Section I Experience and Insight

Hosea 1:1—3:5

A. HOSEA'S PERSONAL LIFE, 1:1—2:1

God uses the experiences of His people to reveal himself progressively in the Old Testament, looking forward to the fullest expression of himself in His Son, Jesus Christ. Such was the case with Hosea, through whom we begin to catch an insight into God's love for man

1. Superscription (1:1)

The prophecy begins with a most meaningful phrase, The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea (1). These words may be translated, “The beginning of that which Jehovah spake by Hosea.” God was not only speaking to Hosea, but through, the prophet He was speaking to others.

The conviction that the word of the Lord comes to a prophet (cf. Jer. 1:2; Joel 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Hag. 1:1; Zech. 1:1) is fundamental to Hebrew prophecy. The prophet's inspiration is not of himself, but of God, who is willing to reveal himself and His will through the prophet to His people.¹

Hosea was the son of Beeri. We know nothing of his father, but the name itself means “my well,” or “the well of Jehovah.” The fact that Hosea was so familiar with holy things might well indicate that his father was a priest.

The time of the prophecy is indicated as taking place during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. (See Introduction for explanation of the duration of Hosea's ministry.)

2. Hosea's Marriage (1:2-3)

And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms (2). Authorities disagree as to whether this passage introduces an extended parable or whether it is to be taken literally. “Would Jehovah have commanded a holy man to do that which was expressly forbidden to the priests and frowned upon for Israel as a whole?”² Augustine forbade a literal interpretation on the hermeneutic principle that a literal interpretation that was incongruous and morally improper was to be held inferior to the figurative sense. The experience was obviously not a vision. Many, including Keil, regard it as “an inward and spiritual intuition in which the word of God was addressed to the prophet.”³ That is, it was a parabolical representation.

Perhaps the most serious objection to an allegorical interpretation is the straightforward narrative given by Hosea. There is no indication that it was to be understood in any other way. Gomer's father, Diblaim (3), is named, though nothing further is known about him. A stronger hermeneutical principle than the one cited by Augustine is that, unless otherwise indicated, the Scripture is to be taken in its plain and obvious sense.

The author believes the best solution is in the conjecture that Gomer at the time of her marriage was not a woman of loose morals. Archer concludes his discussion by saying: “If Hosea delivered his message in later years, he may well have looked back upon his own domestic tragedy and seen in it the guiding hand of God. Hence the Lord's encouragement to marry her in the first place, though her future infidelity was foreknown to God, would have been tantamount to a command: Go marry an adulterous woman, even though the command did not come to the prophet in precisely those words.”⁴ God thus used Hosea's tragic personal experience to reveal the sin of His chosen people and the character of His will to woo them back to himself.

3. The Children (1:4-9)

Gomer was probably one of the common people, as indicated by the fact that the name of God (El or Jah) was not included in her name, as was true of most of the upper class.

The first child of Hosea and Gomer was Jezreel (4). The Lord commanded Hosea to give the child this name, which meant “God sows” or “God scatters.” Thus, symbolically, the reference was an act of judgment which was to come in the destruction of Israel.

The blood of Jezreel refers to the city of Ahab and Jezebel. It was in this city that the massacre of the house of Ahab took place (II Kings 9:21-37). Because Jehu acted with cruelty, judgment was to visit his own house. Hosea's prophecy spoke the beginning of the end for Israel, although it must have been uttered forty to sixty years before the fall of Samaria (see Chart A).

The bow of Israel (5) which was to be broken in the valley of Jezreel is representative of the power of Israel. Nothing more defenseless could be imagined than an Israelite warrior with a broken bow. The valley of Jezreel, which was later to be known as the “valley of Esdraelon,” has been the battleground of the Near East from Deborah to Allenby. “Where Jehu had sinned, there in his posterity should sin be punished.”⁵

In naming his son Jezreel, the prophet symbolized both the bloodshed at Jezreel when Jehu ascended the throne and also the anticipated judgment of God upon the dynasty of Jehu for the massacre.

The second child was a daughter, concerning whom God commanded Hosea, Call her name Lo-ruhamah (6). The name in the Hebrew means “unfavored” or “she that is unpitied.” It indicates that the child was illegitimate, born without a father's love. Symbolically, the daughter was named to show that the Lord would not long continue to show compassion towards a nation that was rebellious against Him. God's mercy towards Israel was exhausted. He would save no longer. There is a finality in the closing words, but I will utterly take them away. Once Israel was taken captive, there would be no return as was experienced by the Southern Kingdom in the restoration. Israel is to learn that the covenant is dissolved—that Jehovah is no-longer her God, that He considers her an idolatrous nation.

In contrast, God declared, But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God (7). Observe that the pronoun I is replaced by the proper noun, the Lord their God. Though Judah was not exempt from the curse of exile, she was saved from final apostasy through the favor of God. While Hosea does not ignore the religious and moral state of Judah, he promises deliverance.

The prophecy concludes by showing that Judah will not be saved by force of arms, but by the Lord their God. Israel had relied upon earthly resources (10:13), but only those who finally relied upon the Lord and worshipped Him could envision deliverance with confidence.

The threat to Israel refers to the punishment immediately in the future (2:1-3) when judgment was to consummate the history of the ten tribes. Nevertheless, as Keil points out, “it has also a meaning which applies to all times, namely, that whoever forsakes the living God, will fall into destruction, and cannot reckon upon the mercy of God in the time of need.”⁶

The third child delivered by Gomer, a son, was named Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God (9). The cycle is complete. The third child is also illegitimate and Hosea acknowledges that Gomer has played the adulteress. The name suggests the uninterrupted succession of tragedies to be visited upon Israel. Not my people—thus should Israel be designated. The covenant is completely dissolved. In the last clause, the words pass with great emphasis into the second person, “I will not be to you” or “I will no longer belong to you” (cf. Exod. 19:5; Ps. 118:6; Ezek. 16:8). The fulfillment of the prophecy is found in the tragic story of II Kings 17:18.

4. Restoration and Renewal (1:10—2:1)

Rather abruptly Hosea turns from tragedy to promise In the midst of judgment, the Lord remembered mercy. This appendix to c. 1 is the saving announcement of the final restoration to those who return to the Lord. The number of the posterity of Israel is to be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered (10). The final punishment predicted must be modified by the eternal “nevertheless” of the promises to Abraham in Gen. 22:17 and 32:12. Hosea could not erase the possibility of salvation which had been originally promised by God. As The Biblical Illustrator has suggested. “When God threatens most dreadfully, yet he promises most graciously.”⁷

The promise is graphically expressed in that men called Lo-ammi (not my people) shall be called the sons of the living God (10). This change is to take place in the land of the Exile, for both Israel and Judah (11). Here Jehovah is called El chai, the living God, in opposition to the idols which Israel had created or borrowed from her neighbors. This seems to be the first prediction of divine adoption of the Gentiles to which Paul refers in Rom. 9:24-26.

The magnificent Messianic promise of the living God speaks of the healing of the breach between Israel and Judah: Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together (11). There is more here than in the return from captivity alone. Rather, v. 11 speaks of the day of Jezreel, when under one head, the King Messiah, they shall go unto their own land. Thus, if the initial fulfillment of the prophecy was the return of Judah from Babylon joined by many Israelites, the final fulfillment may be the “restoration of the Jews, converted and believing in the Messiah under Divine guidance to their own land.”⁸

Although the names of the prophet's children were omens of impending tragedy, the picture is suddenly reversed. The curse is now a blessing. The day of Jezreel is not a “scattering,” but a “bringing together” in the final spiritual consummation. Not my people becomes “my people” and “she that is unpitied” becomes pitied or loved with compassion (2:1). “Great, then, shall be the day so signalized by Divine goodness, so glorious in Divine grace, and so conspicuous for the wondrous works of the covenant-keeping God.”⁹

To confirm this joyful event, the Messianic promise closes with a summons in 2:1. “Speak to your brothers and call them now, My people, and call your sisters Beloved” (Phillips). Since divine mercy is now extended, the spiritually related are urged to accost one another joyfully with the “new name” given to them by the Lord himself.

A suggestive exposition of c. 1 might include: (1) God's revelation in the face of human experience, la, 2a; (2) Man's obedience in the face of obvious questions, 3a, 4a, 6b, 9a; (3) God's promise in the face of insurmountable obstacles, 10.

B. PERSONAL TRAGEDY AND REDEMPTIVE LOVE, 2:2-23

In c. 2 the narrative is retold in poetic style (cf. Moffatt, RSV), though the characters change in the drama. Jehovah himself appears as the injured Husband indicting Israel as His adulterous wife. God seems to be the One speaking, while the few faithful Israelites are the ones addressed.

1. Israel's Shame (2:2-13)

Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband (2). God is calling to the faithful remnant (I Kings 19:18) to lead His cause against the idolatry and iniquity of the land. It is an urgent and emotion-packed call to conversion. Thus the “significant pair gives place to the thing signified: Israel itself appears to be the adulterous woman.”¹⁰

The import of the address to the children rather than to the wife seems significant. Though Jehovah addresses the idolatrous nation, yet He recognizes that individual persons were not equally involved and guilty of transgression. The observation points out the teaching of the prophets so prevalent during and following the Exile: While Israel was sanctified as the chosen nation, yet each individual was responsible for his own spiritual integrity. The Lord has had not only the seven thousand during the time of Elijah (I Kings 19:18), but in every generation there have been those who were faithful to the covenant even in the midst of a sinful nation.

The children (4), or the faithful among the children, had urgent cause to plead (reason, 2), for God had dissolved the covenant. She is not my wife, neither am I her husband. The Lord, as Husband, severed His marriage relationship with Israel, because of her adulterous addiction to gross idolatry.

Pusey has an intriguing exposition of the passage in analogy when he observes that: (1) The prophets always close the threats of coming judgments with the dawn of after-hopes; (2) The mother is the Church or nation; (3) The children are its members; (4) The children are to plead with their “mother” rather than to accuse God; (5) God's final plea was more gracious than legal.¹¹

The shameless way in which Israel practiced idolatry is represented in v. 2: Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts. The conduct is spoken of as whoredoms, but for the wife it is adultery. The whoredoms (idolatry) of Israel were brazen and open. The Scripture is candid, with Oriental frankness. Schmoller writes of v. 2: “Israel is like a public barefaced whore, who displays her profession in her face and (bared) breasts.”¹²

The call to repentance is impressively emphasized by reference to the punishment: Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst (3). In Ezek. 16:4-14 the nation is represented as a filthy, naked child whom the Lord took and covered with clothes and costly ornaments and with whom He made His covenant. In like manner, Hosea alludes to that covenant love through which the Lord adorned His wife (Israel) during marriage. Because of her adulteries, He will leave her naked, i.e., poor and bare. The day that she was born is symbolic of the birth of the nation in the time of its helplessness in Egypt. Wilderness does not refer to the land, but to Israel itself, which was as barren as the desert, without the resources of minimal maintenance. The dry land indicates the state of spiritual “dehydration” which would come because of their separation from the Source of “living waters,” the Lord himself.

And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms (4). This is admittedly a difficult verse if the meaning is taken out of context and treated in isolation. The sentence, though independent in form, is dependent upon lest (3; pen) for its meaning. Thus, “Plead, lest I will not have mercy upon her children.” The children are one with the mother.¹³ They are designated the “sons of whoredom,” not alone as members of the nation, but because their inheritance has elicited the same conduct. They too are personally defiled. They have endorsed the sin of their mother. They approve of idolatry in the shrine and palace. Keil remarks: “The fact that the children are especially mentioned after and along with the mother, when in reality mother and children are one, serves to give greater keenness to the threat, and guards against that carnal security in which individuals imagine that, inasmuch as they are freed from the sin and guilt of the nation as a whole, they will also be exempted from the threatened punishment.”¹⁴

The charge of idolatry is reiterated: For their mother hath played the harlot (5). This sentence is introduced to confirm the last clause of v. 4.¹⁵ The emphasis is given again to confirm the thought that the children of whoredoms will find no mercy.

Hath done shamefully (5) is literally “hath practiced shame” or “hath done shameful things.” The nature of that shameful conduct is now made articulate. For she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. These lovers are the many Baals to which the infatuated people ran and to which they attributed those material benefits which were in reality given by Jehovah. Reynolds observes that the modern counterpart of this sin of Israel is the speaking of fortune, nature, destiny, or law as the giver of good things, “as though it were superstitious or heretical to speak of God as the giver.”¹⁶

The delusion that the lovers (idols) gave food, clothing, and the delicacies of life was borrowed from the Assyrians and Egyptians, with whose idols Israel committed spiritual fornication. The Israelites looked at the wealth of their neighbors and attributed it to their neighbors' gods. The fact that the majority accepted the spiritual perversion indicates the extent of their alienation from God and His will. “For as long as a man continues in undisturbed vital fellowship with God ‘he sees with the eye of faith the hand in the clouds,’ from which he receives all by which he is guided, and on which everything, even that which has apparently the most independence and strength, entirely depends” (Hengstenberg).¹⁷

The commitment to idolatry that is suggested in I will go (5), notwithstanding all that Jehovah had done for her, indicates the extent of Israel's apostasy. Her mistake, carnally influenced, was to identify the resources of life with lifeless idols rather than with the living God. “I will pursue those alliances and depend upon them,” said Israel. But Jehovah replied, “Because of thy persistence I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths (6). The figures of the hedge of thorns and the wall indicate God's purpose to cut off Israel from her idolatries even though she be in the midst of an idolatrous nation in exile. Phillips expresses it, “Therefore will I block all her paths with thorns, I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way out.” Jehovah concluded that the most extreme treatment was the only means of turning His people back to himself, who both “smites and heals” (6:1).

The conviction of 6 is confirmed and reiterated in 7 in a form of parallelism that is quite common to Hebrew poetic structure. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now (7). The lovers appear to represent the idolatrous nations from which Israel sought support and their idols which were involved in the immoral fertility rites of the Canaanite religion. If so, Israel is to be disappointed, for they will do her no service. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. The satisfaction which Israel expected will escape her. The gods that she counted on can do nothing for her. Matthew Henry notes: “(1) that those who are most resolute in their sinful judgments are commonly most crossed in them” (Prov. 22:5), and, “(2) God walks contrary to those that walk contrary to him (Ps. 18:26; Lev. 26:23, 24; Lam. 3:7-9).”¹⁸

These difficulties (hedges and walls) that God has raised shall inevitably stimulate thoughts of turning back. “And then shall she say, Let me go back to my first husband. It was better for me than now” (Phillips). Israel was to increase her affection for her idols, then suddenly to realize that the idols gave her no help. In them she anticipated deliverance, but found only calamity in her eager pursuit. Follow after (Heb., riddeph, piel) indicates an intensive search—“to pursue eagerly.”

In v. 7, there is a just acknowledgment, for then was it better with me than now, and a good purpose, I will go. There was no question on the part of Israel that God would receive her again into covenant relationship if she came with humility and repentance.

The thought concerning the futility of idolatry is expanded in v. 8: For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. The irony was in giving the very foundation of the nation's wealth (corn, oil, and wine exchanged into gold and silver) to the Baals. The people used their wealth not alone in the creation of the idol, but also in the maintenance of Baal worship. The sin of ignoring the Author of Israel's blessings was compounded by squandering the very resources given by God. Baal does not mean a particular Baal, but is a general expression for all idols. (Cf. I Kings 14:9, “other gods.”)

Because of Israel's perfidy, Hosea represents Jehovah as taking away the very resources He had given. Therefore will I return, and take away¹⁹ my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover²⁰ my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness (9).

God justifies His punishments by the abuses He has experienced (6-8) and warns Israel of the deprivation of the blessings He has given. The food was to be snatched from their mouths and the cup from their lips. The wool and the flax, the source of raiment, would also be taken away, leaving Israel in nakedness, i.e., abject poverty. Whether the tragedy was to be in the form of invasion or from natural causes is not stated, but in any case it was to be sudden. The judgment would come as an unexpected calamity in the time thereof.

Hosea lists in vv. 10-13 the punishments which were to be visited upon Israel because of her idolatries. In 10 there is the shame of exposure in the sight of her lovers, and their inability to save her. “And no man shall rescue her from my hand” (Phillips). Lewdness (Heb., navluth) means “slackness,” “laxness,” or “withered state.” Neither her idols nor the Assyrians or Egyptians deliver her. No one is able to save Israel from the wrath of Jehovah, the “husband” sinned against.

Israel's mirth is to cease along with her feast days and sabbaths (11). The Hebrew festivals were occasions when families joined in pilgrimage to the sacred shrines. But they were more than religious occasions; they were times of pleasure and merriment as well.²¹ Israel was also to lose the produce of her land and face starvation. The land would he desolate as a forest (12) and overrun with wild beasts, implying depopulation and exile. Thus Israel was to be forcibly separated from the objects of which she had said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me.

The days of Baalim (13) ²² were the sacred days which Israel was commanded to keep sanctified before Jehovah, but which she had turned into celebrations for the idols. There does not seem to be any ground for believing that there were special festival occasions peculiar to the Baal worship. The second clause, she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, deals with the coquetry of a woman by which she excited the admiration of her lovers (cf. Jer. 4:30; Ezek. 23:40). Phillips expresses the meaning of 13 graphically: “And I will see that she pays for the feast-days of the Baals, when she burned incense in their honour, and decked herself with that ring of hers and all that jewelry, and pursued her lovers and forgot me, says the Lord.” But there is a pathetic note even in the judgment of God. One senses the “nevertheless” of compassion. Israel's sin was in forgetting God, the true Source of her salvation.

2. God's Redemptive Love (2:14-23).

Some of the prophets look upon the wilderness period as a time of happy union between Israel and her Lover, Jehovah. Even though God is now ready to allow judgment its turn, He is not ready to let Israel go. Here is true love ! Therefore, behold, I will allure her (14, go and woo her) … and speak comfortably unto her (speak to her heart). God will make love to Israel again and bring her into the wilderness of a second honeymoon.²³ Thus, from the language of severity comes a new note of strange tenderness.

And I will give her vineyards from thence (15). The vineyards rightfully belonged to the faithful wife, Israel. They had been taken away (12), but they were to be returned. The valley of Achor is situated to the north of Gilgal and Jericho (Josh. 7:26; see map 2). The vineyards and fertile valleys were the first installments of God's promise of restoration. The valley of Achor thus will become a door of hope. Two ideas are here placed in conjunction with each other: troubling and hope. When entering the Promised Land, Israel sinned at Achor (cf. Josh. 7:20-26; Isa. 65:10). The place of troubling was now to be the occasion for hope.

Morgan observes that “it is this connection between troubling and hope which reveals God. It is the relation between Law and Grace. Law creates troubling as the result of sin. Grace creates hope through the troubling.”²⁴

And in that day will I make a covenant for them (18). We now have a definite eschatological flavor. Hosea evidently was familiar with Genesis 3 and God's curse upon the serpent and the ground. He was also aware that the judgment of God still rested upon His creation (cf. Rom. 8:19-21).

In that day God's covenant with the beasts will impose an obligation to hurt man no more. The three classes of animal life dangerous to men are listed (cf. Gen. 9:2): beasts of the field (18) as distinguished from domestic animals; fowls of heaven (birds of prey);and creeping things (Heb., remes) of the ground. (Remes does not mean reptiles, but small animals that move rapidly.)

In addition, Jehovah will destroy the dangers of war—both the instruments of war, the bow and the sword, and war itself, the battle. The promise is also given in Lev. 26:3-8 and expanded in Ezek. 34:25-28. (Cf. Isa. 2:4; 35:9; and Zech. 9:10.)

Hosea is the first of the prophets to envision the outcome of God's plan as a marriage with Israel. He here looks forward to that day of glorious consummation. And I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord (19-20). The Hebrew word in represents the idea of bringing a dowry. In this marriage, the bride brings nothing. Jehovah is the Source of all. He is the One who offers righteousness and judgment (justice), both of which are noble elements of a true marriage. Jehovah also offers to Israel His lovingkindness and mercies. The term lovingkindness is a lovely English word coined by Miles Coverdale in his Bible translation. While it does not cover the full meaning of love (chesed; see Introduction), in the present context, it certainly means “gratitude,” “loyalty,” or humble dependence on Israel's part. On God's part chesed implies loyalty, which is suggested by His mercies, lovingkindness, and above all by His faithfulness (20).

Out of the proposed union, which shall be for ever, Israel shall come to know the Lord (20; see Introduction). This knowledge is not merely cognitive. It is a personal, living relationship—a communion of Jehovah with His people (as husband with wife). Martin Buber observes, “This last word ‘knowing’ is in the book of Hosea the proper concept of reciprocity in the relationship between God and the people. To know here does not signify the perception of an object by a subject, but the ultimate contact of the two partners of a two-sided occurrence.”²⁵

The last three verses of c. 2 deal with the consummation of the marriage between Jehovah and Israel. All depends upon God. In that day of betrothal, God will answer; the heavens (21) with His blessings. “The heavens will answer the asking earth; the earth receiving the rain will answer the field, vine and olive asking for moisture; and all these shall answer Jezreel (‘God sows’) asking for their products as the means of subsistence and life.”²⁶

Even though the heavens have been as “brass” and the earth as “dust,” now the heavens shall bring forth and the earth respond. God once threatened to take away corn and oil (v. 8), but now He will give them freely. Hence Israel is now the people whom “God sows” and not the people whom He scatters, as in 1:4. The parallel is continued in v. 23. The sowing continues, and Lo-ammi (“not my people”) now becomes my people, whom God will bless, protect, and provide for. In response, the people will answer in the renewed covenant relationship, Thou art my God.

The divorce is now reversed. The people are again to realize covenant love (chesed) and to enjoy the communion originally anticipated by Jehovah in Egypt. The initiative in this saving and redemptive work is wholly with God—but the response must be of man in willing obedience to the divine call. “God may draw man to himself by the cords of love but these cords will in the end be broken if man does not respond to their pull and approach God.”²⁷

Chapter 2 becomes a satisfying symbolism of the covenant relation that man has with God. Observe: (1) The nature of the covenant—a marriage relationship, 19a; (2) The duration of the covenant—forever, 19b; (3) The manner of the covenant—in righteousness and judgment, 19c; (4) The end of the covenant—knowledge and communion, 20.

In c. 3, Hosea turns to his experience of personal domestic tragedy. Gomer had left her husband for her lovers. This short autobiographical insight becomes the key to Hosea's understanding of Jehovah's compassion. He was shown through his own action how God would carry out His promise. If there is a disposition within the heart and soul of the prophet to love a woman not worthy of his love, then there is a disposition in the Maker of the prophet to love a nation that is not worthy of His love.

C. HOSEA'S DEALING WITH GOMER, 3:1-5

1. The Prophets Experience (3:1-3)

Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulterous, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods … So I bought her to me (1-2).

It is not to be suggested that Hosea was seeking out a second wife. But in realizing God's suffering love, he was to go and seek Gomer, who was now an adulteress beloved of her friend (a paramour).Flagons of wine (1) is rather raisin cakes, offerings to the Baals at their vintage festivals (cf. Jer. 7:18).

There is a paradox in v. 1 in the fact that Israel was beloved of Jehovah, yet an adulteress (1). His love was wasted, yet not lost. It was His wasted love that made reconciliation possible.

From whom did Hosea buy Gomer? Did he purchase her from a brothel, or from the man with whom she was living, or from the master of the slave-mart, overseer of those prostitutes²⁸ who participated in the cult of Baal?²⁹ The last seems the most probable answer.

While the Bible does not explicitly state, it is known that Hosea purchased Gomer for the price of a slave. A homer and a half of barley (twelve bushels) was worth about fifteen pieces of silver. Thus the value of the barley plus the fifteen pieces of silver made up the price of a slave, i.e., thirty pieces of silver.

Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee (3). Gomer was physically and spiritually unclean when taken home by her husband. Thus she was for a time deprived of full conjugal fellowship and excluded from intercourse. Shalt abide is the equivalent of remaining quiet: a discipline imposed out of Hosea's affection for her to prepare her for himself. The expression so will I also be for thee can only mean that she would be fully restored to her place in the home.

2. God's Message to Israel (3:4-5)

The parallel between Jehovah and Israel is found in vv. 4-5. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without … afterward shall the children of Israel return(4). The objects which are withheld from Israel are in three pairs: king and prince, sacrifice and image (monument), and ephod and teraphim (media in searching the future).³⁰ These are elements of civil government, religious worship, and prophecy.

Hosea's great analogy is pressed again in vv. 3 and 4. To be without king or priest was to be without the representative of God to the people (the priesthood always represented delegated authority under the “divine right” of kings). “To be without a king, then, was to be out of touch with one's God, as a woman shut up alone in a room could have no physical contact with her husband.”³¹

The sacrifice was a “means of grace.” In Hosea's day the image was still accepted (though see Deut. 16:22) Evidently the teraphim, too, were accepted though forbidden in Josiah's reformation a generation later (II Kings 23:24).

In the last words of c. 3, the Lord is represented as expecting the humble return of Israel after judgment and punishment. He is sure that the “troubling” will lead them back in contrition from idols to the living God (2:15).

The prediction of v. 4 was fulfilled when Israel was carried away by the Assyrians into captivity (722-21 B.C.). In v. 5, Hosea predicts that afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

This section, like c. 1, closes with a Messianic promise which is added to the autobiographical theme (Hosea does not mention his family again after chapter 3). Keil interprets the passage as to suggest that the return of Israel to the Lord cannot take place without the return to David their king or reunion with Judah, since David is the only true king of Israel. The Messiah, then, is to be as David to the “Israel of God.” The return was not to take place till the latter days (acharith hayyamim, the end of days), the closing future of the kingdom of God, commencing with the coming of the Messiah (cf. Gen. 49:1, 10; Isa. 2:2).³²

Hosea foresees that Israel shall fear the Lord (pachadel Yahweh; i.e., shake or tremble before the Lord). The people would turn and come with trembling at the holiness of God in the awareness of their own sinfulness. Thus affliction Was to drive them to the Lord, and with penitence they were to wait for His goodness.

Chapter 3 is most expressive of the awe-inspiring love of God. An exposition might treat the theme as the following: (1) The extent of God's love, 1; (2) The discipline of God's love, 3; (3) The results of God's love, 5. Or: (1) Love profaned, 1; (2) Love extended, 3; (3) Love accepted, 4; (4) Love fulfilled, 5.