Old Testament Prophets

Class 6 – Hosea Analysis

1. Review last week – questions?
   
   

2. The name ‘Hosea’ is probably an abbreviation of “Yahweh Saves” – as such the name is an indication of the purpose and message behind the book and an important clue of what we should look for.
   
   

3. Read introduction from Kidner pp 1.

1. Compare and contrast the actions of Hosea to those of the father in the Prodigal Son – the father waited for his son to return to restore him; Hosea went searching for and paid a price to restore Gomer as his wife.
   
   

4. HHStructure (from Dillard & Longman):
   
   

1. Superscription

2. 1:2-3:5 Hosea’s troubled marriage reflects God’s relationship with Israel

                                                               i.      1:2-2:1 Hosea, Gomer and their Children

1.      1:2-9 Prophetic Sign-act of judgment

2.      1:10-2:1 the Relationship restored

                                                             ii.      2:2-23 The Lord’s marriage to Israel

1.      2:2-13 The relationship broken

2.      2:14-23 the relationship restored

                                                            iii.      3:1-5 Hosea’s restored marriage relationship

3. 4:1-11:11 First prophetic cycle

                                                               i.      4:1-19 God accuses Israel of unfaithfulness

                                                             ii.      5:1-15 God punishes Israel

                                                            iii.      6:1-7 – 7:16 Hosea’s call to repentance ignored

                                                           iv.      8:1-10:15 God punishes Israel for rejecting Him

                                                             v.      11:1-11 God’s love for Israel overwhelms His anger

4. 11:12-14:8 Second prophetic cycle

                                                               i.      11:12-12:14 Israel sins against God

                                                             ii.      13:1-16 God is angry with His people

                                                            iii.      14:1-8 Israel repents and is blessed.

14:9 Wisdom Colophon

5. Theological message

1. Breaking of the covenant

2. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer represents Israel’s infidelity to God

                                                               i.      We have a clear analogy between a marriage gone bad (sexual immorality) and idolatry.

3. Judgment and salvation

                                                               i.      Hosea 4:6 – ‘God’s people are destroyed from lack of knowledge’.

                                                             ii.      God will not leave his people under judgment

1.      Second exodus (2:14-15)

2.      Heal Israel of their wounds from disobedience (14:1-9).

6. Approaching the New Testament

1. Several New Testament passages refer back to Hosea’s inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s covenant (Romans 9:25 & 1 Peter 2:10).

2. Hosea 13:14 is quoted by Paul in 1 Cor 15:55

3. Most recognized is Matthew 2:15 – which takes Hosea as a prophecy for Christ’s coming out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1)

4. Continuation and development of Hosea’s understanding of the divine covenant as symbolized in human marriage (see especially Ephesians 5:22-33).
   
   

7. Introduction – a Charge of Impiety against Israel – Theodoret of Cyr ACCS pp 4
   
   A CHARGE OF IMPIETY AGAINST ISRAEL. THE­ODORET of CYR: Likewise the Lord of all had bade Hosea also, therefore, marry a loose woman so as by the event to charge the people with impi­ety and give evidence of his characteristic long­suffering. If the God of all put up with the loose and adulterous synagogue, however, and the fount of holiness was not defiled by that loath­some and abominable thing, neither did the prophet incur any defilement from that licentious woman. Without being in thrall to lust, and in­stead carrying out a command from on high, he put up with that awful relationship. Now one must realize how judgment is made between good and bad by the purpose involved: on that basis marriage is distinguished from adultery, and though intercourse involves no difference, the dif­ference emerges in the purpose and the law, and on the same basis what is lawful is distinguished from what is lawless. COMMENTARY ON HOSEA
   
   

8. God’s redemptive plan of the coming of Christ is revealed verse 1:7 “But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by the Lord their God: I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen:
   
   ACCS  pp 5
   CHRIST Is GOD. NOVATIAN: Why, then, should we hesitate to say what Scripture does not hesi­tate to say? Why should the truth of faith waver where the authority of Scripture has never fal­tered? For behold, the prophet Hosea says in the person of the Father, "I will not save them by bow nor horses, but I will save them by the Lord their God," If God says that he will save them by God and if God does not save except by Christ, then why should people hesitate to call Christ God when they realize that the Father declares, through the Scriptures, that he is God? In fact, if God the Father cannot save except by God, no one can be saved by God the Father, unless one has acknowledged that Christ is God, in whom and through whom the Father promises to grant salvation.' ON THE TRINITY I2.'
   
   
   

9. God’s will incorporate the Gentiles – the ‘spiritual children of Abraham’ – into the covenant. Hosea 1:10 Hosea 1:10 (King James Version)
   
    ¹⁰Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
   
   ACCS 6                                                                                                                                                                                                                               GENTILE SALVATION FORETOLD. AUGUSTINE: Because Hosea is such a profound prophet, it is no easy matter to get at his meaning. Still, I must keep my promise and quote something from him at this point. He says, "And it shall be 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."' The apostles themselves under­stood this text as a prophecy of the calling of the Gentiles, who were previously not God's people. And because the Gentiles are spiritually sons of Abraham and correctly therefore alluded to as Is­rael, Hosea goes on to say, "And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the earth," Now to add one word of explanation to this text would be to lose the savor of Hosea's prophetic style. CITY OF GOD 18.28.¹⁰
   
   
   

10. God’s Call to His people is to turn away from false God’s and worship Him:
    
    Hosea 2:6-7: ⁶Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.  ⁷And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
    
    ACCS pp 9
    CALL TO RETURN. JOHN CASSIAN: Through the prophet Hosea the divine word well expressed God's concern and providence toward us. He speaks of the image of Jerusalem as a prostitute who is drawn with wicked ardor to the worship of idols. She says, "I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink," The divine condescen­sion replies, with a view to her salvation and not to her will, "Behold, I will hedge in her paths with thorns, and I will hedge her in with a wall, and she will not find her ways. And she will pur­sue her lovers and not lay hold of them, and she will seek them and not find them, and she will say, 'I will return to my first husband, because then it was better for me than it is now.'" CON­FERENCE 13.8. 1 G
    
    

11. Verse 4:4-6  ⁴Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. ⁵Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. ⁶My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
    
    In pagan religions the worship of God has priests as close guardians of the cultic mysteries while the people are, at best, mechanical participants. In the faith of the Old Testament (and even more so in the New Testament) revelation is addressed to every mind and conscience ‘makings wise the simple’. In the revealed religion of God perhaps the primary and most important duty of the religious leaders – the priests of the Old Testament and the Bishops, Presbyters, and “priesthood of believers” is the education of the uneducated; the bring of God’s light to those who exist in the dark; and the delivery of the Gospel to those who have not heard.