Hosea, book of
Hosea, Book of
(Hebrew: deliverance)
One of the minor prophets whose career is known only by his prophecy. The introductory verses record that he carried on his ministry during the reigns of the Judean kings Ozias, Joathan, Achaz and Ezechias; and in the days of Jeroboam II the son of Joas, king of Israel. Assuming that Jeroboam commenced his reign in 783 B.C., and that Ezechias ascended the throne in 721, we must conclude that Osee brought God’s message to “the people for a period of 60 years. The field of his activity lay in the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of the 10 tribes that seceded from the house of Juda after the death of Solomon. The book is the first of the so-called Minor Prophets. It consists of 14 chapters, and presents only a brief summary of the message conveyed during a long career. It is difficult to arrive at any definite scheme of division which will satisfy all readers. Brevity commends the tri-partite sketch. The first part runs through three chapters, which assuredly form a connected whole. In a vivid and graphic discourse he portrays Israel as the faithless Bride. Despite her infidelities her Divine Lover remains true to her, induces her to repent and return to her First Love. The second part covers chapters 4 to 9:9. Here God reproaches Israel with her manifold sins, which culminated in a violation of her Covenant with God, and cry out for vengeance. The third part comprises chapters 9:10 to 14:10. God contrasts His blessings with their ungrateful crimes, intimates the doom of puniahment, but concludes with an exhortation to repentance and the vista of dawning salvation. He is the prophet of God’s incredible fidelity in His love for wayward men. The prophet is overpowered with emotion so that his sentences spurt forth abruptly and disconnectedly; they are strung together, not by logic but by powerful sentiment. His imagery is rich and varied. His rhetoric is colorful and dramatic. The canonicity of this book was never seriously questioned; this may be due to the frequency and fundamental bearing of the citations made in the New Testament. Twice does Our Lord repeat the familiar saying: “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9 and 12; Osee 6), and in the Gospel of Saint Luke He repeats: “Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills: ‘Cover us!'” (Luke 23; Osee 10; Apocalypse 6). The remaining citations are: Osee, 10:1, in Romans 9:26; Osee 2:24, in Romans 9:25, and 1 Peter 2:16; Osee 6:3 in 1 Corinthians 15:4; Osee 11:1 in Matthew 2:15; Osee 12:14 in 1 Corinthians 15:54 and Hebrews 2:14. Used in the Breviary on the fourth Sunday of November and the following day. Used in the Missal on Good Friday; the lesson is taken from Osee 6:1-6; on the Friday of the Ember week in September the Epistle is taken from Osee 14:2-10. The half-verse, “Israel shall spring as the lily” (Osee 14:6), occurs as a versicle on the feast of Saint Joseph, and on the feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate; also in commemorations of doctors, confessors not bishops, and abbots.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Hosea, Book Of
HOSEA, BOOK OF.The Book of Hosea formed the first section of a collection of prophetic writings which was formed after the Exile, probably towards the close of the 3rd century b.c., and entitled The Twelve Prophets (see Micah [Book of]). The greater part of the Book of Hosea clearly consists of the writings of Hosea, the son of Beeri, who prophesied in the 8th cent. b.c. (see preced. art.), but it also contains the annotations or additions of editors who lived between the 8th and the 3rd centuries. It is not always possible to determine with certainty these editorial portions of the book.
Though we have no positive evidence to this effect, there is no reason to doubt that Hosea himself committed to writing the prophetic poems by which he gave expression to his message and of which the greater part of the Book of Hosea consists (chs. Hos 2:4-14), and that he prefixed to these the prose narrative of his life (chs. 1, 3, see Hosea) with which the hook now opens. It is possible, of course, that Hosea first circulated in writing single poems or a collection of two or three; but the complete collection, though scarcely made later than 735, since the prophecies make no allusion to the Syro-Ephraimitish war which broke out in that year, cannot be much earlier than 735, since the prophecies make allusions to the circumstances of the period that followed the death, in about b.c. 746, of Jerohoam ii. (anarchy, Hos 7:3-7, Hos 8:4; cf. 2Ki 15:8-26; factions favouring appeal to Egypt and Assyria respectively, Hos 5:13, Hos 7:11, Hos 8:9, Hos 12:1), and probably in particular to the payment of tribute by Menahem to Tiglath-pileser [= Pul, 2Ki 15:19], which took place in b.c. 738 (Hos 5:13, Hos 10:5-6). Again, the opening narrative (ch. 1), though it describes Hoseas life and teaching before the death of Jeroboam ii. (Hos 1:4, see Hosea), was not written until some years later, for it also records the birth of Lo-ammi (Hos 1:9), which was separated by hardly less and possibly more than 5 years from the date of Hoseas marriage.
In its earliest form, then, the Book of Hosea was published by the prophet about the year 736 in the Northern Kingdom. Now, in common with all literature of the Northern Kingdom, Hosea owes its preservation to the care of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. It is tolerably certain that the Jews who preserved the book adapted it for Jewish use; in other words, that the Book of Hosea as we have it is a Jewish edition of the writings of an Israelite prophet. The hand of a Jewish editor (and in this case a somewhat late one) is perhaps clearest in the title (Hos 1:1), for Hosea, a citizen of the Northern Kingdom and addressing himself to the North, would scarcely date his prophecy by kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, nor would a contemporary be likely to equate the days of Uzziah and his successors with the days of Jeroboam, since Uzziah himself outlived Jeroboam. With more or less reason, additions to or modifications of Hoseas work by Jewish editors have been suspected in Hos 1:7, Hos 1:10 to Hos 2:1, Hos 3:5 (and David their king) Hos 4:15 a, Hos 5:5 (last clause) Hos 6:11, Hos 8:14, Hos 10:11, Hos 11:12 b. In several other cases (Hos 5:10; Hos 5:12-14, Hos 6:4, Hos 12:2) it is possible that the editor has pointed the original prophecies at his own people of the South by substituting Judah where Hosea had written Israel; thus, although at present Jacob-Judah are mentioned in Hos 12:2, the terms Jacob and Israel, synonyms for the people of the Northern Kingdom, were certainly in the mind of the writer of Hos 12:2-3, for in Hos 12:3 he puns on these names: In the womb he Jacobed his brother, and in his manhood Israeled with God.
Another whole group of passages has been suspected of consisting of additions to Hoseas prophecies. These are the passages of promise (Hos 1:10 to Hos 2:1, Hos 2:14-23, Hos 3:1-5 [regarded as an allegory of restoration] Hos 5:15, Hos 6:3, 11:10, 11, 14). There is little doubt that such passages were added to ancient prophecies, but it is not yet by any means generally admitted that the early prophets made no promises of a brighter future beyond judgment.
Apart from the intentional modifications of the original words of Hosea by later editors, the text has suffered very seriously from accidents of transmission. To some extent the Greek version allows us to see an earlier Hebrew text than that perpetuated by the Jews from which the EV [Note: English Version.] is made. The English reader will find the translation from a critically emended text by Dr. G. A. Smith (Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i.) of great assistance. The best English commentary is that by W. R. Harper in the International Critical Commentary.
G. B. Gray.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Hosea, book of
Hosea (deliverance), the first, in order of the Minor Prophets in the common editions of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as of the Alexandrian and Vulgate translations. We are not, however, to suppose from this that he flourished earlier than all the other Minor Prophets: by the best computation he seems to have been preceded by Joel, Amos, and Jonah.
The figments of Jewish writers regarding Hosea’s parentage need scarcely be mentioned. His father, Beeri, has been confounded with Beerah, a prince of the Reubenites, 1Ch 5:6. So, too, Beeri has been reckoned a prophet himself, according to the rabbinical notion that the mention of a prophet’s father in the introduction to his prophecies, is a proof that sire as well as son was endowed with the oracular spirit.
Whether Hosea was a citizen of Israel or Judah has been disputed. Various arguments have been adduced to show that he belonged to the kingdom of Judah; but we accede to the opinion that he was an Israelite, a native of that kingdom with whose sins and fates his book is specially and primarily occupied.
The superscription of the book determines the length of time during which Hosea prophesied. That period was both long and eventful, commencing in the days, of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, extending through the lives of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and concluding in the reign of Hezekiah. Uzziah and Jeroboam were contemporary sovereigns for a certain length of time. If we compute from the first year of Uzziah to the last of Hezekiah, we find a period of 113 years. Such a period appears evidently to be too long; and the most probable calculation is to reckon from the last years of Jeroboam to the first of Hezekiah.
We have thenat least ofUzziah’sreign26years.
Jotham’s16
Ahaz’s16
Hezekiah’s2
Total: 60years
This long duration of office is not improbable, and the book itself furnishes strong presumptive evidence in support of this chronology. The first prophecy of Hosea foretells the overthrow of Jehu’s house; and the menace was fulfilled on the death of Jeroboam, his great-grandson. ‘This was the word of the Lord which he spake unto Jehu, saying, Thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation; and so it came to pass’ (2Ki 15:12). A prediction of the ruin which was to overthrow Jehu’s house at Jeroboam’s death, must have been uttered during Jeroboam’s life. This fact defines the period of Hosea’s commencement of his labors, and verifies the inscription which states that the word of the Lord came to him in the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Again, in 2Ki 17:4, allusion is made to an expedition of Shalmanezer against Israel; and if it was the first inroad against king Hoshea, who began to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz, the event referred to by the prophet as past must have happened close upon the beginning of the government of Hezekiah (2Ki 17:5). Data are thus in like manner afforded to corroborate the statement that Hezekiah had ascended the throne ere the long-lived servant of Jehovah was released from his toils. The extended duration indicated in the superscription is thus borne out by the contents of the prophecy.
The years of Hosea’s life were melancholy and tragic. The vials of the wrath of heaven were poured out on his apostate people. The nation suffered under the evils of that schism which was effected by the craft of him who has been branded with the indelible stigma’Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin.’ The obligations of law had been relaxed, and the claims of religion disregarded; Baal became the rival of Jehovah, and in the dark recesses of the groves were practiced the impure and murderous rites of heathen deities; peace and prosperity fled the land, which was harassed by foreign invasion and domestic broils; might and murder became the twin sentinels of the throne; alliances were formed with other nations, which brought with them seductions to paganism; captivity and insult were heaped upon Israel by the uncircumcised; the nation was thoroughly debased, and but a fraction of its population maintained its spiritual allegiance (2Ki 19:18). The death of Jeroboam II was followed by an interregnum of ten years. At the expiry of this period, his son Zechariah assumed the sovereignty, and was slain by Shallum, after the short space of six months (2Ki 15:10). In four weeks Shallum was assassinated by Menahem. The assassin, during a disturbed reign of ten years, became tributary to the Assyrian Pul. His successor, Pekahiah, wore the crown but two years, when he was murdered by Pekah. Pekah, after swaying his bloody scepter for twenty years, met a similar fate in the conspiracy of Hoshea; Hoshea, the last of the usurpers, after another interregnum of eight years, ascended the throne, and his administration of nine years ended in the overthrow of his kingdom and the expatriation of his people. ‘The Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. So was Israel carried out of their own land to Assyria unto this day’ (2Ki 17:18; 2Ki 17:23).
The prophecies of Hosea were directed especially against the country whose sin had brought upon it such disastersprolonged anarchy and final captivity. Israel, or Ephraim, is the people especially addressed. Their homicides and fornications, their perjury and theft, their idolatry and impiety, are censured and satirized with a faithful severity. Judah is sometimes, indeed, introduced, warned, and admonished; but the oracles having relation to Israel are primary, while the references to Judah are only incidental. The prophet’s mind was intensely interested in the destinies of his own people. The nations around him are unheeded; his prophetic eye beholds the crisis approaching his country, and sees its cantons ravaged, its tribes murdered or enslaved. No wonder that his rebukes were so terrible, his menaces so alarming, that his soul poured forth its strength in an ecstasy of grief and affection. Invitations, replete with tenderness and pathos, are interspersed with his warnings and expostulations. Now we are startled with a vision of the throne, at first shrouded in darkness, and sending forth lightnings, thunders, and voices: but while we gaze, it becomes encircled with a rainbow, which gradually expands till it is lost in that universal brilliancy which itself had originated (Hosea 11, 14).
The peculiar mode of instruction which the prophet details in the first and third chapters of his oracles has given risen to many disputed theories. We refer to the command expressed in Hos 1:2’And the Lord said unto Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms,’ etc.; Hos 3:1, ‘Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress,’ etc. What was the precise nature of the transactions here recorded? Were they real events, the result of divine injunctions literally understood, and as literally fulfilled? or were these intimations to the prophet only intended to be pictorial illustrations of the apostasy and spiritual folly and unfaithfulness of Israel? The former view, viz. that the prophet actually and literally entered into this impure connubial alliance, has found advocates both in ancient and modern times. Fanciful theories are also rife on this subject. Luther supposed the prophet to perform a kind of drama in view of the people, giving his lawful wife and children these mystical appellations. Newcome thinks that a wife of fornication means merely an Israelite, a woman of apostate and adulterous Israel. Hengstenberg supposes the prophet to relate actions which happened, indeed, actually, but not outwardly. Some, with Maimonides, imagine it to be a nocturnal vision; while others make it wholly an allegory. The first opinion has been refuted by Hengstenberg at great length and with much force. Besides other arguments resting on the impurity and loathsomeness of the supposed nuptial contract, it may be argued against the external reality of the event, that it must have required several years for its completion, and that the impressiveness of the symbol would therefore be weakened and obliterated. Whichever way this question may be solved; whether these occurrences be regarded as a real and external transaction, or as a piece of spiritual scenery, or only, as is most probable, an allegorical description; it is agreed on all hands that the actions are typical.
Expositors are not at all agreed as to the meaning of the phrase rendered ‘wife of whoredoms;’ whether the phrase refers to harlotry before marriage, or to unfaithfulness after it. It may afford an easy solution of the difficulty, if we look at the antitype in its history and character. Adultery is the appellation of idolatrous apostasy. The Jewish nation were espoused to God. The contract was formed on Sinai; but the Jewish people had prior to this period gone a-whoring. Jos 24:2-14, ‘Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, and they served other gods.’ Comp. Lev 17:7, in which it is implied that idolatrous propensities had also developed themselves during the abode in Egypt: so that the phrase may signify one devoted to lasciviousness prior to her marriage. The marriage must be supposed a real contract, or its significance would be lost. Jer 2:2, ‘I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.’ Children of whoredoms refers most naturally to the two sons and daughters afterwards to be born. They were not the prophet’s own, as is intimated in the allegory, and they followed the pernicious example of the mother.
The names of the children being symbolical, the name of the mother has probably a similar signification, and may have the symbolic sense of ‘one thoroughly abandoned to sensual delights.’ The names of the children are Jezreel, Lo-ruha-mah, and Lo-ammi. The prophet explains the meaning of the appellations. It is generally supposed that the names refer to three successive generations of the Israelitish people. Hengstenberg, on the other hand, argues that ‘wife and children both are the people of Israel: the three names must not be considered separately, but taken together.’ But as the marriage is first mentioned, and the births of the children are detailed in order, some time elapsing between the events, we rather adhere to the ordinary exposition. Nor is it without reason that the second child is described as a female.
The first child, Jezreel, may refer to the first dynasty of Jeroboam I and his successors, which was terminated in the blood of Ahab’s house which Jehu shed at Jezreel. The name suggests also the cruel and fraudulent possession of the vineyard of Naboth, ‘which was in Jezreel,’ where, too, the woman Jezebel was slain so ignominiously (1Ki 21:1; 2Ki 9:21). But as Jehu and his family had become as corrupt as their predecessors, the scenes of Jezreel were again to be enacted, and Jehu’s race must perish. Jezreel, the spot referred to by the prophet, is also, according to Jerome, the place where the Assyrian army routed the Israelites. The name of this child associates the past and future, symbolizes past sins, intermediate punishments, and final overthrow. The name of the second child, Lo-ruhamah, ‘not-pitied,’ the appellation of a degraded daughter, may refer to the feeble, effeminate period which followed the overthrow of the first dynasty, when Israel became weak and helpless as well as sunk and abandoned. The favor of God was not exhibited to the nation: they were as abject as impious. But the reign of Jeroboam II was prosperous; new energy was infused into the kingdom; gleams of its former prosperity shone upon it. This revival of strength in that generation may be typified by the birth of a third child, a son, Lo-ammi, ‘not-my-people’ (2Ki 14:25). Yet prosperity did not bring with it a revival of piety; still, although their vigor was recruited, they were not God’s people.
The peculiarities of Hosea’s style have been often remarked. His style, says De Wette, ‘is abrupt, unrounded, and ebullient; his rhythm hard, leaping, and violent. The language is peculiar and difficult.’ Lowth speaks of him as the most difficult and perplexed of the prophets. Eichhorn’s description of his style was probably at the same time meant as an imitation of it:’His discourse is like a garland woven of a multiplicity of flowers: images are woven upon images, comparison wound upon comparison, metaphor strung upon metaphor. He plucks one flower, and throws it down that he may directly break off another. Like a bee, he flies from one flowerbed to another, that he may suck his honey from the most varied pieces. It is a natural consequence that his figures sometimes form strings of pearls. Often is he prone to approach to allegoryoften he sinks down in obscurity’ (comp. Hos 5:9; Hos 6:3; Hos 7:8; Hos 13:3; Hos 13:7-8; Hos 13:16).
Hosea, as a prophet, is expressly quoted by Matthew (Mat 2:15). The citation is from Hos 11:1. Hos 6:6 is quoted twice by the same evangelist (Mat 9:13; Mat 12:7). Quotations from his prophecies are also to be found in Rom 9:25-26, References to them occur in 1Co 15:55, and in 1Pe 2:10. Messianic references are not clearly and prominently developed. This book, however, is not without them; but they lie more in the spirit of its allusions than in the letter. Hosea’s Christology appears written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, on the fleshly tables of his heart. The future conversion of his people to the Lord their God, and David their king, their glorious privilege in becoming sons of the living God, the faithfulness of the original promise to Abraham, that the number of his spiritual seed should be as the sand of the sea, are among the oracles whose fulfillment will take place only under the new dispensation.