefore show her that her lovers, the Baalim, are unable to assure to her the gifts for which she followed them. These are His corn, His wine, His wool, and His flax, and He will take them away for a time. Nay more, as if mere drought and blight might still be regarded as some Baals work, He who has always manifested Himself by great historic deeds will do so again. He will remove herself from the land, and leave it a waste and a desolation. The whole passage runs as follows, introduced by the initial “Therefore” of judgment:-

“Therefore, behold, I am going to hedge up her way with thorns, and build her a wall, so that she find not her paths. And she shall pursue her paramours and shall not come upon them, seek them and shall not find them; and she shall say, Let me go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now. She knew not, then, that it was I who gave her the corn and the wine and the oil; yea, silver I heaped upon her and gold-they worked it up for the Baal!” Israel had deserted the religion that was historical and moral for the religion that was physical. But the historical religion was the physical one. Jehovah who had brought Israel to the land was also the God of the Land. He would prove this by taking away its blessings. “Therefore I will turn and take away My corn in its time and My wine in its season, and I will withdraw My wool and My flax that should have covered her nakedness. And now”-the other initial of judgment-“I will lay bare her shame to the eyes of her lovers, and no man shall rescue her from My hand. And I will make an end of all her joyance, her pilgrimages, her New-Moons and her Sabbaths, with every festival; and I will destroy her vines and her figs of which she said, They are a gift, mine own, which my lovers gave me, and I will turn them to jungle and the wild beast shall devour them. So shall I visit upon her the days of the Baalim, when she used to offer incense to them, and decked herself with her rings and her jewels and went after her paramours, but Me she forgat-tis the oracle of Jehovah.” All this implies something more than such natural disasters as those in which Amos saw the first chastisements of the Lord. Each of the verses suggests, not only a devastation of the land by war, but the removal of the people into captivity. Evidently, therefore, Hosea, writing about 745, had in view a speedy invasion by Assyria, an invasion which was always followed up by the exile of the people subdued.

This is next described, with all plainness, under the figure of Israels early wanderings in the wilderness, but is emphasized as happening only for the end of the peoples penitence and restoration. The new hope is so melodious that it carries the language into meter.

“Therefore, lo! I am to woo her, and I will bring her to the wilderness,

And I will speak home to her heart.

And from there I will give to her vineyards

And the Valley of Achor for a doorway of hope.

And there she shall answer Me as in the days of her youth,

And as the day when she came up from the land of Misraim.”

To us the terms of this passage may seem formal and theological. But to every Israelite some of these terms must have brought back the days of his own wooing. “I will speak home to her heart” is a forcible expression, like the German “an-das Herz” or the sweet Scottish “it cam up roond my heart,” and was used in Israel as from man to woman when he won her. But the other terms have an equal charm. The prophet, of course, does not mean that Israel shall be literally taken back to the desert. But he describes her coming exile under that ancient figure, in order to surround her penitence with the associations of her innocency and her youth. By the grace of God, everything shall begin again as at first. The old terms “wilderness,” “the giving of vineyards,” “Valley of Achor,” are, as it were, the wedding ring restored.

As a result of all this (whether the words be by Hosea or another),

“It shall be in that day-tis Jehovahs oracle-that thou shalt call Me,

My husband, And thou shalt not again call Me, My Baal:

For I will take away the names of the Baalim from her mouth,

And they shall no more be remembered by their names.”

There follows a picture of the ideal future, in which-how unlike the vision that now closes the Book of Amos!-moral and spiritual beauty, the peace of the land and the redemption of the people, are wonderfully mingled together, in a style so characteristic of Hoseas heart. It is hard to tell where the rhythmical prose passes into actual meter.

“And I will make for them a covenant in that day with the wild beasts, and with the birds of the heavens, and with the creeping things of the ground; and the bow and the sword and battle will I break from the land, and I will make you to dwell in safety. And I will betroth thee to Me for ever, and I will betroth thee to Me in righteousness and in justice, in leal love and in tender mercies; and I will betroth thee to Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know Jehovah.”

“And it shall be on that day I will speak-tis the oracle of Jehovah-I will speak to the heavens, and they shall speak to the earth; the earth shall speak to the corn and the wine and the oil, and they shall speak to Jezreel,” the “scattered like seed across many lands”; but I will sow him for Myself in the land: and I will have a fathers pity upon Un-Pitied; and to Not-My-People I will say, “My people thou art! and he shall say, My God!”

The circle is thus completed on the terms from which we started. The three names which Hosea gave to the children, evil omens of Israels fate, are reversed, and the people restored to the favor and love of their God.

We might expect this glory to form the culmination of the prophecy. What fuller prospect could be imagined than that we see in the close of the second chapter? With a wonderful grace, however, the prophecy turns back from this sure vision of the restoration of the people as a whole, to pick up again the individual from whom it had started, and whose unclean rag of a life had fluttered out of sight before the national fortunes sweeping in upon the scene. This was needed to crown the story-this return to the individual.

“And Jehovah said unto me, Once more go, love a wife that is loved of a paramour and is an adulteress, as Jehovah loveth the children of Israel,” the “while they are turning to other gods, and love raisin-cakes”-probably some element in the feasts of the gods of the land, the givers of the grape. “Then I bought her to me for fifteen “pieces” of silver and a homer of barley and a lethech of wine. And I said to her, For many days shalt thou abide for me alone; thou shalt not play the harlot, thou shalt not be for any husband; and I for my part also shall be so towards thee. For the days are many that the children of Israel shall abide without a king and without a prince, without sacrifice and without maccebah, and without ephod and teraphim. Afterwards the children of Israel shall turn and seek Jehovah their God and David their king, and shall be in awe of Jehovah and towards His goodness in the end of the days.”

Do not let us miss the fact that the story of the wifes restoration follows that of Israels, although the story of the wifes unfaithfulness had come before that of Israels apostasy. For this order means that, while the prophets private pain preceded his sympathy with Gods pain, it was not he who set God, but God who set him, the example of forgiveness. The man learned the Gods sorrow out of his own sorrow; but conversely he was taught to forgive and redeem his wife only by seeing God forgive and redeem the people. In other words, the Divine was suggested by the human pain; yet the Divine Grace was not started by any previous human grace, but, on the contrary, was itself the precedent and origin of the latter. This is in harmony with all Hoseas teaching. God forgives because “He is God and not man.” (Hos 9:9) Our pain with those we love helps us to understand Gods pain; but it is not our love that leads us to believe in His love. On the contrary, all human grace is but the reflex of the Divine. So St. Paul: “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” So St. John: “We love Him,” and one another, “because He first loved us.”

But this return from the nation to the individual has another interest. Gomers redemption is not the mere formal completion of the parallel between her and her people. It is, as the story says, an impulse of the Divine Love, recognized even then in Israel as seeking the individual. He who followed Hagar into the wilderness, who met Jacob at Bethel and forgat not the slave Joseph in prison, remembers also Hoseas wife. His love is not satisfied with His Nation-Bride: He remembers this single outcast. It is the Shepherd leaving the ninety-and-nine in the fold to seek the one lost sheep.

For Hosea himself his home could never be the same as it was at the first. “And I said to her, For many days shalt thou abide, as far as I am concerned, alone. Thou shalt not play the harlot. Thou shalt not be for a husband: and I on my side also shall be so towards thee.” Discipline was needed there; and abroad the nations troubles called the prophet to an anguish and a toil which left no room for the sweet love or hope of his youth. He steps at once to his hard warfare for his people; and through the rest of his book we never again hear him speak of home, or of children, or of wife. So Arthur passed from Guinevere to his last battle for his land:-

“Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.

But how to take last leave of all I loved?

I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine

I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,

And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh,

Here looking down on thine polluted, cries I loathe thee; yet not less, O Guinevere,

For I was ever virgin save for thee,

My love thro flesh hath wrought into my life

So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.

Let no man dream but that I love thee still.

Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,

And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,

Hereafter in that world where all are pure

We two may meet before high God, and thou

Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know

I am thine husband, not a smaller soul

Leave me that, I charge thee my last hope.

Now must I hence.

Thro the thick night I hear the trumpet blow.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary