Hosea

Hosea, son of Beeri, prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BC, during the prosperous but corrupt final decades before Assyria destroyed Samaria in 722 BC. He is the first of the twelve Minor Prophets, and his book is unique in Scripture: God commands the prophet to marry Gomer, a wife of whoredoms, so that his own broken marriage becomes a living picture of God's covenant with an unfaithful people.

The opening chapters tell the story: Hosea and Gomer's children are given sign-names, Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah (not having obtained mercy), and Lo-ammi (not my people), and when Gomer leaves, Hosea buys her back for fifteen pieces of silver and a measure of barley. The rest of the book turns that drama into preaching: Israel has played the harlot with Baal, priests and kings have fed on sin, and the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Judgment is coming, yet God's heart recoils: how shall I give thee up, Ephraim?

Hosea reveals the wounded love of God more intimately than almost any other prophet. He desires mercy and not sacrifice, a line Jesus quotes twice, and his closing promise, I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, holds out restoration beyond judgment. The book calls God's people in every age back from empty religion to covenant faithfulness and the knowledge of the LORD.