Introduction to Hosea

Now that April, the most activity and responsibility-filled month in academia, is over, I can return to the blog. We finished Romans and now we move to Hosea, a much misunderstood book in the Hebrew scriptures.

This introductory post is a How Not to and a How to read Hosea. Most commentators start their study of the book by trying to figure out Hosea's life story. That, however, is not the point of the book. Rather, aspects of Hosea's life illustrate God's purpose in human history and God's nature.

There will be fewer posts on Hosea than there are chapters in the book. Much of the material is repeated and so the treatment will be thematic.

Hosea lived in the 9th century BC, had a 60-year career, spanning the last kings of the northern kingdom of Israel and beyond, by which time only the southern kingdom of Judah remained. He was the only prophet from the northern kingdom to have left written prophecies. His purpose was to interpret God's purpose in letting the northern kingdom fall and to give a message of hope for the future.

In Hosea, Israel is accused of "whoredom" meaning to signal its infidelity to the Covenant God of Israel, called Yaweh in the Hebrew scriptures. The people and their leaders all worshiped the gods of the Canaanites and Assyrians alongside Yaweh, violating the First Commandment. Therefore when God tells Hosea to "marry a wife of whoredom" it is not a punishment. One may take it that Hosea was disinclined to marry any woman, because she would be unclean owing to the worship of other gods. But God tells Hosea to go ahead and marry. In doing so, Hosea participates in the life of his people, though not in their unfaithfulness to God.

There was a tradition among prophets to act out in public scenes depicting what God meant to say to the people. In marrying Gomer (a name that sounds perfectly normal in Hebrew for a woman), Hosea is acting out God's presence among his disobedient people. They have a boy, whom God tells them to name Jezreel. That was a military stronghold that witnessed a bloodbath when the evil king Ahab and his consort Jezabel were executed along with countless other people. In naming the boy Jezreel, God was signalling that, unless Israel changed its ways, it would suffer the fate of Ahab and Jezabel.

Then they had a daughter and God said to name her Lo-Ruhamah (not pitied). God would not have pity on those who persisted in disobeying. Finally they had a second daughter, who was to be named Lo-Ammi, which is "not my people." God's people are those who worship only Yaweh, the Covenant God of Israel. The Israelites of the northern kingdom were not God's people by their own choice.

In all this, God called on Hosea to live out aspects of God's love for Israel and Judah and the pain God felt, caused by their infidelity. However that's not the end of the story. Basically we have covered chapter I of Hosea, but in so doing put our sights on the purpose of God, not on Hosea's life history, which is not the topic of the book.

I plan four or five weekly posts on Hosea. I hope they will be instructive and helpful.