Book Intro › Minor Prophets

Hosea

הוֹשֵׁעַ Hoshea, “salvation”. Prophetic oracles, with a marriage story. 14 chapters, 197 verses.

A prophet’s marriage to an unfaithful wife becomes a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, and of a love that will not let them go.

Read Hosea 1 →

Overview

Hosea prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel in its last decades, from the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II (1:1) toward the fall of Samaria to Assyria in 722 BC. God tells him to take “a wife of prostitution” (1:2), and he marries Gomer. Their three children are given names that are messages: Jezreel, for the bloodshed at Jezreel to be avenged on Jehu’s dynasty; Lo-Ruhamah, “no mercy”; and Lo-Ammi, “not my people” (1:9). In chapter 3 Hosea is told to “Go again, love a woman loved by another” (3:1), as God loves Israel.

Chapters 4–14 are oracles, messages the prophet delivers from God. They are often abrupt and hard to translate, and they are aimed at a nation that worships Baal, courts Egypt and Assyria by turns, and changes kings by assassination. God’s charge is that there is “no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land” (4:1). Judgement is never the last word. The book swings between anger and longing, and reaches its height in 11:8: “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” It ends with a call to return and a promise of healing (14:4).

Author and date

The book names Hosea son of Beeri as the prophet (1:1), and most readers accept that the oracles are substantially his. The debate is over how and when they were collected and edited.

Traditional view

Hosea · 8th century BC

Hosea spoke over several decades, from Jeroboam II’s reign (Jeroboam died c. 753 BC) to the years around Samaria’s fall, and his words were gathered by him or his disciples. The mentions of Judah and the promises of restoration belong to his own message about the whole people of God.

Academic view

Hosea’s oracles · edited in Judah after 722 BC

Most academic scholars also trace the core to Hosea, but think his words were carried south after Samaria fell and edited in Judah. They often date some of the references to Judah to that later stage, along with some promises of restoration, such as the return to “David their king” (3:5).

Both views place Hosea’s preaching in the northern kingdom in the generation before its fall, and hear in it a northerner speaking to his own people.

Audience and setting

Hosea addressed Israel, the northern kingdom, which he often calls Ephraim after its largest tribe. His hearers lived through prosperity under Jeroboam II and then collapse: six kings in about thirty years, four of them assassinated, and Assyrian armies taking territory until Samaria fell. The places he names were the centres of that kingdom’s worship and politics: Samaria, Bethel (which he mocks as Beth Aven, “house of wickedness”), Gilgal and Jezreel.

Genre, and how to read it

Hosea is the first book of the Twelve, the collection of shorter prophets that the Hebrew Bible keeps on a single scroll. Its first three chapters frame the rest. Readers have long debated the marriage. Some take it literally, as a prophet told to marry a woman who was or would become unfaithful. Others read it as an acted parable or a vision. Some think Gomer strayed only after the wedding, and that 1:2 is told with hindsight.

The poetry of chapters 4–14 moves fast and piles up images: Israel’s love is “like a morning cloud” (6:4), and the people “sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind” (8:7). Much of it retells Israel’s history (the exodus, the wilderness, Jacob) to show a people who have forgotten who they are. The book closes with a wisdom saying (14:9) that asks the reader to take its message to heart.

Prostitution, return, knowledge, love

Outline

Hosea’s marriage (1–3)

• 1:1–1:11 Gomer and her children — Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi, and a promise that reverses their names
• 2:1–2:23 The unfaithful wife — Israel accused, then led back into the wilderness and betrothed again
• 3:1–3:5 Love her again — Hosea buys back his wife

The charge against Israel (4–11)

• 4:1–6:3 No knowledge of God — Priests and people who have forgotten the law
• 6:4–8:14 Love like a morning cloud — Kings, alliances and calf idols, and the whirlwind to come
• 9:1–11:11 Exile, and a father’s love — Harvests fail and Israel is sent away, yet God cannot give Ephraim up

Jacob’s children (11–14)

• 11:12–13:16 Jacob remembered — Israel’s story retold, from the patriarch to the fall of Samaria
• 14:1–14:9 Return and healing — A last call to return, and God’s promise to love them freely

Key themes

Loyal love

Loyal love (Hebrew hesed) is what God wants most: “For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (6:6). Jesus quotes the verse twice in Matthew’s Gospel.

Knowing God

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (4:6). For Hosea, knowing God is a relationship, like knowing a husband, and forgetting him is the root of Israel’s other sins.

Covenant as marriage

Hosea is the earliest prophet whose book pictures the covenant as a marriage and idolatry as adultery, an image Jeremiah and Ezekiel take up. Israel has “broken my covenant” (8:1), yet God promises to betroth her again “in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion” (2:19). The Covenants page follows the covenant Hosea has in mind.

God as parent

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt” (11:1). Matthew applies the verse to the child Jesus returning from Egypt (Matthew 2:15).

Names reversed

The children’s names are undone: those who were “not my people” will hear “You are my people” (2:23), a promise Paul and Peter apply to the church (Romans 9:25–26, 1 Peter 2:10).

At a glance

22 people and 22 places named.

Most mentioned: Ephraim, Jacob (Israel), Jezreel, Baal, Hosea

Main places: Egypt, Assyria, Samaria, Beth-aven, Gibeah