Hosea announces God’s repeated, passionate warnings to both Israel and Judah that their disobedience to God’s covenant is leading to well-deserved conquest, decimation, and exile by foreign powers. But that will not be the end of God’s people. God will rebuild them from a remnant and give them a new covenant with a new and better relationship to himself in a new age characterized by true faith and true obedience to God’s word.
Author
The book records the prophecies preached by a northern kingdom prophet named Hosea, but personal details about him are limited and intertwined so closely with the message of the book that attempts to write his biography fail. All we know about the person Hosea is found in chs. 1 and 3, which describe symbolic actions in which the prophet acts out revelations from God so as to make them especially memorable. These two chapters appear to describe separate marriages, though many commentators take them to portray an original marriage and a reconciliation. Both marriage stories appear to involve heavy prophetic symbolism. Ch. 1 offers few details about the prophet other than the name of his first wife and the names of his children. Ch. 3 tells us only that he did not consummate the marriage described there but entered into it mainly as a symbolic prophetic act.
In both ch. 1 and ch. 3 Hosea’s actions illustrate God’s revelations about Israel’s future punishments for sin. In 1:2, the NIV terms “promiscuous,” “adulterous,” and “guilty of unfaithfulness” used in connection with Hosea’s wife are all renderings of a single Hebrew word that throughout the OT refers strictly to prostitution, i.e., the selling of sex. “Prostitution” is Hosea’s (and other prophets’) most common metaphor for infidelity to God’s covenant via idolatry and polytheism. Chs. 1–3 focus on this covenant-breaking “prostitution” (cheating on God by seeking payment from other gods, as it were) in contrast to God’s faithfulness in his relationship to Israel. Thus, the quality of Hosea’s family life and his personal attitudes, feelings, or success as a husband or father, and Gomer’s character, are not primarily in view. What is in view in these symbolic actions is Israel’s willingness to sell itself to false gods for the gain they thought came from worshiping those gods. Here, the “land” (i.e., the nation as a whole) is “guilty” before the Lord. Hosea’s marriage, especially via the symbolic names of his three children, provides a vivid way to act out the sad truth that everyone in Israel is tainted by the way that the nation has sold itself to false gods.
Date
Hosea began preaching as early as 760 BC, when both the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah) enjoyed prosperity. Unfortunately, this prosperity was accompanied by widespread idolatry (4:17; 8:4–6; cf. Isa 10:11; Amos 5:26; Mic 1:7) and social injustice (Hos 4:2; 12:7) as well as general disobedience to God’s covenant law (4:1–2; 6:7; 8:1). Hosea’s prophetic ministry seems to have ended no later than 722, when the last unconquered part of the northern kingdom (Ephraim) was captured and annexed by Assyria. The book’s message is not limited to events in Hosea’s time: it looks backward to the days of the patriarchs (e.g., 12:3–4, 12), Moses (e.g., 9:10; 11:1; 12:13; 13:4–5), the judges (e.g., 9:9; 10:9), and the monarchy (e.g., 4:15; 5:1–2; 7:7; 9:15; 13:1–2, 10–11); and it looks forward to the destruction of Israel and Judah and their respective exiles (e.g., 1:4–5; 2:3–13; 3:4; 4:3, 19; 5:5, 10, 14–15; 7:16; 8:10, 13; 9:6; 10:10; 13:15–16). Wonderfully, it looks beyond these tragedies to the great blessings of the new covenant age to come (e.g., 1:10–11; 2:14–23; 3:5; 6:1–3; 11:8–11; 13:14; 14:1–9).
Earliest Audience
After the death of Solomon, the formerly unified nation of Israel divided into two parts: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, each with separate kings and worship centers. Hosea preached in and mostly about the northern kingdom, Israel, but he frequently mentioned the southern kingdom, Judah, as well (e.g., 1:7, 11; 4:15; 5:5, 10, 12–14; 6:4, 11; 8:14; 10:11; 11:12; 12:2). His initial audience was the population of the northern kingdom. But since the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, within one or two years of the conclusion of his preaching there, the people of Judah, who survived the Assyrian conquest, would immediately have valued his words for both their truth about the north and their frequent focus on the south—as well as the long-term future of all of God’s people.
The book never indicates the locations of Hosea’s preaching. He may have preached frequently at the northern capital, Samaria (8:5), and at the main worship center, Bethel (10:15)—at least prior to 733 BC when Bethel probably fell temporarily under Judahite control. Amos, a contemporary of Hosea early in Hosea’s career, also preached at Bethel (e.g., Amos 7:10–13). We may be fairly confident of the dating of some of Hosea’s preaching (see 1:2–9; 5:5–10) and of the approximate chronological ordering of most (from ca. 760 to ca. 722 BC).
Hosea directs God’s word to several groups. Most often, he addresses the northern kingdom in general, indicated by various terms, including “Israel,” “Ephraim,” or simply “you” or “your” (see 2:2; 4:1, 4, 15; 5:1, 8; 6:4; 9:1, 5, 7; 10:9, 12; 11:8; 12:9; 13:4, 9–13; 14:1, 8). God’s word is directed to Hosea himself twice (1:2; 3:1), though this ultimately points to the people of the northern kingdom as a whole in the context of a symbolic action report. Hosea addresses priests twice (4:6–9; 5:1), the royalty once (5:1), Samaria once (8:5), Bethel once (10:15), and Judah twice (6:4, 11; but Judah is mentioned often via indirect address, as noted above). What we cannot tell, however, is whether Hosea spoke to these people and places in their presence or simply rhetorically.
The comparatively few faithful people of the northern kingdom who still believed the Mosaic covenant and valued Hosea’s preaching in spite of its descriptions of coming doom would have formed a supportive audience for Hosea. But he preached doom to his people so often that he must have been generally unpopular in the north. Nevertheless, his messages eventually proved true, and the collection of his words that we call the book of Hosea was thereafter taken seriously by godly individuals seeking to understand God’s plan for their people and their world.
Historical Setting and Purpose
God called Hosea to predict the destruction and exile of Israel at a time when Israel was at the height of its material prosperity. The Jehu dynasty of the north, begun in 841 BC, came to an end with the death of Jeroboam II in 753. Thereafter, beginning with the accession of Zechariah to the throne in Samaria in 753, no more dynasties were possible, because the most common way to get rid of a king was assassination. Political instability prevailed. Hosea prophesied during the reigns of Israel’s last seven kings—more kings than any other OT prophet. Life in Israel became increasingly precarious; the nation’s fortunes waned progressively. The book reflects these developments as it proceeds more or less chronologically from the 750s to the 720s. The complacency of the early days (2:5, 8, 13) gives way to desperation in foreign (7:8–12; 12:1) and domestic (7:3–7; 13:10–11) affairs, evidenced in the latter chapters. The Syro-Ephraimite war (ca. 734–732 BC) represented the beginning of the end for Hosea’s native country; it ended with the capitulation of the north to the Assyrian Empire after Israel was reduced to a rump state by Assyrian conquest and by an opportunistic Judahite invasion from the south at the same time (5:8–10; cf. 2 Kgs 16:5–9).
Sadly, by Hosea’s day the Mosaic law (recorded within the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) had fallen into a limbo of neglect in the northern kingdom. Hosea had to rely upon a limited awareness of that law—its basics only—in proclaiming the enforcement of the divine covenant. Fortunately, many Israelites still knew that the law forbade idolatry and polytheism (even though both were common in the northern kingdom), insisted upon exclusive, national worship of Yahweh at a single sanctuary (even though the first northern king, Jeroboam I, had set up rival sanctuaries to that of Jerusalem), required a life of ethical righteousness (even though prominent kings such as Ahab and his wife Jezebel had defied such standards), and provided blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. This common knowledge of a few main tenets of the Mosaic law partially explains the frequent repetition of certain themes in prophetic passages. By reminding the people (through his prophets) that they had violated even these well-known foundational stipulations, God gave more than sufficient notice of justification for the coming judgment. Prophets, in other words, did not need to recite for their audiences every instance of Israelite infidelity to the various covenant provisions. It was enough to demonstrate major violations (e.g., idolatry, polytheism, disloyalty to God via foreign entanglements, multiple sanctuary worship, dishonesty, governmental and/or priestly corruption, economic oppression). The presence of such violations proved that the covenant was broken. In fact, any one of them would have sufficed for that purpose (cf. Jas 2:10).
Hosea’s Interest in Judah
Hosea was from the northern kingdom and probably preached exclusively to people of the northern kingdom. Nevertheless, he made many references to Judah and its capital, Jerusalem, in the south. Hosea and his audience had a keen interest in the fate of Judah precisely in contrast to, and separate from, the fate of Israel. The only two writing prophets who preached in the north (Hosea and Amos) make many references to the southern kingdom among their prophecies, and these are firmly entrenched in the structures and messages of each book. Clearly, God wanted his people in the north to understand his will for all his people, north and south, and not merely to focus narrowly on their own self-defined concerns.
Genre and Structure
Through Hosea, God inspired messages of divine judgment on northern Israel (often including Judah) as well as promises of restoration to God’s favor in a united Israel of the future. Hosea does not always use prophetic literary forms in standard ways, but he does employ both allegories and symbolic action reports in the same way various other prophets do.
The editorial arranging of Hosea’s messages, whether done by Hosea himself or perhaps a disciple, often results in an absence of sharp delineations between individual prophecies, so deciding where one passage in Hosea leaves off and another begins can be challenging. As a result, Hosea’s prophecy is best considered as a whole. If we accept the rapid and often unpredictable shifts in person, subject matter, and tone that occur frequently within verses and from verse to verse in the book, we can usually appreciate how these variations fit into a coherent message. The overall message and its effectiveness are no less sure than would be the case if Hosea always used common prophetic speech patterns. This is the sort of divine creativity that makes the book such a rich literary treasure: a mixing of familiar clarity of message with challenging creativity in structure and style, producing truth conveyed in beautiful and often novel wordings. Hosea delivered most of his prophecies in poetry. The symbolic action reports in chs. 1 and 3, however, are prose, as is normally the case with such reports in other prophetical books.
Themes and Theology
Like all true prophets, Hosea understood that he was a messenger from God, entrusted with God’s word, bringing matters related to God’s covenant with Israel to people who needed reminders about that covenant. His references to the Mosaic covenant in 6:7 and 8:1 indicate that his audience understood, at least broadly, the terms of the covenant since otherwise he would have had to characterize it in more detail. The book contains a variety of blessings and curses for Israel, each based upon a corresponding type in the Mosaic law (see especially Lev 26:3–45; Deut 28:1–68; 29:18–28; 30:1–20; 31:17–23; 32:5–43). Some blessings and curses so closely parallel the wordings in the Mosaic law that they border on “citation,” while others merely allude generally to those wordings. Hosea’s style is in some ways original, but his message is consistent with the overall message of the OT. He warns that God intends to enforce his covenant (including the punishments of subjugation to and exile by foreigners) but also redeem his people, after punishment, to a better relationship with him than ever before.
Hosea often characterizes Israel’s unfaithfulness or potential for redemption by citing either positive or negative images from family life, community life, and the world of nature. Among the things to which he likens Israel are: a prostitute (1:2), an unloved daughter (1:6), a rejected wife and mother (2:2–13), a wife denied her marital rights (3:3), neglected children (4:6), a stubborn heifer (4:16), illegitimate children (5:7), incurably sick people (5:13), criminals (7:1) a blazing oven (7:4, 6–7), a senseless dove (7:11–12), grapes in the desert (9:10), wanderers (9:17), a spreading vine (10:1), an trained heifer (10:11), a beloved child (11:1–4), fearful birds (11:11), mist, chaff, smoke (13:3), a child without wisdom (13:13), a lily (14:5), and an olive tree (14:6). Yet whatever the description of Israel’s often vacillating nature, God still loves his wayward people and continues to invite them to abandon their rebellion and return to him and his redemptive love, a love that is far more generous than his people deserve (11:8–11; 13:14; 14:1–8).
Hosea’s predictions of punishment and destruction outnumber his predictions of restoration. This is common in preexilic prophets. Promises of hope do appear, but they come somewhat unpredictably, and the book speaks more often of Israel’s bleak short-term future. Hosea tells Israel that prior to the exile there is still a measure of divine blessing; during the exile there will be great woe, but later, after exile, there will come a time of great abundant blessings greater than those experienced previously. The blessings portions of the book are, accordingly, mainly eschatological (referring especially to the new covenant) in their orientation, while the curses are more immediate. Hosea holds out no hope that Israel can actually escape from the wrath of God that will lead to their capture and exile. Israel’s future blessing must await the full measure of divine punishment. Encouragingly, however, Hosea preaches that the eventual restoration blessing from God will be grander than anything yet experienced—a new age to come, characterized by a special and better relationship with God. These restoration blessings foreshadow in part the NT’s promises of the permanent joy of eternal life in heaven.
Hosea’s Family
Hosea’s prophecies often blend literal and figurative descriptions. Using metaphors and similes, images from daily life and nature, he helps his readers see, by analogy, what Israel was really like. Some of these descriptions are outlined in the Themes and Theology section.
This same sort of blending of literal and figurative occurs in the descriptions of Hosea’s family life in chs. 1 and 3, so that what these chapters say about Hosea’s family is literal and also points symbolically to God’s relationship with Israel—the real concern of the book. In 1:2, for example, a marriage to a woman named Gomer occurs, but a symbolic purpose is also revealed: to explain Israel’s departure from faithfulness to God (“for . . . this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD”). Likewise, the negative children’s names in 1:4 (Jezreel, meaning “God scatters,” a massacre site), 1:6 (Lo-Ruhamah, meaning “not loved”) and 1:9 (Lo-Ammi, meaning “not my people”) refer to real children given unpleasant names so as to symbolize Israel’s coming rejection and destruction. In Gomer’s case (1:2) it is not her name that is unpleasant but her title (“promiscuous woman”), again, symbolic. The verse links her and her children to the Israelite idolatrous apostasy of Hosea’s day. It is a metaphoric way of saying, in effect, that idolatry and unfaithfulness to God were everywhere.
In ch. 3, Hosea marries again, but this time he must not consummate the marriage (3:3). This marriage appears to be real, but again, biography is not the primary purpose. The goal of the passage is to symbolize by an enactment prophecy the immediate deprivations and later reacceptance (3:4–5) the Israelites would experience when their nation would first be conquered and taken into exile, but ultimately restored as God’s people.
So we know little about Hosea’s family life. He was married, had three children, and was married again at some later point. Their story is used by God with an ominous and figurative purpose: to predict the future of God’s family (Israel)—a future of trouble and deprivation, but one nonetheless culminating in hope (1:10–11; 3:5).
Canonicity and Position in the Minor Prophets and the Bible
Ancient versions of the Bible arrange the Minor Prophets in various orders, but Hosea is always first. This is probably due to four factors: (1) its date is early (only Amos and Jonah among the prophets are as early); (2) its size is long (the Minor Prophets are organized partly from longer to shorter, though not as strictly as Paul’s letters in the NT); (3) Hosea preaches to both northern Israel and southern Judah repeatedly; and (4) its extensive sweep of historical references spans from the days of the OT patriarchs to the NT era. No other minor prophet is quite so comprehensive. The NT cites or alludes to Hosea 40 times, perhaps most notably in Matt 2:15 (Hos 11:1 includes a Messianic prediction in its overall intent) and in Rom 9:25–26 (the great reversal of fortunes for God’s people predicted in Hos 1:10, 2:1, and 2:23 have been accomplished in Christ).
Special Problems Surrounding the Interpretation of Hosea
Readers of the book of Hosea often raise two questions: How could God command Hosea in 1:2 to marry a “promiscuous” woman? And how could God command Hosea in 3:1 to take her back after she had relations with another man (contrary to Deut 24:1–4)? These questions have been answered in various ways in the past.
The questions arise partly from the way that Hos 1:2 uses metaphoric language that modern people don’t easily recognize. We know that “The country’s going to the dogs!” or “Everybody’s becoming a couch potato!” are metaphoric statements, figurative rather than literal in intent. But we don’t automatically recognize that “wife of prostitution” and “children of prostitution” were metaphors in Hosea’s day, based on the well-established scriptural idea that idolatry and polytheism were likened to prostitution because they represented betrayal of God for material gain (e.g., Exod 34:15–16; Lev 20:4–6; Deut 31:16). Israelite idolaters thought that religious intimacy with other gods could deliver more wealth and blessings than a monogamous relationship with the true God could.
The questions above also arise partly from the way that chs. 1–3 group together different prophecies that contain marriage themes and love-sex-marriage vocabulary, sometimes directly mentioning Hosea and his family, causing some readers to focus on the personal lives of Hosea and Gomer, rather than on the real topic: God and his relationship with Israel.
The questions also arise because of a prophetic technique that Hosea uses, easy for his audience to understand, but not obvious to a modern reader: the enactment prophecy (prophetic action report). This technique adds memorable actions to prophetic words as visual aids to symbolize truths God wants his people to remember. Hosea uses this technique to compare the divine covenant of God and Israel to the human covenant of marriage. Symbolic rather than literal language is often employed in the process.
Hosea performs two enactment prophecies. In 1:2—2:1 his own marriage is used to symbolize the way that all Israel is affected by idolatry and polytheism, which Hosea calls “unfaithfulness” (“prostitution”). Since there aren’t any wives or children in Israel untouched by these sins in some way (the whole “land is guilty,” v. 2), anyone Hosea marries and any children he has would be, in the strict translation of 1:2, “a wife of ‘prostitution’ and ‘children of ‘prostitution.’ ” Jeremiah performed a similar enactment prophecy (see Jer 5:1–11). No matter how hard he searched throughout Jerusalem, he couldn’t find a single righteous person. The point in each case? That Hosea’s Israel and Jeremiah’s Judah were so corrupt that God was planning to bring an end to each—as both prophecies go on to say explicitly. Hosea’s second enactment prophecy is found in 3:1–5. It too involves a marriage, used symbolically to represent Israel’s unfaithfulness and God’s resulting judgment, and not necessarily a remarriage to Gomer.
The special language and style of chs. 1–3 have resulted in a variety of interpretations by godly, thoughtful scholars. These notes follow one line of reasoning: symbolic actions and words tell the story of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, but do not suggest actual personal immorality on the part of Hosea’s wife or children, or any violation of God’s prior commands about marriage.
Outline
I. Superscription: Hosea’s Ministry Timed to the Reigns of Several Kings (1:1)
II. Marriage Themes: Israel as God’s Wayward Wife (1:2—3:5)
A. Hosea’s Wife and Children (1:2—2:1)
1. Wife, Children, and Land Symbolize Pervasive Idolatry (1:2–3)
2. Three Unpleasant Children’s Names Predict Judgment (1:4–9)
3. Reversal of Names: Restoration in “the Day of Jezreel” (1:10—2:1)
B. Israel Punished and Restored (2:2–23)
1. Divorce Proceedings: An Allegory of God and Israel (2:2–13)
2. Restoration of the Marriage: God’s Future Covenant With His People (2:14–23)
C. Hosea’s Reconciliation With His Wife (3:1–5)
1. Another Marriage, This Time Unconsummated (3:1–3)
2. Israel’s Exile as Punishment for Covenant Infidelity (3:4–5)
III. Judgment Warnings Involving Israel’s Present and Future (4:1—9:8)
A. The Charge Against Israel (4:1–19)
1. Another Covenant Lawsuit Against Israel (4:1–14)
2. Israel’s Guilt a Warning to Judah (4:15–19)
B. Judgment Against Israel (5:1–15)
1. Indictment of People and Leaders for “Prostitution” (Idolatry) and Evil Deeds (5:1–7)
2. War Between Israel and Judah and Its Aftermath (5:8–15)
C. Israel Unrepentant (6:1—7:16)
1. A Glimpse of What Could Be: God’s Healing of a Future Repentant People (6:1–3)
2. God’s Frustration With His People (6:4–11a)
3. Israel’s Foolish Sinfulness in National and International Affairs (6:11b—7:16)
D. Israel to Reap the Whirlwind (8:1–14)
1. Punishments for Political Intrigue and Idolatry (8:1–6)
2. Israel Under Foreign Control (8:7–10)
3. False Worship and Misplaced Trust Bring Disaster (8:11–14)
E. Punishment for Israel (9:1–8)
1. Multiple Sins (9:1–4)
2. Multiple Deprivations (9:5–8)
IV. Judgment Warnings With a Retrospective Tone (9:9—13:16)
A. Ephraim Rejected, Exiled, and Unloved (9:9–17)
B. No More Cult, Kingship, or Capital (10:1–8)
C. Inevitable War Against Israel for Its History of Wickedness (10:9–15)
D. God’s Love for Israel (11:1–11)
1. Out of Captivity in the Past and Back Again in the Future (11:1–7)
2. Rescue by Grace From Captivity (11:8–11)
E. Israel’s Sin (11:12—12:14)
1. Israel’s Deceit in Contrast to the Lord’s Faithfulness (11:12—12:10)
2. Present Sins Against the Backdrop of Jacob and Moses (12:11–14)
F. The Lord’s Anger Against Israel (13:1–16)
1. Israel’s Tragic Fall via Idolatry and Coming Punishment (13:1–9)
2. Divine Judgment on a People Who Have No Sense (13:10–16)
V. Repentance to Bring Blessing (14:1–9)
A. Promise to the Remnant That Will Return (14:1–8)
B. A Challenge to the Wise Reader (14:9)
