It will be readily conceded that the times in which Hosea lived called for a prophet from the Lord. From the high peak of prosperity achieved under Jeroboam II, Samaria had rampaged downhill to suicidal destruction. Few would have believed that after Jeroboam’s death the northern kingdom would have only 27 years of nationhood left. That is the measure of the speed with which spiritual apostacy and moral degeneracy can compass the death of a nation. A debauched aristocracy, a degenerate priesthood, a debased people, constituted an apostate nation that grew prematurely old and died by its own hand (7:9, 4:1–11).
Background And Date
Hosea was contemporary with Amos, Isaiah and Micah (cf. Hos. 1:1; Amos 1:1; Isa. 1:1; Mic. 1:1), and like Amos he witnessed in Samaria, the northern part of the divided kingdom. The spontaneity with which he depicts the contemporary situation in Samaria, and the accuracy of the details, suggest that he was a native of the north. The name Ephraim occurs nearly 40 times. The numerous place names met with are all of locations in Samaria.
When Hosea began to prophesy in Ephraim it is safe to assume that Jeroboam II still ruled the country. At least the dynasty to which he belonged (the House of Jehu) still survived. In 1:4, its overthrow, which took place six months after Jeroboam II died, is foretold but not fulfilled. A hint of the amazing prosperity that Jeroboam’s rule brought to Samaria occurs in 2:5, 8f. The king died in 749 B.C., so that the early part of Hosea’s writings (1–3) probably concern events that took place within a period a few years before that date.
The second part of Hosea’s ministry was fulfilled in a completely different ethos. There are many hints of the chaotic conditions that prevailed following Jeroboam’s death. However, Samaria had not yet fallen to the Assyrian Sargon II (13:16). Indeed, Hosea betrays no knowledge even of the disasters that befell Israel during the reign of Tiglathpileser III, predecessor of Shalmaneser V, whom Sargon succeeded. The darkening gloom that heralded Samaria’s bloody end is descending like a pall upon the doomed nation, but Gilead in Transjordania is still part of Ephraim (6:8), and the ruthlessly efficient Assyrian war machine is not yet in operation against her (5:13, 12:1). In fact, the situation is powerfully reminiscent of Menahem’s rule in Samaria (2 Kings 15:13–22), the king who “reigned” by permission of the Assyrian emperor, his overlord. Since Menahem died in 734 B.C., probably Hosea’s ministry was completed prior to that date.
Contents
The book of Hosea falls into two main sections: chapters 1–3 and 4–14. The first divides fairly easily into five parts: (1) 1:1–9, describes Hosea’s relations with Gomer his wife, and by means of symbolic names given to the prophet’s children foreshadows Samaria’s doom; (2) 1:10–2:1, provides hope of a reversal of this doom; (3) 2:2–13, returns to the disaster foreshadowed in the first section; (4) 2:14–23, supplies fresh promises of a restoration; (5) 3:1–5, suggests that Hosea’s treatment of the wayward Gomer points to the means by which Samaria may be restored.
The second section is less easily divided but there appear to be three main parts in it: (1) Chapters 4–8, which exposes generally the horrifying state of Samaria’s moral life; chapter 4 describes Israel’s national sins, for which the priests must share responsibility; chapters 5–7 show the extent to which Ephraim’s life is riddled with the dry-rot of sin, while chapter 8 specifies the actual sins which plague the nation; (2) 9–11:11, describes the entail of judgment that such sinfulness necessitates; (3) 11:12; 12; 13, reviews some of the salient features of Israel’s past history, while chapter 14 promises a limited restoration to a chastened and repentant residue.
Hosea’S Relations With Gomer
Chapters 1–3 are easily systematized because they revolve around a common center. In this first section the prophet is preoccupied primarily with the chesedh (grace) of Jahweh and the faithfulness of Ephraim. This stemmed from the harrowing experience that came to him in his own home. The interpretation of this event is the crux of the first part of the book because it seems to raise a serious moral problem.
The most widely accepted interpretation is based on the conviction that Hosea’s account of his marital relations with Gomer is factual. He married Gomer and she bore him three children. The first, a son, was named Jezreel signifying the judgment of Jehu’s house (1:3–5); the second child, a daughter, was called Uncompassionated signifying the close of Israel’s day of grace (1:6f.); the third, a son, was named Not-my-people signifying that Israel was no longer Jahweh’s people.
In the course of their married life Gomer’s infidelities came to light. Hosea and Gomer separated but she persisted in her immoral habits. So complete became her eventual degradation that she was put up for sale as a slave. At the Lord’s behest Hosea redeemed her and restored her to his home, though not as his wife. Sexual relations were to be resumed only after a probationary period had proved that she was cured of her waywardness.
It is important to note that Hosea restored Gomer to his home after he saw that the Lord would restore Israel, while Gomer’s unfaithfulness was discovered before Hosea gained insight into Israel’s apostasy. The significance of this is that while the prophet’s domestic tragedy preceded his understanding of God’s sorrow over Israel, it was the Lord who set the example of forgiveness. Hosea saw God’s sorrow in the light of his own, but he saw how to forgive Gomer when he saw the Lord’s willingness to forgive Israel. Human grace is the reflex of divine grace.
But the acceptance of Hosea’s account of his domestic sorrow as factual seems to involve a moral problem. In Chapter 1:2, Jahweh says to Hosea: “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms!” This command marks the opening of Hosea’s prophetic ministry. But is it conceivable that the Holy One of Israel would lay such a command upon one of his prophets? A number of scholars deny this and resolve the problem by describing Hosea’s account of his domestic tragedy as an allegory. The stark realism of the prophet’s story, however, does not suggest that he was using allegorical language, and in any case the allegorist still has to explain why Hosea used an immoral subject in the alleged allegory.
Another attempt to solve the dilemma is the suggestion that Hosea knew that Gomer was a prostitute before he married her, and that the marriage was the prophet’s endeavor to lift Gomer from her degradation in response to the Lord’s command in verse 2 of chapter 1. But this solution accounts neither for Hosea’s view that Israel was chaste at the time of her betrothal with Jahweh and only corrupted herself subsequently, nor for his understanding of his own tragedy.
If the phrase “wife of whoredoms” (1:2) is applied to Gomer to describe not what she was but what she became after Hosea married her, then the difficulty disappears. Hosea’s children are described as “children of whoredoms” (1:2), but they were yet unborn. This would free us from imputing to God a command that would at once outrage the prophet’s moral sense, and render impossible the fulfilment of part of his mission, namely the condemnation of the nation’s immoral practices.
It also enables us to establish the necessary connection between Hosea’s personal experience and his teaching. The former was the medium through which the latter was communicated. Out of that harrowing experience there came to the prophet an understanding of the heinous nature of Israel’s idolatry. She was committing adultery (1:2) when she worshiped the Canaanite Baal (2:5, 8). And since Jahweh was the Holy One, he could neither condone nor ignore such infidelity. Judgment in the form of exile (3:4) became inevitable. But this would not be Jahweh’s final word to Israel, his unfaithful bride. Her return home was certain (3:5) when the fiery furnace of exile would have welded her into a unity (1:11), and purged away the dross of her idolatrous cravings. Men would then know her as the Lord’s betrothed (2:19).
Additional Teachings In Hosea
The second part of the book of Hosea, chapters 4:14, has no cohesive principle similar to that which unifies the first three chapters; but there are one or two important truths set forth in this second section. These must necessarily be presented in summarized form.
1. In chapters 4–6 the prophet again turns his attention to the religious life of Samaria. There are several factors to notice here.
(a) He describes her worship at the high places as harlotry (4:13), and for two reasons: gross immorality characterized it (4:14 f.), and it represented national apostasy from Jahweh. The local Baalim were Israel’s paramours.
(b) Now what Hosea underscores is that this revolting behavior was the result of the people’s ignorance. And this lack of knowledge was the outcome of a deliberate policy of the priesthood. When Hosea speaks of knowledge at this point he does not mean knowledge that is an abstract entity. He has in mind a knowledge of God that is practical. A knowledge that reveals to a man his duty toward the Lord and that impels him to a response of obedience.
(c) It was this kind of knowledge that the priests, of set purpose, withheld from the people (4:6). Within this deliberately induced vacuum they fostered sensuous passions in the people, which they craftily guaranteed could and would be sated at the high places. This deliberate policy pursued by the priests was motivated by the determination to gain mean advantages over the people (4:8).
(d) This policy finally bore baneful fruit in the nation’s life. The time came when Hosea could say that there was neither truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of Jahweh in Ephraim (4:1). And as the insensate people plunged deeper into the morass of an immorality that was both religious and ethical, their foolish hearts became increasingly dark (4:10 f.), until Hosea’s famous dictum became proverbial: ‘Like people, like priest’ (4:9).
(e) Turning to the great world powers for help in her dilemma (5:13, 7:11, 8:9, 12:1) proved unavailing. It was only added evidence that Israel was a sick nation. It bespoke an apostate condition because the absence of trust in Jahweh which this policy revealed indicated alienation from God in heart as well as mind. Hosea knew of only one remedy for this cancerous growth that was eating into Samaria’s vitals—judgment, and the return of a chastened people to their God. Then they would know, if they continued to follow on to know the Lord (6:1–3).
2. Hosea’s teaching on the covenant relation between Jahweh and Israel is also important. In this field his main burden is that the nation has wantonly severed this covenant bond (5:7, 6:7, 8:1).
(a) He understood it in terms of filial relations (11:1). But whereas in the neighboring nations this relation between deity and people was understood in terms of a physical relationship, in Israel the bond with Jahweh was spiritual and ethical.
(b) This covenant relation between Jahweh and Ephraim was morally conditioned because it was a bond of chesedh. The bond, therefore, could be maintained only by the worship and behavior of a people who loved mercy, holiness, justice, truth and a right knowledge of Jahweh. But in fact Israel’s life was the complete antithesis of this ideal.
(c) The prophet saw from his own experience of Gomer’s infidelity what Israel’s unfaithfulness must have meant to Jahweh. It was when his own love was so heartlessly trampled underfoot by Gomer, and his character and purpose were so cruelly misinterpreted, that insights into the heart of God flashed into his distraught mind.
(d) It was this, too, that showed him the inevitability of judgment (13:16). But this would not mean the cessation of Jahweh’s chesedh for Ephraim (11:8, 13:14). Through the gloom of impending judgment Hosea saw gleams heralding the dawn of a new day (5:15–6:6, 11:9–11, 14:4–9).
3. Attention should also be drawn to Hosea’s concept of religion. This stemmed from his doctrine of God.
(a) Whereas Amos had conceived Jahweh to be a God whose chief concern was the Law and its observance, Hosea believed Jahweh to be essentially a God of grace (11:1–4). God’s grace could not merely match law, it was greater than law. God’s grace could pronounce judgment upon the people who had a broken law on their conscience and at the same time promise redemption.
(b) Now having seen that Jahweh was essentially grace and spirit, Hosea could teach that religion was of the heart (6:6). Religion was an inward thing of the spirit. This insight was inevitable when one has due regard to the elemental thing in Israel’s faith, namely Jahweh’s elective grace in redeeming her from Egypt, and the ethical nature of the covenant bond into which she entered with Jahweh at Sinai. For Hosea, Israel’s religion was pre-eminently inward and ethical, spiritual and moral.
(c) Hence, Hosea viewed exile not as the end but as the beginning. It would only serve to make plain what was inherent in his view of Israel’s faith, namely that behind the outward religion, behind temple, sacrifice, priesthood and ceremonial, was the essential inward religion. The invisible “required” the visible accompaniment for the benefit of its adherents, but Hosea saw that the invisible had qualities and ideals that no visible ceremonial could finally embody. Hosea saw the truth which a Greater than he was one day to formulate: “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
Brief Bibliography
From fairly extensive literature on Hosea the following may be said to be representative: John Calvin, Commentaries, Minor Prophets (Edinburgh, 1846, Vol. 1); Keil & Delitzsch, Commentaries on the Old Testament, Minor Prophets (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1954, Vol. 1); C. Von Orelli, The Twelve Minor Prophets (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1897); G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets in The Expositor’s Bible (Funk & Wagnalls, 1900); W. R. Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea in The International Critical Commentary (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 4th Impression 1953); A. C. Welch, Kings and Prophets of Israel (Philosophical Library, New York, 1952, pp. 130–184); H. Wh. Robinson, The Cross of Hosea (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia).
J. G. S. S. THOMSON
Professor of Old Testament
Columbia Theological Seminary
