Bible Commentaries

Hosea and his Wife. A Parable for the Israelites

1. On the heading, see Introduction.

2. The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea] If we render the Hebrew text thus, the words are a heading to the first part of the book, viz. chaps 1–3; they are apparently taken thus by the LXX., the Vulg., and perhaps the Targ. and the Peshito. It would however be better to translate with the Vulg., ‘The beginning of Jehovah’s speaking by (or, with) Hosea’, because ‘by Hosea’ goes better with a verbal than with a common noun; or, with Kalisch, ‘The beginning of that which Jehovah spoke’ (comp. Job 18:21; Psalm 81:6); or, with Ewald, ‘At the first, when Jehovah spoke with Hosea’ (comp. Psalm 4:8; Psalm 90:15, and possibly Genesis 1:1). ‘With Hosea’ is the preferable rendering. As Ewald remarks, the phrase ‘to speak with’ implies that he who speaks is a superior being (comp. Zechariah 1:9; Zechariah 1:13-14; Numbers 12:2; Numbers 12:8). The original narrative no doubt began at ‘Jehovah said’: the words prefixed make the sentence heavy.

take unto thee] i.e. marry (as Genesis 6:2 and often), with regard to Gomer; recognize as thine own with regard to the children. Is this marriage of Hosea a real or a fictitious one? Symbolical it certainly is, but whether literally true or not, the student must decide on a view of the somewhat peculiar exegetical data. See Introduction, and comp. note below on Hosea 1:3.

a wife of whoredoms] i.e. (a) one with a deeply rooted inclination to adultery, or (b) as most explain, a woman already steeped in sin. In favour of (a), it may be pointed out that the prophet does not say, ‘Take unto thee a harlot’. His wife is brought before us throughout as a type of Israel; she must at first have been innocent in act to symbolize what Jehovah elsewhere calls ‘the kindness of thy (Israel’s) youth, the love of thine espousals’ (Jeremiah 2:2). Upon this view it follows that the language employed is dictated by Hosea’s subsequent experience. He could not, of course, know that Gomer had an inclination to infidelity, until it had been exhibited in act.

children of whoredoms] i.e. either children inheriting their mother’s evil tendencies, or the offspring of an adulterous union. (Comp. Hosea 2:4.)

for the land hath committed …] This is the meaning of Hosea’s acted parable. As Gomer became the wedded wife of the prophet, so ‘the land’, i.e. the people, of northern Israel had entered into an analogous mystic relation to Jehovah (see on Hosea 2:21-22). As Gomer, after her espousals, committed whoredom, so Israel, after her first love, went astray after other gods (see chap. 2). Israel in the narrower sense of the word seems to be meant, for afterwards we read ‘I will have mercy upon the house of Judah’ (Hosea 1:7).

3. Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim] Various attempts have been made to extract a meaning from these names, which by its appropriateness to the circumstances of the Israelites might favour the view that the events related are fictitious and not real. Gomer may plausibly be interpreted ‘perfection’ (i.e. consummate in wickedness), and Diblaim ‘cakes of figs’ (i.e. the sweetness of sin). Rahmer has pointed out this view in the Talmud (see Frankel’s Monatsschrift, xiv. 216 foll.), so that St Jerome’s similar explanation must have come from his Jewish teacher. But the fact that the children of Hosea (like those of Isaiah) have names which are obviously symbolic does not justify us in forcing an allusion out of the name of the mother. It has been suggested, but the view is not borne out by usage, that Diblaim is the name of Gomer’s birthplace; Diblathaim was a Moabitish town (see Jeremiah 48:22 and Moabite Stone l. 30). The termination is that of the dual.

bare him a son] i.e. bare a son, whom for the mother’s sake he recognized.

4. Call his name Jezreel] The child of guilt; therefore not Israel but Jezreel (or, more exactly, Izreel). The name is referred to for its historical associations (comp. on Hosea 2:22). It points both backward and forward—backward to the massacre of Ahab’s family by Jehu (2 Kings 9:10.), and forward to the punishment for that wild and cruel act. Hosea (in whom natural peculiarities have been purified and not extinguished by the spirit of prophecy) regards the conduct of Jehu in a different light from the writer of 2 Kings 10:30. The latter praises Jehu for having ‘done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in by mind’; he speaks on the assumption that Jehu had the interests of Jehovah’s worship at heart, and that he destroyed the house of Ahab as the only effectual means of advancing them. The former blames Jehu apparently on the high moral ground that Jehovah ‘desires mercy (love) and not sacrifice’ (Hosea 6:6). He speaks as the Israelites of his time doubtless felt. They no more recognized Jehu as a champion of Jehovah than did the priests of Baal whom he basely entrapped (2 Kings 10:18, &c.). But Hosea doubtless felt in addition that the idolatry to which the house of Jehu was addicted rendered a permanent religious reform hopeless. Image-worship could not be suppressed by such halfhearted worshippers of Jehovah, and hence, Jehovah’s moral government of His people must have made it certain to Hosea that even on this ground alone the dynasty of Jehu could not escape an overthrow.

yet a little while, and I will avenge …] ‘Avenge’; lit. ‘visit’. Hosea represents (like a fellow-prophet, Amos 7:9) the destruction of the northern kingdom as synchronizing with the overthrow of Jehu’s dynasty. This was a remarkable proof of insight into God’s purposes. Both prophets saw the beginning of the end, though the final catastrophe (722) took place about nineteen years later than the death of Jeroboam II. (741).

5. the bow of Israel] The bow, the symbol of power (Genesis 49:24; Jeremiah 49:35).

in the valley of Jezreel] It seemed fitting that this ‘battlefield of Palestine’ (as the valley of Jezreel had already become, see on Jdg 6:33) should be the scene of so momentous an event, fitting also that where Jehu had sinned, Jehu’s house should be punished. There would have been a ‘poetical justice’ in such an arrangement, had such been the will of Providence. But there can be no doubt that Hosea had an accurate knowledge of the Assyrians as the destined instruments of Israel’s overthrow (see on Hosea 8:10).

6. bare a daughter] The nation being personified sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman.

Lo-ruhamah] i.e., Uncompassionated.

but I will utterly take them away] Rather, that I should forgive them.

7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah] Grave as are the charges brought against Judah by the prophets, it appears to have been some degrees better off religiously than Israel; probably, as it was a poorer country, its nature-worship was less extravagantly sensuous than that of the north. Hosea elsewhere counsels Judah not to offend to the same extent as Israel (Hosea 4:15), and later on accuses Judah rather of inconstancy than of absolute rebellion (Hosea 11:12).

by the Lord their God] Tautologically, as Genesis 19:24. Or, ‘as Jehovah their God’ (i.e ‘in the character of’ &c., comp. Exodus 6:3 ‘as El Shaddai’, Psalm 68:4 ‘his name is, essentially, in Jah’). Observe Hosea recognizes Judah’s higher religious ideal.

not … by bow] Judah, then, was in danger of trusting in warlike equipments, as Isaiah afterwards describes it as doing (Isaiah 2:7). And yet, if Israel, with all its natural strength, could not resist the Assyrian attack, it was clear that the weaker kingdom could only do so by supernatural aid. Comp. Isaiah 31:8; Isaiah 37:33. ‘Battle’ should be equipment of war.