Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 1:4
And 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.
4. Call his name Jezreel ] The child of guilt; therefore not Israel but Jezreel (or, more exactly, Izreel). The name is referred to for its historical associations (comp. on Hos 2:22). It points both backward and forward backward to the massacre of Ahab’s family by Jehu (2Ki 9:10.), and forward to the punishment for that wild and cruel act. Hosea (in whom natural peculiarities have been purified and not extinguished by the spirit of prophecy) regards the conduct of Jehu in a different light from the writer of 2Ki 10:30. The latter praises Jehu for having ‘done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in by mind’; he speaks on the assumption that Jehu had the interests of Jehovah’s worship at heart, and that he destroyed the house of Ahab as the only effectual means of advancing them. The former blames Jehu apparently on the high moral ground that Jehovah ‘desires mercy (love) and not sacrifice’ (Hos 6:6). He speaks as the Israelites of his time doubtless felt. They no more recognized Jehu as a champion of Jehovah than did the priests of Baal whom he basely entrapped (2Ki 10:18, &c.). But Hosea doubtless felt in addition that the idolatry to which the house of Jehu was addicted rendered a permanent religious reform hopeless. Image-worship could not be suppressed by such halfhearted worshippers of Jehovah, and hence, Jehovah’s moral government of His people must have made it certain to Hosea that even on this ground alone the dynasty of Jehu could not escape an overthrow.
yet a little while, and I will avenge ] ‘Avenge’; lit. ‘visit’. Hosea represents (like a fellow-prophet, Amo 7:9) the destruction of the northern kingdom as synchronizing with the overthrow of Jehu’s dynasty. This was a remarkable proof of insight into God’s purposes. Both prophets saw the beginning of the end, though the final catastrophe (722) took place about nineteen years later than the death of Jeroboam II. (741).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Call his name Jezreel – that is, in its first sense here, God will scatter. The life of the prophet, and his union with one so unworthy of him, were a continued prophecy of Gods mercy. The names of the children were a life-long admonition of His intervening judgments. Since Israel refused to hear Gods words, He made the prophets sons, through the mere fact of their presence among them, their going out and coming in, and the names which He gave them, to be preachers to the people. He depicted in them and in their names what was to be, in order that, whenever they saw or heard of them, His warnings might be forced upon them, and those who would take warning, might be saved. If, with their mothers disgrace, these sons inherited and copied their mothers sins, then their names became even more expressive, that, being such as they were, they would be scattered by God, would not be owned by God as His people, or be pitied by Him.
I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu – Yet Jehu shed this blood, the blood of the house of Ahab, of Joram and Jezebel and the seventy sons of Ahab, at Gods command and in fulfillment of His will. How was it then sin? Because, if we do what is the will of God for any end of our own, for anything except God, we do, in fact, our own will, not Gods. It was not lawful for Jehu to depose and slay the king his master, except at the command of God, who, as the Supreme King, sets up and puts down earthly rulers as He wills. For any other end, and done otherwise than at Gods express command, such an act is sin. Jehu was rewarded for the measure in which he fulfilled Gods commands, as Ahab who had sold himself to work wickedness, had yet a temporal reward for humbling himself publicly, when rebuked by God for his sin, and so honoring God, amid an apostate people. But 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 have equally disobeyed the other, had it been contrary to his own will of 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 the prince over My people Israel 1Ki 16:2, which he became by slaying his master, the son of Jeroboam, and all the house of Jeroboam. 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 1Ki 16:7. 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 offence 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. So awful a thing is it, 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.
And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel – Not the kingdom of the house of Jehu, but all Israel. God had promised that the family of Jehu should sit on the throne to the fourth generation. Jeroboam II, the third of these, was now reigning over Israel, in the fulness of his might. He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath 2Ki 14:25, i. e., from the Northern extremity, near Mount Hermon, where Palestine joins on to Syria, and, which Solomon only in all his glory had won for Israel, unto the sea of the plain 2Ch 8:3-4, the Dead sea, regaining all which Hazael had conquered 2Ki 10:32-33, and even subduing Moab also (see the note at Amo 6:14), according to the word of the Lord by Jonah the son of Amittan. He had recovered to Israel, Damascus, which had been lost to Judah, ever since the close of the reign of Solomon 1Ki 11:24. He was a warlike prince, like that first Jeroboam, who had formed the strength and the sin of the ten tribes. Yet both his house and his kingdom fell with him. The whole history of that kingdom afterward is little more than that of the murder of one family by another, such as is spoken of in the later chapters of Hosea; and Israel, i. e., the ten tribes, were finally carried captive, fifty years after the death of Zechariah, Jeroboams son. Of so little account is any seeming prosperity or strength.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Hos 1:4
Call his name Jezreel.
Judgment on the house of Ahab
Jezreel means, the child of guilt; therefore not Israel, but Jezreel (or more exactly, Izreel). The name is referred to for its historical associations. It points both backwards and forwards–backward to the massacre of Ahabs family by Jehu (2Ki 9:10), and forward to the punishment for that wild and cruel act. Hosea (in whom natural peculiarities have been purified and not extinguished by the spirit of prophecy) regards the conduct of Jehu in a different light from the writer of 2Ki 10:30. The latter praises Jehu for having done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in My mind; he speaks on the assumption that Jehu had the interests of Jehovahs worship at heart, and that he destroyed the house of Ahab as the only effectual means of advancing them. The former blames Jehu apparently on the high moral ground that Jehovah desires mercy (love) and not sacrifice (Hos 6:6). He speaks as the Israelites of his time doubtless felt. They no more recognised Jehu as a champion of Jehovah than did the priests of Baal whom he basely entrapped. But Hosea doubtless felt in addition that the idolatry to which the house of Jehu was addicted rendered a permanent religious reform hopeless. Image-worship could not be suppressed by such half-hearted worshippers of Jehovah, and hence, Jehovahs moral government of His people must have made it certain to Hosea that even on this ground alone the dynasty of Jehu could not escape an overthrow. (T. K. Cheyne, D. D.)
And I will avenge the blood of Jezreel–
God as the family God, or Avenger
We have no such associations with the word avenge as were familiar to ancient Eastern people, and are familiar in tribal life to-day. In the East the avenger is the vindicator of a family wrong by securing the adequate punishment of the wrong-doer. In a rude state of society, the nearest relative of a person slain was conceived as under obligation to put the slayer to death. He had to be the avenger of blood. Dr. S. Cox tells us that the main functions of the Goel were three, or rather that there were three tragic contingencies in which the legal redeemer and avenger was bound to interpose.
1. If any Hebrew had fallen into such penury as that he was compelled to part with his ancestral estate, the Goel was bound to purchase it, and, after certain conditions had been observed, to restore it to his impoverished kinsman.
2. If any Hebrew had been taken captive, or had sold himself for a slave, the Goel was bound to pay the price of his redemption, to unloose and set him free.
3. If any Hebrew had suffered grievous wrong, or had been slain, the Goel was bound to exact compensation for the wrong, or to avenge his murder. In the case introduced by the text, we are to understand that the slaughter of the house of Ahab had not yet been avenged, though three generations had passed. There seemed to be no one left of the house of Ahab to do the duty of the avenger. So God took it directly upon Himself. I will avenge the blood of Jezreel. This must be regarded as a striking instance of representing God as feeling, and then doing, as a man would feel and do under such circumstances. The case occasions difficulty to us, because no private and personal avengements of wrongs done are now permitted. All wrongs are judicially treated. But in revealing Himself and His will, God must always speak in the range of knowledge, sentiment, and association of those whom He addresses, or He could not be understood by them. To those who knew about avengers He could present Himself as the great Avenger. And if there are bad sides to the avengers work, we must not fail to see that there are also good sides, add that we may take the good sides to represent God. The idea that can be helpfully worked out for a modem congregation is, that God never neglects wrongs that are done to His people. He may seem to delay, He may even wait for generations; but His injured people are always vindicated at last. The wrong-doer may seem to escape punishment, he never really does. He may seem to prosper, but there is surely a worm whose work is spoiling his prosperity. The Lord is the Avenger of all His injured ones; and the woes that eventually come upon all wrong-doers vindicate His people and vindicate Him. Gods avenging is always only a part of His redeeming. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)
The blood of Jezreel
The name signifies the scattered of the Lord. Five reasons why the son of Hosea was to be called by this name.
1. That hereby God might show that He intended to avenge that blood which was shed in Jezreel.
2. To show that Israel had lost the honour of His name, and was no more Israel, but Jezreel. (Israel is one that prevails by the strength of the Lord. Jezreel is one that is scattered by the Lord.)
3. To show the way that God intended to bring judgment upon these ten tribes.
4. To note that the Lord would scatter them in that very place wherein they most gloried. (Jerome says the Israelite army was defeated in the valley of Jezreel before Samaria was taken.)
5. The Lord would hereby show that He would turn these conceits and apprehensions that they might have of themselves quite the contrary way.
I. What is this blood of Jezreel that God will avenge? (2Ki 9:10-11). It was the blood of the house of Ahab.
II. Why will God avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu? Because–
1. Jehu looked to his own ends, rather than to God.
2. Because he did his work but by halves.
3. Because be proved Ahabs successor in his idolatry.
A man may do that which God commands, and yet not really obey God. And God knows how to make use of mens parts and abilities, and yet to punish them for their wickedness notwithstanding.
III. Why is it called the house of Jehu? The house of Jehu is his posterity, or family, who were to succeed. The posterity of the ungodly shall suffer for their fathers sin. Only the second commandment threatens the sin of the fathers upon the children.
IV. What is this little while God speaks of? It was a long time–three generations–before God came upon the house of Jehu, still He saith, yet but a little while, or, I will stay but a little longer, ere I avenge the blood of Jezreel.
1. God sometimes comes upon sinners for their sins. It is likely that these sins of Jehu were forgotten, yet God comes now at last to avenge the sins of Jehu upon his house. Youthful sins may prove to be the terror of age.
2. A long time after the flourishing of a nation God may reckon with it in ways of judgment.
3. Seventy-six years are but a little while in Gods account.
4. The apprehension of a judgment just at hand is that which will stir the heart and work upon it most.
5. God suffers some sinners to continue long, others He cuts off speedily. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Scattered by God
1. Whatever present fruits men may seem to reap by sin, yet at last, being continued in, it will ripen to a height, and fit for strokes.
2. Notwithstanding that sinners in the Church do conceit of their privileges, God will plague them, and make their judgment conspicuous.
3. Men may not only be doing what God in His providence will permit to succeed, but even that which is in itself just, and yet be guilty before God, and justly punished for it, when either they do not the Lords work sincerely, but for their own base ends and interests, or when they do it not thoroughly, but only in so far as may serve their own turn. (George Hutcheson.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. Call his name Jezreel] that is, God will disperse. This seems to intimate that a dispersion or sowing of Israel shall take place; which happened under Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 2Kg 17:5-6. But the word refers also to the name of a city, where Jehu slew Jezebel and all the children of Ahab. 2Kg 9:10; 2Kg 9:36; 2Kg 10:6.
This was one of those prophetic names which we so often meet with in the Scriptures; e.g. Japheth Abraham, Israel, Judah, Joshua, Zerubbabel, Solomon, Sheer-jashub, c.
The blood of Jezreel] Not Jehu’s vengeance on Ahab’s family, but his acts of cruelty while he resided at Jezreel, a city in the tribe of Issachar, Jos 19:18, where the kings of Israel had a palace, 1Kg 21:1.
Will cause to cease the kingdom] Either relating to the cutting off of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, see Ho 1:6, or to the ceasing of the kingdom of Israel from the house of Jehu, 2Kg 10:30, and which was fulfilled, 2Kg 15:10. – Newcome.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And the Lord said unto him, Hosea the prophet, who as in taking to wife an adulteress, so in giving name to his son by her, was to presignify Israels future calamities. Call his name, thy son now born,
Jezreel: the word is, The seed of the Lord, or, The arm of the Lord, or, The Lord will scatter; so it may insinuate that God by his own arm will scatter among the people, i.e. the Assyrians, those who were his people or seed. But we have a surer guide to lead us through this, i.e. the history of what was by Jehu done in Jezreel; of which more presently.
For; this is the reason why the prophets son is so called.
Yet a little while: it was four generations of Jehu God promised the throne to, and now the third that is now running, how near to an end we know not, but are sure it was within twenty-eight years; for Jeroboam began his reign in the fifteenth of Amaziah, and so thirteen years of his forty-one are spent ere Uzziah comes to the throne, 2Ki 14:23; this according to one account: but 2Ki 15:1 accounteth Jeroboams twenty-seventh to be the first of Uzziah, and then there are not above fourteen years to come; so little a while was this here spoken of, for in six months after Jeroboams death Shallum conspired against Zachariah, and slew him, and reigned a month; so Jehus seed was cast out of the throne.
Will avenge; inquire after and punish these crimes, which were committed in Jezreel. Heb. I will visit, i.e. as a just and impartial judge I will require an account, and execute punishments.
The blood: murders committed are in Scripture expressed thus by blood: here are particularly meant the slaughters made by Jehus hand or by his order, 2Ki 9:10,11; 10:1-7, in Jezreel, where he did with a treacherous mind, and aiming at his own greatness, destroy Ahabs house, and slew Ahaziah king of Judah also. This was the just judgment of God upon that wicked house by Jehu executed, but he did it not with that mind God required.
Of Jezreel; the town which Ahab chose above others to dwell in, where the dogs licked up Ahabs blood, when his chariot was washed and cleansed of the blood of that slain king, and where dogs did eat Jezebel, as the prophet threatened, 1Ki 21:23.
Upon the house of Jehu; which had now possessed the throne (Jehu usurped) through the reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jeroboam; but the usurper and his successors adhering to the idolatry of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and adding other sins to it, had now provoked God to declare a sudden extirpation of the family, which God will in his just revenge make as like to Jeroboams family as Ahabs, and they had made themselves like them in sin; all which came to pass when Shallum, conspiring against Zachariah, slew him, 2Ki 15:10. And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel; not immediately, but soon after the death of Zachariah, the kingdom of Israel did cease first to be free, for Menahem made it tributary to strengthen himself; so it is likely it continued for ten years during his life, and two years during his son Pekahiahs reign; after him Pekah the conspirator and murderer usurped the throne for twenty years, and probably was feudatory to Tiglath-pileser; to be sure Hoses was so, and in his ninth year this word was fulfilled in the letter of it, the kingdom of Israel, after one and forty years tottering, fell to utter ruin, and hath so continued to this day. Israel, or the ten tribes divided from the house of David.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Jezreelthat is, “Godwill scatter” (compare Zec10:9). It was the royal city of Ahab and his successors, in thetribe of Issachar. Here Jehu exercised his greatest cruelties(2Ki 9:16; 2Ki 9:25;2Ki 9:33; 2Ki 10:11;2Ki 10:14; 2Ki 10:17).There is in the name an allusion to “Israel” by a play ofletters and sounds.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord said unto him call his name Jezreel,…. Which some interpret the “seed of God”, as Jerom; or “arm of God”, as others; and Kimchi applies it to Jeroboam the son of Joash, who was strong, and prospered in his kingdom; but it rather signifies “God will sow”, or “scatter” n; denoting either their dissension among themselves; or their dispersion among the nations, which afterwards came to pass; and so the Targum, “call their name scattered”; and alluding also to the city of Jezreel, where some of the idolatrous kings of Israel lived, and where much blood had been shed, which should be avenged, as follows:
for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu; not the blood of Naboth the Jezreelite, that was shed by Ahab; but the blood of Joram the son of Ahab, and seventy other sons of his, and all his great men, kinsfolks and priests, shed by Jehu in this place; and though this was done according to the will of God, and for which he received the kingdom, and it was continued in his family to the fourth generation; yet, inasmuch as this was not done by him from a pure and hearty zeal for the Lord and his worship, and with a sincere view to his glory, but in order to gain the kingdom, increase his power, and satiate his tyranny and lust; and because, though he destroyed one species of idolatry, the worship of Baal, yet he continued another, the worshipping of the calves at Dan and Bethel, and regarded not the law of the Lord, and so his successors after him; and were the means of causing many to sin, and so consequently of the ruin of many souls, whose blood would be required of them, which some take to be the meaning here; this is threatened; see 2Ki 9:24. It may be observed, that God sometimes punishes the instruments he makes use of in doing his work; they either over doing it, exercising too much cruelty; and not doing it upon right principles, and with right views, as the kings of Assyria and Babylon, Isa 10:5. It is here said to be but a little while ere this vengeance would be taken, it being at the latter end of Jeroboam’s reign when this prophecy was delivered out; and his son Zachariah, in whom the kingdom as in his family ceased, reigned but six months, being conspired against and slain by Shallum, who reigned in his stead, 2Ki 15:8. The Targum is,
“for yet a little while I will avenge the blood of those that worship idols which Jehu shed in Jezreel, whom he slew because they served Baal; but they turned to err after the calves which were in Bethel; therefore I will reckon that innocent blood upon the house of Jehu:”
and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel; that is, in the family of Jehu; Zachariah the son of the then reigning prince being the last, and his reign only the short reign of six months; unless this has reference to the utter cessation of this kingdom as such in the times of Hoshea by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, 2Ki 17:6.
n A rad. “seminavit, disseminavit”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“And Jehovah said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little, and I visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The prophet is directed by God as to the names to be given to his children, because the children, as the fruit of the marriage, as well as the marriage itself, are instructive signs for the idolatrous Israel of the ten tribes. The first son is named Jezreel, after the fruitful plain of Jezreel on the north side of the Kishon (see at Jos 17:16); not, however, with any reference to the appellative meaning of the name, viz., “God sows,” which is first of all alluded to in the announcement of salvation in Hosea 2:24-25, but, as the explanation which follows clearly shows, on account of the historical importance which this plain possessed for Israel, and that not merely as the place where the last penal judgment of God was executed in the kingdom of Israel, as Hengstenberg supposes, but on account of the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, i.e., because Israel had there contracted such blood-guiltiness as was now speedily to be avenged upon the house of Jehu. At the city of Jezreel, which stood in this plain, Ahab had previously filled up the measure of his sin by the ruthless murder of Naboth, and had thus brought upon himself that blood-guiltiness for which he had been threatened with the extermination of all his house (1Ki 21:19.). Then, in order to avenge the blood of all His servants the prophets, which Ahab and Jezebel had shed, the Lord directed Elisha to anoint Jehu king, with a commission to destroy the whole of Ahab’s house (2Ki 9:1.). Jehu obeyed this command. Not only did he slay the son of Ahab, viz., king Koram, and cause his body to be thrown upon the portion of land belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite, appealing at the same time to the word of the Lord (2Ki 9:21-26), but he also executed the divine judgment upon Jezebel, upon the seventy sons of Ahab, and upon all the rest of the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:30-10:17), and received the following promise from Jehovah in consequence: “Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, because thou hast done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, sons of thine of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel” (2Ki 10:30). It is evident from this that the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, which was to be avenged upon the house of Jehu, is not to be sought for in the fact that Jehu had there exterminated the house of Ahab; nor, as Hitzig supposes, in the fact that he had not contented himself with slaying Joram and Jezebel, but had also put Ahaziah of Judah and his brethren to death (2Ki 9:27; 2Ki 10:14), and directed the massacre described in 2Ki 10:11. For an act which God praises, and for which He gives a promise to the performer, cannot be in itself an act of blood-guiltiness. And the slaughter of Ahaziah and his brethren by Jehu, though not expressly commanded, is not actually blamed in the historical account, because the royal family of Judah had been drawn into the ungodliness of the house of Ahab, through its connection by marriage with that dynasty; and Ahaziah and his brethren, as the sons of Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab, belonged both in descent and disposition to the house of Ahab (2Ki 8:18, 2Ki 8:26-27), so that, according to divine appointment, they were to perish with it. Many expositors, therefore, understand by “the blood of Jezreel,” simply the many acts of unrighteousness and cruelty which the descendants of Jehu had committed in Jezreel, or “the grievous sins of all kinds committed in the palace, the city, and the nation generally, which were to be expiated by blood, and demanded as it were the punishment of bloodshed” (Marck). But we have no warrant for generalizing the idea of d e me in this way; more especially as the assumption upon which the explanation is founded, viz., that Jezreel was the royal residence of the kings of the house of Jehu, not only cannot be sustained, but is at variance with 2Ki 15:8, 2Ki 15:13, where Samaria is unquestionably described as the royal residence in the times of Jeroboam II and his son Zechariah. The blood-guiltinesses ( d e me ) at Jezreel can only be those which Jehu contracted at Jezreel, viz., the deeds of blood recorded in 2 Kings 9 and 10, by which Jehu opened the way for himself to the throne, since there are no others mentioned.
The apparent discrepancy, however, that whereas the extermination of the royal family of Ahab by Jehu is commended by God in the second book of Kings, and Jehu is promised the possession of the throne even to the fourth generation of this sons in consequence, in the passage before us the very same act is charged against him as an act of blood-guiltiness that has to be punished, may be solved very simply by distinguishing between the act in itself, and the motive by which Jehu was instigated. In itself, i.e., regarded as the fulfilment of the divine command, the extermination of the family of Ahab was an act by which Jehu could not render himself criminal. But even things desired or commanded by God may becomes crimes in the case of the performer of them, when he is not simply carrying out the Lord’s will as the servant of God, but suffers himself to be actuated by evil and selfish motives, that is to say, when he abuses the divine command, and makes it the mere cloak for the lusts of his own evil heart. That Jehu was actuated by such motives as this, is evident enough from the verdict of the historian in 2Ki 10:29, 2Ki 10:31, that Jehu did indeed exterminate Baal out of Israel, but that he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, from the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, to walk in the law of Jehovah the God of Israel with all his heart. “The massacre, therefore,” as Calvin has very correctly affirmed, “was a crime so far as Jehu was concerned, but with God it was righteous vengeance.” Even if Jehu did not make use of the divine command as a mere pretext for carrying out the plans of his own ambitious heart, the massacre itself became an act of blood-guiltiness that called for vengeance, from the fact that he did not take heed to walk in the law of God with all his heart, but continued the worship of the calves, that fundamental sin of all the kings of the ten tribes. For this reason, the possession of the throne was only promised to him with a restriction to sons of the fourth generation. On the other hand, it is no argument against this, that “the act referred to cannot be regarded as the chief crime of Jehu and his house,” or that “the bloody act, to which the house of Jehu owed its elevation, never appears elsewhere as the cause of the catastrophe which befall this houses; but in the case of all the members of his family, the only sin to which prominence is given in the books of Kings, is that they did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam (2Ki 13:2, 2Ki 13:11; 2Ki 14:24; 2Ki 15:9)” (Hengstenberg). For even though this sin in connection with religion may be the only one mentioned in the books of Kings, according to the plan of the author of those books, and though this may really have been the principal act of sin; it was through that sin that the bloody deeds of Jehu became such a crime as cried to heaven for vengeance, like the sin of Ahab, and such an one also as Hosea could describe as the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, which the Lord would avenge upon the house of Jehu at Jezreel, since the object in this case was not to enumerate all the sins of Israel, and the fact that the apostasy of the ten tribes, which is condemned in the book of Kings as the sin of Jeroboam, is represented here under the image of whoredom, shows very clearly that the evil root alone is indicated, out of which all the sins sprang that rendered the kingdom ripe for destruction. Consequently, it is not merely the fall of the existing dynasty which is threatened here, but also the suppression of the kingdom of Israel. The “kingdom of the house of Israel” is obviously not the sovereignty of the house of Jehu in Israel, but the regal sovereignty in Israel. And to this the Lord will put an end , i.e., in a short time. The extermination of the house of Jehu occurred not long after the death of Jeroboam, when his son was murdered in connection with Shallum’s conspiracy (2Ki 15:8.). And the strength of the kingdom was also paralyzed when the house of Jehu fell, although fifty years elapsed before its complete destruction. For of the five kings who followed Zechariah, only one, viz., Menahem, died a natural death, and was succeeded by his son. The rest were all dethroned and murdered by conspirators, so that the overthrow of the house of Jehu may very well be called “the beginning of the end, the commencement of the process of decomposition” (Hengstenberg: compare the remarks on 2Ki 15:10.).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
It now follows, the wife conceived, — the imaginary one, the wife as represented and exhibited. She conceived, he says, and bare a son: then said Jehovah to him, Call his name Jezreel. Many render יזרעאל, Izroal, dispersion, and follow the Chaldean paraphraser. They also think that this ambiguous term contains some allusion; for as זרע, zaro is seed, they suppose that the Prophet indirectly glances at the vain boasting of the people; for they called themselves the chosen seed, because they had been planted by the Lord; hence the name Jezreel. But the Prophet here, according to these interpreters, exposes this folly to contempt; as though he said, “Ye are Israel; but in another respect, ye are dispersion: for as the seed is cast in various directions so the Lord will scatter you, and thus destroy and cast you away. You think yourselves to have been planted in this land, and to have a standing from which you can never be shaken or torn away; but the Lord will, with his own hand, lay hold on you to cast you away to the remotest regions of the world.” This sense is what many interpreters give; nor do I deny but that the Prophet alludes to the words sowing and seed; with this I disagree not: only it seems to me that the Prophet looks farther, and intimates that they were wholly degenerate, not the true nor the genuine offspring of Abraham.
There is, as we see, much affinity between the names Jezreel and Israel. How honourable is the name, Israel, it is evident from its etymology; and we also know that it was given from above to the holy father Jacob. God, then, the bestower of this name, procured by his own authority, that those called Israelites should be superior to others: and then we must remember the reason why Jacob was called Israel; for he had a contest with God, and overcame in the struggle, (Gen 32:28.) Hence the posterity of Abraham gloried that they were Israelites. And the prophet Isaiah also glances at this arrogance, when he says,
‘
Come ye who are called by the name of Israel,’ (Isa 48:1😉
as though he said, “Ye are Israelites, but only as to the title, for the reality exists not in you.”
Let us now return to our Hosea. Call, he says his name Jezreel; (5) as though he said, “They call themselves Israelites; but I will show, by a little change in the word, that they are degenerate and spurious, for they are Jezreelites rather than Israelites.” And it appears that Jezreel was the metropolis of the kingdom in the time of Ahab, and where also that great slaughter was made by Jehu, which is related in 2Kg 10:0 We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet to be, that the whole kingdom had degenerated from its first beginning, and could no longer be deemed as including the race of Abraham; for the people had, by their own perfidy, fallen from that honour, and lost their first name. God then, by way of contempt, calls them Jezreelites, and not Israelites.
A reason afterwards follows which confines this view, For yet a little while, and I will visit the slaughters of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. Here interpreters labour not a little, because it seems strange that God should visit the slaughter made by Jehu, which yet he had approved; nay, Jehu did nothing thoughtlessly, but knew that he was commanded to execute that vengeance. He was, therefore, God’s legitimate minister; and why is what God commanded imputed to him now as a crime? This reasoning has driven some interpreters to take “bloods” here for wicked deeds in general: ‘I will avenge the sins of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.’ Some say, “I will avenge the slaughter of Naboth:” but this is wholly absurd, nor can it suit the place, for, “upon the house of Jehu,” is distinctly expressed; and God did not visit the slaughter on the house of Jehu, but on the house of Ahab. But they who are thus embarrassed do not consider what the Prophet has in view. For God, when he wished Jehu with his drawn sword to destroy the whole house of Ahab, had this end as his object, — that Jehu should restore pure worship, and cleanse the land from all defilements. Jehu then was stirred up by the Spirit of God, that he might re-establish God’s pure worship. When a defender of religion, how did he act? He became contented with his prey. After having seized on the kingdom for himself, he confirmed idolatry and every abomination. He did not then spend his labour for God. Hence that slaughter with regard to Jehu was robbery; with regard to God it was a just revenge. this view ought to satisfy us as to the explanation of this passage; and I bring nothing but what the Holy Scripture contains. For after Jehu seemed to burn with zeal for God, he soon proved that there was nothing sincere in his heart; for he embraced all the superstitions which previously prevailed in the kingdom of Israel. In short, the reformation under Jehu was like that under Henry King of England; who, when he saw that he could not otherwise shake off the yoke of the Roman Antichrist than by some disguise, pretended great zeal for a time: he afterwards raged cruelly against all the godly, and doubled ( duplicavit — duplicated) the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff: and such was Jehu.
When we duly consider what was done by Henry, it was indeed an heroic valour to deliver his kingdom from the hardest of tyrannies: but yet, with regard to him, he was certainly worse than all the other vassals of the Roman Antichrist; for they who continue under that bondage, retain at least some kind of religion; but he was restrained by no shame from men, and proved himself wholly void of every fear towards God. He was a monster, ( homo belluinus — a beastly man) and such was Jehu.
Now, when the Prophet says, I will avenge the slaughters of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, it is no matter of wonder. How so? For it was the highest honour to him, that God anointed him king, that he, who was of a low family, was chosen a king by the Lord. He ought then to have stretched every nerve to restore God’s pure worship, and to destroy all superstitions. This he did not; on the contrary, he confirmed them. He was then a robber, and as to himself, no minister of God.
The meaning of the whole then is this: “Ye are not Israelites, (there is here only an ambiguity as to the pronunciation of one letter,) but Jezreelites;” which means, “Ye are not the descendants of Jacob, but Jezreelites;” that is, “Ye are a degenerate people, and differ nothing from king Ahab. He was accursed, and under him the kingdom became accursed. Are ye changed? Is there any reformation? Since then ye are obstinate in your wickedness, though ye proudly claim the name of Jacob, ye are yet unworthy of such an honour. I therefore call you Jezreelites.”
And the reason is added, For yet a little while, and I will visit the slaughters upon the house of Jehu. God now shows that the people were destitute of all glory. But they thought that the memory of all sins had been buried since the time that the house of Ahab had been cut off. “Why? I will avenge these slaughters,” saith the Lord. It is customary, we know, with hypocrites, after having punished one sin, to think that all things are lawful to them, and to wish to be thus discharged before God. A thief will punish a murder, but he himself will commit many murders. He thinks himself redeemed, because he has paid God the price in punishing one man; but he lets go others, who have been his accomplices, and he himself hesitates not to commit many unjust murders. Since, then, hypocrites thus mock God, the Prophet now justly shakes off such senselessness, and says, I will avenge these slaughters. “Do ye think it a deed worthy of praise in Jehu, to destroy and root out the house of Ahab? I indeed commanded it to be done but he turned the vengeance enjoined on him to another end.” How so? Because he became a robber; for he did not punish the sins of Ahab, because he did the same himself to the end of life, and continued to do the same in his posterity, for Jeroboam was the fourth from him in the kingdom. “Since, then, Jehu did not change the condition of the country, and ye have ever been obstinate in your wickedness, I will avenge these slaughters.”
This is a remarkable passage; for it shows that it is not enough, nay, that it is of no moment, that a man should conduct himself honourably before men, except he possesses also an upright and sincere heart. He then who punishes evil deeds in others, ought himself to abstain from them, and to measure the same justice to himself as he does to others; for he who takes to himself a liberty to sin, and yet punishes others, provokes against himself the wrath of God.
We now then perceive the true sense of this sentence, I will avenge the slaughters of Jezreel, to be this, that he would avenge the slaughters made in the valley of Jezreel on the house of Jehu. It is added and I will abolish the kingdom of the house of Israel. The house of Israel he calls that which had separated from the family of David, as though he said, “This is a separated house.” God had indeed joined the whole people together, and they became one body. It was torn asunder under Jeroboam. This was God’s dreadful judgement; for it was the same as if the people, like a torn body, had been cut into two parts. But God, however, had hitherto preserved these two parts, as though they were but one body, and would have become the Redeemer of both people, had not a base defection followed. And the Israelites having become, as it were, putrified, so as now to be no part of his chosen people, our Prophet, by way of contempt and reproach, rightly calls them the house of Israel. It now follows —
(5) The explanation given of this word by Horsley does not in the least correspond with the context, or with the reason afterwards assigned for it. He interprets in “the seed of God,” meaning the servants of God, according to the supposed etymology of the word: but the first son of Hosea was called Jezreel, as stated expressly on account of what was to take place in the city, or in the valley of Jezreel. And to say that as the word is taken in its etymological sense in Hos 2:22, it ought to be so taken here, is no valid reason. When a word, as in this case, has two meanings, it is the context that must be our guide, and not the sense of it in another chapter. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Jezreel means God shall sow. The prophet had already discovered the faithlessness of his spouse, and that his married life was symbolic of his nations history. Observe the resemblance in sound between Jezreel and Israel, and the historic associations of the former. It was the name of a very fertile plain in the tribe of Issachar, which was many times the scene of terrible struggles (Jdg. 4:13; Jdg. 6:33; Jdg. 7:1; 1Sa. 29:1). It was also the name of a town associated with the guilt of Ahab and Jezebel in bringing about the murder of Naboth (1 Kings 21), and with the final extinction of Ahabs house by Jehu (2Ki. 9:21; 2Ki. 10:11).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Jezreel That is, God sows. The name was to be given, as the next line shows, not on account of its meaning but on account of its historical connections. Jezreel is the well-known city of that name in the Plain of Jezreel.
Blood Or, blood-guiltiness (G.-K., 124n); the extinction of the house of Ahab by Jehu, about 842 B.C. (2 Kings 9, 10). The name, therefore, points both backward and forward backward to the crime and forward to the punishment. Not only the dynasty of Jehu is to be destroyed, but also the northern kingdom. The events are thought to be imminent.
Yet a little while In this the prophet was not mistaken, for the fulfillment in each case took place within a few years, though not at one time; the farmer in the assassination of Zechariah by the usurper Shallum (2Ki 15:10), the latter in the fall of Samaria and the exile of the northern tribes in 722-721 B.C. (2 Kings 17). One cannot fail to see that the standpoint of Hosea is not the same as that of 2Ki 10:30. There Jehu is highly commended for the very act condemned here. How are we to explain the difference? The attempt to prove that Hosea has in mind some other crime is futile. The explanation lies in the advance in religious and ethical conceptions during the intervening century. The character of Jehovah never changes; but the conceptions of his character, even by the inspired prophets, did change and advance. It seems that the prophets of the ninth century had not yet learned “that the cause of truth is not permanently advanced by intrigue and bloodshed,” while Hosea is advancing toward the Christian belief that the kingdom of God must be extended by the moral influence going out from the kingdom; a view held also by the author of Isa 2:2-4. It should be noted, however, that some deny that Hosea’s judgment differed from that of the author of 2Ki 10:30; and they explain the prophet’s condemnation by assuming that he recognized a wrong motive, unnoticed by the historian, behind Jehu’s act. “The same historical fact which, if it had proceeded from high motives, would have been praiseworthy as pleasing to God may, if arising from other motives, be unpardonable sin in the sight of God.” In addition it is claimed that Jehu went to excess in executing the divine command (2Ki 9:27; 2Ki 10:13-14).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And YHWH said to him, “Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom (or kingship) of the house of Israel to cease. And it will come about at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel”.’
Hosea was commanded by YHWH to name his firstborn son ‘Jezreel’. This was to be a sign that in a short while He would avenge the bloodbath of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu (that is would avenge the slaughter at Jezreel, not only of the kings of Israel and Judah, but also all of their retainers – see 2Ki 10:11). This was something which would be accomplished in the Valley of Jezreel where Israel’s bow would be broken and the kingdom of the house of Israel would cease.
The ‘breaking of the bow of Israel’ (compare Psa 46:9; Jer 49:35) indicated that the power of her army would be broken, her strength would be gone, and that her armaments in which she prided herself (certainly in the time of Jeroboam II) would be captured by the enemy and disposed of. It was the indication of a heavy military defeat and the cessation of her ability to make war (Psa 46:9). Because of its position (see below) Jezreel was always a prime target for invading armies intent on defeating Israel.
This was no light message. It was an indication of YHWH’s coming judgment on the dynasty of the reigning king (thus placing this prophecy prior to 753 BC), as well as of the final destruction of the kingdom, and it would in consequence hardly have made Hosea popular in royal circles. ‘At that day’ refers to the day of Israel’s demise.
The reason for the need for vengeance would appear to be because, while Jehu had initially acted with prophetic approval in slaughtering the kings, and had delivered Israel from the royal house which was propagating the Phoenician Baal (Baal Melqart), even receiving the commendation of YHWH for doing so, he had gone too far by following out his own purposes, and had thus himself disobeyed YHWH. It was true that God had commended his partial obedience, declaring “Because you have done well in executing what is right in my eyes, because you have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, sons of yours of the fourth generation will sit on the throne of Israel” (2Ki 10:30). But the limit to ‘the fourth generation’ indicated only qualified approval. He was being rewarded for what he had done, but his house would eventually be punished for his over excess, and for his failing to do what he should have done. For in his excess he had gone far beyond the house of Ahab in his bloodshed, and in his folly he and his dynasty, (including Jeroboam who had been especially ‘blessed’ and therefore had little excuse), had not been so careful about the restoration of pure Yahwism.
The only thing that could remotely have justified the kind of bloodbath in which Jehu engaged (and even then it would not have justified his over excess in doing so), would have been the dedicated intention to return the whole of the nation to pure Yahwism. But instead of that, the house of Jehu had allowed the syncretistic worship at Bethel to carry on, with its golden calf, its compromises with Baalism (which are reflected in Hos 2:16), and its uncontrolled Baal worship at high places on mountain summits. In other words its obedience had fallen far short of God’s requirements.
Consequently Jehu’s purges were seen to have been mainly self-serving, in that they had not resulted in a return to pure Yahwism. This indicated that Yahwism had simply been used as an excuse for his actions and in order to curry favour among the more religiously minded in Israel, rather than being an affair of the heart. As a consequence Jehu’s dynasty were considered to have condemned themselves, because their actions were seen to have arisen, not out of a true concern for YHWH, but from political opportunism parading under the guise of religious zeal. To be the Lord’s executioner was a serious matter, and to do it excessively, for the totally wrong reasons, could only inevitably lead to judgment on those who so involved themselves.
This is brought out by the fact that his reward, even initially, was limited to four generations, and by the fact that YHWH’s commendation in 2Ki 10:30 is itself placed between a reference to his continuing in the syncretistic and illegal worship instituted by Jeroboam I, and a further reference to the same in terms of his failure to walk in the law of YHWH the God of Israel with all his heart (2Ki 10:29-31). Like Nebuchadnezzar (who was also YHWH’s instrument, but went too far – Isa 10:5-12), he was YHWH’s instrument, but he was seen to be an unsatisfactory instrument.
So the combined significance of the name Jezreel was that it indicated the coming of the end of the royal dynasty of Jehu because of its blood-guiltiness, and the total defeat of Israel at the hands of its enemies.
However, the significance of the name ‘Jezreel’ does not stop there, for Jezreel not only plays an important part in this verse (where it is mentioned three times), but also in Hos 1:11 and Hos 2:22. In Hos 1:11 there is to be a reversal of the situation described here, for in the future, when the peoples of Judah and Israel finally do unite under one head, ‘they will come up out of the land’ (to Jezreel), and ‘great will be the day of Jezreel’. It will then be a place of celebration and rejoicing. Instead of symbolising judgment it will symbolise the triumph of the Davidic king, who will be seen to be reigning in the palace of the kings of Israel as well as in Jerusalem. The kingships of Judah and Israel will once more have been united under one head, and all will look to the one king. What Jehu had done rightly in the slaughtering of the two kings would have its final fruit in the true king reigning over the combined nation. In Hos 2:22 the name ‘Jezreel’ (God sows) symbolises Heaven and earth and all that grows in it, acting because ‘God has sown’ (Jezreel means ‘God sows’), with the result that Israel will be fully restored as God’s people.
So the naming of Hosea’s son as ‘Jezreel’ not only points to judgment on Jehu’s (and Jeroboam’s) dynasty, and the ceasing of the kingdom of Israel, but also to the later triumph of the Davidic king (Hos 1:11) and the future God-wrought restoration of His people (Hos 2:22).
Jezreel was an important site for it overlooked the pass that led from the north into the Coastal Plain (the route regularly taken by conquering kings). It was also the summer palace of the kings of Israel, and was a stout fortress. It was the scene of Ahab’s treachery with regard to Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21). The fortress at the time of Ahab has been excavated, and it was discovered to have had a moat thirty six metres (117 feet) wide. Parts of Israelite buildings have also been found. To Hosea it symbolised kingship in Israel, while at the same time indicating the rejection of idolatrous Samaria. It also signified the protection of the realm. When Jezreel prospered Israel was strong.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Hos 1:4. Call his name Jezreel For the honourable name of Israel is too good for this people. Call them therefore Jezreel, a people devoted to dispersion, and such as I will scatter unto the four winds of heaven, as the seedsman scattereth his seed.
For yet a little while And yet this little while was a long while, through God’s gracious forbearance. Bad as this people were, they should not perish without repeated wanting.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Hos 1:4 And 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.
Ver. 4. Call his name Jezreel ] For the honourable name of Israel is too good for this people; call them therefore Jezreel, a people devoted to dispersion, and such as I will scatter into the four winds of heaven, as the seedsman scattereth his seed ( spargere to scatter). Thus Jeconiah is called Coniah (for a judgment upon him): Bethel, Bethaven; Har, Hammischa, the mount Olivet, or of unction, Har Hammaschith, the mount of corruption, 2Ki 23:13 . And this is not unusual among men; so when they would disgrace a man, to clip or play upon his name: as when they spitefully called Athanasius, Sathanasius; Cyprian, Coprian (as if all his excellent works were but dung); Calvin, Cain, &c. This people, saith God here, are more like Ahab than Jacob. Call them therefore Jezreel (Ahab’s court), that is, a den of thieves and murderers, where innocent Naboth cannot be master of the vineyard that he was born to. Micah (who prophesied also much about these times) hath a saying much to the same purpose, Mic 2:7 : “O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord straitened? are these his doings?” q.d. Ye that boast of Jacob to be your father, do you tread in his steps? are ye of his spirit, of his practice? was there such vile profaneness found in him as is openly found in you? David describeth the generation of such as “seek God, as seek his face,” and then subjoineth, “this is Jacob,” these are Israelites indeed, these are Jews inwardly, Psa 24:6 : and all others are degenerate plants, and are the worse for their outward privileges: since “tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soul of man that doeth evil, but of the Jew first, and then also of the Gentile,” Rom 2:9 .
For yet a little while
And I will cause to cease the kingdom
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jezreel. Note the Figure of speech Paronomasia (App-6) between Israel (Hos 1:1) and Jezreel (Hebrew. Yisra’el and Yizr! eel). The name is prophetic of coming judgment (see Hos 1:5) and future mercy. Jezreel is a Homonym, having two meanings: (1) may GOD scatter (Jer 31:10); and (2) may GOD sow (Zec 10:9). These bind up the two prophetic announcements. Jezreel, the fruitful field, had been defiled with blood (2Ki 9:16, 2Ki 9:25, 2Ki 9:33; 2Ki 10:11, 2Ki 10:14), and Israel shall be scattered, and sown among the nations; but, when God’s counsels are ripe, Israel shall be resown in their own land (See Hos 2:22, Hos 2:23).
a little while. See the fulfillment in Hos 10:14.
will avenge = shall have visited.
blood = blood-guiltiness.
Jezreel. Here, it is used of the valley where the blood was shed.
the house of Jehu. Jehu had carried out the judgment of God on the house of Ahab, because it accorded with his own will; but he was guilty of murder, because it was not executed purely according to the will of God. He would have disobeyed if it had not served his own interest. This is seen from the fact that he practiced Jeroboam’s idolatries, for which Ahab had been judged.
cause to cease, &c. This was fulfilled in 611 B.C. (App-50.) See 2Ki 18:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Call: Hos 1:6, Hos 1:9, Isa 7:14, Isa 9:6, Mat 1:21, Luk 1:13, Luk 1:31, Luk 1:63, Joh 1:42
Jezreel: [Strong’s H3157], God will disperse, as seed is when sown; probably intimating also the speedy dispersion of Israel by Shalmaneser.
and I: 2Ki 9:24, 2Ki 9:25, 2Ki 10:7, 2Ki 10:8, 2Ki 10:10, 2Ki 10:11, 2Ki 10:17, 2Ki 10:29-31, 2Ki 15:10-12
avenge: Heb. visit, Hos 2:13, Hos 9:17, Jer 23:2
will cause: 2Ki 15:29, 2Ki 17:6-23, 2Ki 18:9-12, 1Ch 5:25, 1Ch 5:26, Jer 3:8, Eze 23:10, Eze 23:31
Reciprocal: Gen 4:15 – Therefore Num 22:22 – God’s Jos 17:16 – Jezreel Jos 19:18 – Jezreel 1Sa 29:1 – Jezreel 1Ki 16:7 – because he killed him 1Ki 21:1 – Jezreel 2Ki 10:9 – I conspired 2Ki 10:30 – Because thou hast 2Ki 17:23 – as he had said Isa 9:14 – will cut Isa 17:3 – fortress Jer 7:15 – I will Jer 20:3 – hath Hos 2:22 – and they Hos 4:9 – punish
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 1:4. And the Lord said, Call his name Jezreel This name, compounded of the nouns seed, and , God, signifies the seed of God. The names, it must be observed, imposed upon the womans children by Gods direction, sufficiently declare what particular parts of the Jewish nation were severally represented by them. The persons signified by this the prophets proper son, says Bishop Horsley, were all those true servants of God, scattered among all the twelve tribes of Israel, who, in the times of the nations greatest depravity, worshipped the everlasting God in the hope of the Redeemer to come. These were a holy seed, the genuine sons of God, begotten of him to a lively hope, and the early seed of that church which shall at last embrace all the families of the earth. These are Jezreel, typified by the prophets own son, and rightful heir, as the children of God, and heirs of the promises. For yet a little while And yet this little was a long while, through Gods gracious forbearance. As bad as this people were, they should not perish without warning. , God loves to premonish, or forewarn, says the heathen historian, Herodotus. I will avenge the blood Hebrew, bloods of Jezreel: that is, says Bishop Horsley, the blood of the holy seed, the faithful servants of God, shed by the idolatrous princes of Jehus family in persecution, and the blood of the children shed in their horrible rites upon the altars of their idols. It must be observed further here, that this mystical name of the prophets son, Jezreel, was the name of a city in the tribe of Issachar, and of a valley, or plain, in which the city stood: the city famous for its vineyard, which cost its rightful owner Naboth his life; and, by the righteous judgment of God, gave occasion to the downfall of the royal house of Ahab: the plain, one of the finest parts of the whole land of Canaan. As it was here that Jehu shed the blood of Ahabs family with unsparing hand, many modern expositors, forgetting the prophets son, have thought of nothing in this passage but the place, the city or the plain. And by the blood of Jezreel, which God here threatens to avenge upon the house of Jehu, they have understood the blood of Ahabs posterity; because though, in shedding that blood, Jehu executed the judgment which God had denounced by Elijah against the house of Ahab, for the cruel murder of Naboth; yet, in doing that, he acted from a principle of ambition and cruelty, without any regard to Gods glory, whose worship he forsook, maintaining in the country the idolatry which Jeroboam had first set up. Upon this exposition, Bishop Horsley remarks as follows: It is true, that when the purposes of God are accomplished by the hand of man, the very same act may be just and good as it proceeds from God, and makes a part of the scheme of providence, and criminal in the highest degree as it is performed by the man, who is the immediate agent. The man may act from sinful motives of his own, without any consideration, or knowledge, of the end to which God directs the action. In many cases the man may be incited, by enmity to God and the true religion, to the very act in which he accomplishes Gods secret, or even revealed purpose. The man, therefore, may justly incur wrath and punishment for those very deeds in which, with much evil intention of his own, he is the instrument of Gods good providence. But these distinctions will not apply to the case of Jehu, in such manner as to solve the difficulty arising from this interpretation of the text. Jehu was specially commissioned by a prophet to smite the house of Ahab his master, to avenge the blood of the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, at the hand of Jezebel, 2Ki 9:7. And however the general corruption of human nature, and the recorded imperfections of Jehus character, might give room to suspect, that in the excision of Ahabs family, and of the whole faction of Baals worshippers, he might be instigated by motives of private ambition, and by a cruel, sanguinary disposition, the fact appears from the history to have been otherwise; that he acted, through the whole business, with a conscientious regard to Gods commands, and a zeal for his service, insomuch that, when the work was completed, he received the express approbation of God; and the continuance of the sceptre of Israel in his family, to the fourth generation, was promised as the reward of this good and accepted service: see 2Ki 10:30. And it cannot be conceived, that the very same deed, which was commanded, approved, and rewarded in Jehu, who performed it, should be punished as a crime in Jehus posterity, who had no share in the transaction. For these reasons, I am persuaded that Jezreel is to be taken in this passage in its mystical meaning; and is to be understood of the persons typified by the prophets son the holy seed the true servants and worshippers of God. It is threatened that their blood is to be visited upon the house of Jehu, by which it had been shed. The princes descended from Jehu were all idolaters; and idolaters have always been persecutors of the true religion. In all ages, and in all countries, they have persecuted the Jezreel unto death, whenever they have had the power of doing it. The blood of Jezreel, therefore, which was to be visited on the house of Jehu, was the blood of Gods servants, shed in persecution, and of infants shed upon the altars of their idols, by the idolatrous princes of the line of Jehu. And so the expression was understood by St. Jerome and by Luther. This threatening, denounced against the house of Jehu, was executed in the days of his great-grandson, the son of Jeroboam II., during whose reign Hosea received this prophecy from the Lord. For Zechariah, as we find 2Ki 15:10, was killed by a conspiracy of Shallum, who made himself king in his stead; and, no doubt, many of his kindred, who were of the house of Jehu, were slain with him. And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel In the family of Jehu. Or rather, this is a prophecy of the destruction of the whole kingdom of Israel, which was in a declining condition from the death of Jeroboam, and the history of which, from the usurpation of Shallum, is little else than an account of conspiracies, murders, and usurpations, till it was entirely subverted by the Assyrians; and the people were carried captives into Assyria, and were dispersed through the various provinces of that empire.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1:4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name {e} Jezreel; for yet a little [while], and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of {f} Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
(e) Meaning that they would no longer be called Israelites, which name they boasted because Israel did prevail with God: but that they were as bastards, and therefore should be called Jezreelites, that is, scattered people, alluding to Jezreel, which was the chief city of the ten tribes under Ahab, where Jehu shed so much blood; 1Ki 18:45
(f) I will be avenged upon Jehu for the blood that he shed in Jezreel: for even though God stirred him up to execute his judgments, yet he did them for his own ambition, and not for the glory of God as the intended goal: for he built up that idolatry which he had destroyed.