Chapter One

1. Inscription. 2–9. Symbolic action depicting Israel. 10–11. Consoling promises to Israel.

Hosea 1:1. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel. The inscription of the book, speaking about the person of the prophet and the time of his activity.

Hosea 1:2. The beginning of the word of the Lord to Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea: Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord. “The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea”: an inscription, which is thought to relate to the first three chapters of the book of Hosea. – From the second half of verse 2 begins the description of the symbolic action. In this symbolic action (compare also the note to chapter III) the prophet depicts Jehovah, the harlot Gomer – the people of Israel, the children of the harlot – the generation of Israel contemporary to the prophet. The criminal life of Gomer – an image of the idolatrous life of Israel, the symbolic names of her children – a prediction of the future fate of the people of Israel. – Hosea receives a commandment from the Lord to take a “wife of harlotry (escheth senunim) and children of harlotry” (jaldej senunim) to express that the land of Israel greatly commits harlotry. The expression (akach ischsich) “to take a wife” means in biblical language – to enter into marriage (Compare Gen 4:19). Thus the prophet is not simply commanded to take a woman into his house – (for example with the purpose of reforming her) or to enter into sexual relations with her, but precisely – to enter with her into lawful marriage. The woman whom the prophet is commanded to take is called escheth senunim, a woman of harlotries, that is, wholly devoted to harlotry. Although the word sanun, harlotry, is used in the Bible, and in particular in the prophet Hosea, often in a metaphorical sense, denoting idolatry (Compare Hos 2:2), in the verse under consideration, as is clear from the context, the prophet speaks of harlotry in the proper sense. Many commentators (Hitzig, Hengstenberg, Hoonacker) believe that the woman is called a harlot not in regard to her past, but in view of her future infidelity to the prophet. “And children of harlotry”, vejaldej senunim, in Slavonic (from the Vulgate) “and give birth to (fac) children of harlotry”. About what children of harlotry is the speech? The form of the prophet’s expression (go, take), as it were, speaks to the fact that children of harlotry – the illegitimate children of Gomer, distinct from those named later (Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, Lo-Ammi). The prophet, thus, receives a commandment to take these children, that is, probably to acknowledge them as his, to adopt them. But according to the opinion of the majority of exegetes (Ephrem the Syrian, Blessed Theodoret, Hengstenberg, Nowack) in verse 2 the future children of the prophet are meant, whose names are given later in Hos 1:3 and who were born after Gomer entered into marriage with the prophet. They are called children of harlotry either because they were the fruit of Gomer’s conjugal infidelity, or in view of their own moral depravity. Thus the characterization of Gomer and the children in verse 2 is made on the basis of a prediction of their future life. “For the land commits great harlotry by departing from the Lord”. The prophet has in mind only the land of the ten-tribe kingdom, for according to Hos 1:7 it is she who will face punishment for harlotry. Under the latter the prophet understands idolatry.

Hosea 1:3. And he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Exegetes who consider Hosea’s symbolic action merely as an allegory try to find an allegorical sense also in the names mentioned in verse 3 – Gomer, Diblaim. The name “Gomer” (Gomer) is derived from the root gamar, taking the latter either in the sense of to finish, to complete (Ps 56:3) or in the sense of to end, to cease (Ps 7:10). From this Blessed Jerome translates Gomer with the word τετελεσμένη finished, “the most perfect daughter of sensuality”; so too Keil, Hengstenberg, Scholz; others render it with the word – “perfection” (Hitzig), “destruction” “ruin” (Gesenius, Hoffmann). The name Diblaim according to Blessed Jerome’s interpretation means παλαθας (παλάθη – paste), according to others (Gesenius, Hoffmann) “fig cake”, “fig”. The variety of interpretations shows that it is difficult to find in the name Gomer an allegorical sense corresponding to Gomer’s significance in the prophet’s narrative. From this it is concluded that this is not an invented name of the prophet, but a purely historical one (Ewald, Nowack, Brodovich, Yavorsky). – The word “Diblaim” some authors want to understand in the sense of a geographical name, the place of origin of Gomer, considering, at the same time, Gomer to be a Moabite (compare Num 33:46; Jer 33:22). But it is simpler to see in this name the name of a person. “And she conceived and bore a son”: the form of expression (compare Isa 8:3: “and I approached the prophetess, and she conceived, and bore”), commentators reasonably believe, gives the thought that Jezreel and subsequent children of Gomer were not the prophet’s children.

Hosea 1:4. And the Lord said to him: Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. The prophet gives the first son a symbolic name according to God’s command – Jezreel. This name must serve as a sign that the Lord “will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel” and will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. Jezreel (now the village Zerin) – a city and valley in the tribe of Issachar (Josh 19:18). In Jezreel was the palace of Ahab (1 Sam 21:1) and the residence of the king, so that the city, along with Samaria, was temporarily the capital of the ten-tribe kingdom. The valley adjacent to it was called the valley of Esdralon (Jude 1:8), the valley of Megiddo (2 Chr 35:22) and the great valley (1 Macc 12:49). As for the meaning of the name Jezreel, it can be interpreted in two ways: God scatters and God sows. In the denunciatory part of his speech Hosea uses the name Jezreel in the first sense, in the consoling part (Hos 2:23) – in the second. “The blood of Jezreel of the house of Jehu” – the prophet, without doubt, has in mind the event described in 2 Sam 9:21, namely the destruction of the house of Ahab by Jehu, anointed as king of Israel. For the shedding of innocent blood of Naboth (1 Sam 21:1-16), for the killing by Jezebel of the prophets of God and, in general, for the extreme impiety, the house of Ahab was, by God’s judgment, subject to destruction. The executor of this judgment was Jehu, who killed in Jezreel the son of Ahab, king Joram (2 Sam 9:21-26), the wife of Ahab, Jezebel, and seventy of his sons, all his officials and priests (2 Sam 9:30-10:11). For the execution of judgment on the house of Ahab, Jehu, according to the testimony of the writer of Kings, received the promise that his sons to the fourth generation would sit on the throne of Israel (2 Sam 10:30). But the destruction of the house of Ahab was only a means in the struggle against idolatry and impiety being spread in the ten-tribe kingdom under the patronage of Ahab. “The blood of Jezreel” had as its final purpose the restoration in pure form of the trampled religion of Jehovah, which Jehu was supposed to accomplish. But Jehu did not prove himself equal to his calling. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, that is, from the worship of the golden calves (2 Sam 10:29) which had such a disastrous effect by the time of Hosea (Hos 4:13-14 and others) on the religious life of the people. The successors of Jehu also patronized this cult. Thus the bloodshed in Jezreel not only lost its value, but also turned into a sin lying on the house of Jehu and demanding vengeance. According to the prophet’s word, the Lord in the near future (“yet a little while”) will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, that is, will overthrow the dynasty of Jehu, and then will put an end to the house of Israel, that is, will destroy royal power in general in the ten-tribe kingdom. The overthrow of the house of Jehu was accomplished soon after Jeroboam’s death in the fact of the murder by Shallum of Zechariah in the sixth month of the latter’s reign. But this was the beginning of the end, that is, the anarchy that was established in the ten-tribe kingdom and after 50 years ended in its conquest. In our Slavonic text, corresponding to the Greek, instead of the words from the house of Jehu it reads “on the house of Judah”. This reading is erroneous; it is refuted both by ancient translations and by the context. Instead of the words: “I will put an end to the kingdom” in Slavonic “I will give rest”, καταπαύσω as a result of a literal translation of the Hebrew by the Septuagint vehischbathi (from sehabath).

Hosea 1:5. And it shall be on that day, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. “And on that day”, that is, on the day of punishment of the house of Israel. I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. The bow – an image of military power (compare Gen 10:24; 2 Sam 1:4; Jer 1:35). The prophet, thus, speaks about the defeat of the Israeli army in war, in battle in the valley of Jezreel that preceded the fall of the kingdom. In the narrative of the conquest of the ten-tribe kingdom by the Assyrians there is no mention of a battle on the Jezreel plain. But in view of the fact that this plain was on one hand the key to dominating the whole country, and on the other presented reliable means for resistance, it is quite natural that it was on the Jezreel plain that the Israelites made their last attempt to halt the Assyrian advance.

Hosea 1:6. And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And He said to him: Call her name Loruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them. Instead of the words “to forgive them” (ki nasa essa lachem, that I forgiving, would forgive them) in Slavonic according to the Septuagint text: “opposing, I will oppose them”: they presume that the Septuagint read the words nasa essa as nasi aschith, άντιτασσαμενος αντιταξομαι.

Hosea 1:7. But the house of Judah I will have mercy on and will save them in the Lord their God, I will save them neither by bow nor by sword nor by war nor by horses and horsemen. At the same time as the punishment of Israel, God’s mercy will be manifested toward Judah, which for its faithfulness to Jehovah will be saved by almighty power. The prophet, it must be supposed, has in mind the coming invasions of the Assyrians, during which there was manifested a different relation of Jehovah toward Israel and Judah: the ten-tribe kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, but under the walls of Jerusalem the Assyrian army was destroyed by miraculous power. (Isa 36:1). “The house of Judah”: in Greek Slavonic “the sons of Judah”; the Septuagint often translates the Hebrew beith through υἰοί – sons (compare Gen 45:11; Josh 17:17), while the words banim, sons, are translated as οΐκος house. Not by war, that is, not by military skill.

Hosea 1:8. And when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Hosea 1:9. And He said: Call his name Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I will not be your God. Through the symbolic name Lo-Ammi, the prophet proclaims the rejection of Israel, compare 2 Sam 17:18: “and the Lord was very angry with the Israelites and rejected them from his presence. Not one was left of the house of Israel.”

Hosea 1:10. But the number of the sons of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” it shall be said to them, “You are sons of the living God. Verse 10 in Hebrew is 2:1; in the Septuagint verses 9–10 are assigned to chapter I. The speech concerns the ten-tribe kingdom. From a comparison of verse 10 with what precedes it, one must conclude that, according to the prophet’s thought, the rejection of Israel will be only temporary, and therefore the promise given to the fathers (Gen 22:17) concerning the multiplication of their descendants is not abolished by the threat. “Like the sand of the sea”: a common image in the Old Testament, expressing the idea of an innumerable multitude. “And in the place where it was said” (in Slavonic “and it shall be, in the place in which it was said to them”), that is, in Palestine, where the rejection of Israel was proclaimed and to which Israel will eventually be gathered from the places of its scattering.

Hosea 1:11. And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall gather together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land of exile, for great is the day of Jezreel! The form of the prophet’s speech is borrowed from the fact of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, when the entire people gathered and was appointed for all the tribes of Israel a single head – a leader and lawgiver Moses. The exodus from Egypt serves for the prophet in verse 11 as an image of the future, namely, the liberation of Israel from Assyrian captivity. “They shall go up from the land”, vealah min haarez. Some interpreters understand the verb alah in the sense of – “to march out beyond”, “to go out to battle”. Therefore they interpret all the expression as a prediction of future conquests for the purpose of expanding territory (Hitzig, Umbreit). But the context of the speech and the use of the verb alah do not provide grounds for such an interpretation of the words under consideration. “For great is the day of Jezreel”, that is, the day of the beginning of the captivity of Israel, the day when Israel will be defeated and scattered in the valley of Jezreel (compare Hos 1:4-5); this day is great by its consequences for the future, as it will lead to the turning of Israel and union with the house of Judah. The church fathers (Blessed Jerome, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria), in explaining verse 11 pay attention to the meaning of the word Jezreel, understanding it in the sense of God sows. All the expression, according to their interpretation, means: glorious is the day when the people will go up from the land of captivity and become the seed of the living God (Jezreel).