Hosea

Hosea prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel, often called Ephraim after its largest tribe, during its last decades. His ministry began late in the reign of Jeroboam II, around 755 B.C., and lasted into the reign of Hezekiah in Judah (1:1). Unlike Amos, who came north from Judah a little earlier, Hosea seems to have been a northerner speaking to his own people. Isaiah and Micah were prophesying in Jerusalem at the same time.

Hosea lived through the collapse of a nation. Under Jeroboam II, Israel was wealthy and secure, and its shrines at Bethel and Gilgal were busy. After Jeroboam died, Israel had six kings in about twenty-five years, and four of them were assassinated (2 Kings 15). Kings turned first to Egypt and then to Assyria for help, paid heavy tribute, and finally rebelled. Assyria took the northern territories in 732 B.C. and destroyed Samaria in 722 B.C., carrying the people into exile (2 Kings 17:5–23). Behind the prosperity and the politics, Hosea saw a people who had forgotten their God: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land” (4:1). They worshiped Baal for rain and harvests, bowed to the golden calves and kept up sacrifices without faithfulness or justice.

Chapters 1–3 tell how God told Hosea to marry Gomer, whose unfaithfulness mirrored Israel’s unfaithfulness to the LORD. Their three children were given names that were messages in themselves: Jezreel (“God scatters”), Lo-Ruhamah (“not loved”) and Lo-Ammi (“not my people”). Yet God promised to reverse every name: “I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’” (2:23). He would lead his people into the wilderness, “speak tenderly to her” (2:14) and betroth her to himself forever in righteousness, justice, love and compassion. In chapter 3 Hosea buys back his wife and brings her home, a living picture of the LORD’s love for a people who had turned to other gods.

Chapters 4:1–11:11 read like a court case. The LORD brings charges against the priests, who rejected knowledge (4:6), against the kings and their foreign alliances, and against a people whose love is “like the morning mist” (6:4). Israel has sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind (8:7), and exile is coming. Yet the section ends with one of the tenderest passages in the Old Testament, as God remembers teaching Israel to walk: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1). “How can I give you up, Ephraim?… My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused” (11:8).

Chapters 11:12–14:9 look back to Jacob, who wrestled with God and wept for his blessing (12:3–4), and call Israel to do the same: “Return to your God; maintain love and justice” (12:6). Chapter 13 announces Samaria’s downfall, but also asks, “Where, O death, are your plagues?” (13:14). The book closes with a final invitation and promise: “Return, Israel, to the LORD your God” (14:1), and “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely” (14:4).

Several themes run through the book. Covenant love: the Hebrew word hesed, steadfast loyal love, is what God shows and what he asks for: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (6:6). Spiritual unfaithfulness: Hosea uses the language of adultery for idolatry, showing that turning from God betrays a relationship, not only a rule. Knowing God: “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (4:6), so the call is to “press on to acknowledge him” (6:3). Judgment and mercy together: God’s heart is torn even as he announces judgment. Return and healing: the call to “return” comes again and again, and the book ends with restoration.

The New Testament draws on Hosea often. Jesus quoted “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” twice (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). Matthew applied “Out of Egypt I called my son” to Jesus (Matthew 2:15). Paul used the renaming of “Not my people” to describe God calling Gentiles as well as Jews (Romans 9:25–26), and Peter applied it to the church (1 Peter 2:10). Paul also echoed 13:14 in his song of victory over death (1 Corinthians 15:55). Many readers see in Hosea’s love for Gomer a picture of the gospel: God loving and redeeming people who have not been faithful to him.

Readers understand some parts of Hosea in different ways. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer is read by most as a real event, though they differ on whether Gomer was already promiscuous when Hosea married her or whether “a promiscuous wife” (1:2) describes what she later became, seen in hindsight. Others, including the medieval Jewish commentators Ibn Ezra and Maimonides and later John Calvin, read it as a vision or a parable rather than an actual marriage. The woman in chapter 3 is usually understood to be Gomer herself, bought back after leaving Hosea, while some think she is a second woman. “Out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1) looks back to the exodus, and readers describe Matthew’s use of it as prophecy, typology or a pattern in Israel’s history repeated in the life of the Messiah. “Like Adam” (6:7) is read by some as referring to the first man and by others as the town of Adam by the Jordan (Joshua 3:16). This outline simply follows the text.