HarperCollins Study Bible

by Harold W. Attridge

  Book

  IN THE FIRST PART of the book, narrative descriptions of Hosea’s marriage (chs. 1 and 3) frame a long divine speech in ch. 2 portraying Israel as both an adulterous wife and a land of whoredom. Prophetic promises of restoration appear in 1.10–11; 2.14–23; 3.5. The second part of Hosea, chs. 4–14, presents a variety of prophetic sayings, including legal indictments, recollections of Israel’s past, and heartrending divine monologues. The sayings have been worked up into conflated literary compositions of varying lengths arranged in roughly chronological order. Near the end of ch. 11, a promise of salvation rounds off preceding messages of judgment. Then, additional sayings of judgment in chs. 12–13 lead to the book’s finale, another promise of restoration in ch. 14. Among the NRSV’s text notes, twelve call the Hebrew text uncertain and seventeen signal that translators have made conjectural changes. It is obvious that the Hebrew text is unusually difficult. The book’s opening verse and some of its internal references (1.7; 3.5; 11.12; 12.2) indicate that it took on new life in Judah after the fall of Israel. Northern refugees settling in Jerusalem, including groups of Levites, must have introduced Hosea’s prophecies into the Judean royal court together with other texts such as the psalms of Asaph (2 Chr 29.30).

  Prophecy

  HOSEA’S PROPHECY IS BASED on covenantal traditions shared with both earlier and later scriptural sources, including the psalms of Asaph, the E strand of the Pentateuch (see Introduction to Genesis), and the book of Micah. These sources understand the Sinai covenant to unite God and Israel in a mutual, binding relationship entailing both grace and obligation (see 4.6; 6.7; 8.1). Having received the Lord’s personal fiefdom as its homeland (9.3, 15; cf. Ex 13.5, E), Israel must not credit the bounty of the land to Canaanite deities, such as Baal (2.8, 13; 9.1; 11.2–3; cf. Pss 78.23–27; 81.9–10, 16, psalms of Asaph). The Lord is neither a specialized deity, relegating the realm of nature to the Baals, nor a Baal-like deity, immanent in nature. What is more, having covenanted to be vassals of the Lord, Israel cannot rely on human kings, with their frenetic plotting and alliance building, to preserve its national existence (1.4; 3.4; 7.3–7; 8.4, 10). Israel must regard the Lord alone as its suzerain and savior (10.3; 13.4, 9–11).

  Hosea develops the theme of love as an expression of the relationship between God and Israel. He daringly co-opts the love language of his syncretistic milieu, but equates Israel’s covenant with a binding and exclusive marital love. A marriage can be devastated by adultery, and Israel’s fertility religion and idolatry have meant agonizing sorrow for God. Yet God’s heart break and the coming demise of Israel’s promiscuity are not the end of the story, for Hosea prophesies a new beginning, a renewed covenant, and a new gift of the land in a second history of reconciliation and regeneration. [JAMES LUTHER MAYS, revised by STEPHEN L. COOK]

  HOSEA 1

  1The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.

  The Family of Hosea

  2When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” 3So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

  4And the LORD said to him, “Name him Jezreel;a for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

  6She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the LORD said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah,b for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. 7But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.”

  8When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9Then the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi,c for you are not my people and I am not your God.”d

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  a That is God sows

  b That is Not pitied

  c That is Not my people

  d Heb I am not yours

  1.1 Word of the LORD… came, an editorial formula introducing Hosea’s prophetic collection and emphatically declaring its divine origins. For the kings mentioned, see 2 Kings 15–18.

  1.2–3.5 Israel as a promiscuous wife and a land of whoredom.

  1.2–2.1 As a dramatic symbolic action, God commissions Hosea to marry a wife prone to adultery and to have her children bear ominous names. Her propensity toward whoredom will dramatically act out Israel’s involvement with fertility deities and sexual rites (4.13–14;9.1; cf. Ex 32.6, E).

  1.2 The second and third children are of whoredom in a literal sense, since only with respect to the first son is it said that Hosea’s wife bore him a child (v. 3; cf. vv. 6, 8). Further, the daughter’s name, Lo-ruhamah (“Not pitied,” v. 6), is specifically associated with prostitution in 2.4, and the second boy’s name, Lo-ammi, can be taken to mean “No kin of mine.”

  1.4–5 Jezreel, an emblem of bloodshed, as it was the locale of a bloody coup perpetrated by Jehu in 843/2 BCE (2 Kings 9–10). Hosea’s prophecy of doom for Jehu’s dynasty would have scandalized the reigning king, Jeroboam II, a descendant of Jehu. Later in the book, Jezreel takes on new meaning (see v. 11; 2.22, text note a).

  1.5 Break the bow, destroy a state’s military power (Jer 49.35; Ezek 39.3).

  1.6 The name Lo-ruhamah, also translated “No compassion,” publicly signals the withdrawal of the divine mercy emphasized in Ex 33.19 (E); 2 Kings 13.23 (but see note on 2.1).

  1.7 Judean editors interject that God’s compassion is still available to the Southern Kingdom (cf. the editorial work in Ps 78.67–69, a psalm of Asaph).

  1.9 Lo-ammi, “Not my people,” negates a formulaic expression of the Sinai covenant (cf. Deut 29.13; Jer 7.23; 11:3–4). I am not your God, read literally in the Hebrew, is a reversal of Ex 3.14 (E), God’s self-presentation as the great “I AM.”

  1.10–2.1 Judah and Israel will be restored as the dear children of the living God.

  1.10 Like the sand of the sea. Cf. Gen 22.17; 1 Kings 3.8. Given Hosea’s levitical background, the place where he announced the name Not my people (v. 9) was likely an Israelite shrine.

  1.11 Israel and Judah shall be gathered together as one tribal people (cf. Mic 5.3). Head (tribal leader) is used instead of “king,” because the restored Israel is to be as it was before the time of the monarchy. In contrast to its use in 1.4–5, Jezreel here connotes bounty (see note on 2.22).

  The Restoration of Israel

  10a Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” 11The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head; and they shall take possession ofb the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

  HOSEA 2c

  1Say to your brother,d Ammi,e and to your sister,f Ruhamah.g

  Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption

  2Plead with your mother, plead—

  for she is not my wife,

  and I am not her husband—

  that she put away her whoring from her face,

  and her adultery from between her breasts,

  3or I will strip her naked

  and expose her as in the day she was born,

  and make her like a wilderness,

  and turn her into a parched land,

  and kill her with thirst.

  4Upon her children also I will have no pity,

  because they are children of whoredom.

  5For their mother has played the whore;

  she who conceived them has acted shamefully.

&nbs
p; For she said, “I will go after my lovers;

  they give me my bread and my water,

  my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

  6Therefore I will hedge up herh way with thorns;

  and I will build a wall against her,

  so that she cannot find her paths.

  7She shall pursue her lovers,

  but not overtake them;

  and she shall seek them,

  but shall not find them.

  Then she shall say, “I will go

  and return to my first husband,

  for it was better with me then than now.”

  8She did not know

  that it was I who gave her

  the grain, the wine, and the oil,

  and who lavished upon her silver

  and gold that they used for Baal.

  9Therefore I will take back

  my grain in its time,

  and my wine in its season;

  and I will take away my wool and my flax,

  which were to cover her nakedness.

  10Now I will uncover her shame

  in the sight of her lovers,

  and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.

  11I will put an end to all her mirth,

  her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths,

  and all her appointed festivals.

  12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,

  of which she said,

  “These are my pay,

  which my lovers have given me.”

  I will make them a forest,

  and the wild animals shall devour them.

  13I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,

  when she offered incense to them

  and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,

  and went after her lovers,

  and forgot me, says the LORD.

  14Therefore, I will now allure her,

  and bring her into the wilderness,

  and speak tenderly to her.

  15From there I will give her her vineyards,

  and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.

  There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,

  as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

  16On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.”i 17For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18I will make for youj a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolishk the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

  21On that day I will answer, says the LORD,

  I will answer the heavens

  and they shall answer the earth;

  22and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,

  and they shall answer Jezreel;l

  23and I will sow himm for myself in the land.

  And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,n

  and I will say to Lo-ammi,o “You are my people”

  and he shall say, “You are my God.”

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  a Ch 2.1 in Heb

  b Heb rise up from

  c Ch 2.3 in Heb

  d Gk: Heb brothers

  e That is My people

  f Gk Vg: Heb sisters

  g That is Pitied

  h Gk Syr: Heb your

  i That is, “My master”

  j Heb them

  k Heb break

  l That is God sows

  m Cn: Heb her

  n That is Not pitied

  o That is Not my people

  2.1 The foreboding meanings of the symbolic names in 1.9 and 1.6 are here revoked by removing the initial Hebrew negative, Lo- (see also 2.23). Ruhamah has strong connotations of maternal compassion, like that of an expectant mother for her unborn child.

  2.2–23 The condemnation for covenant infidelity in vv. 2–13 slips back and forth between the metaphor of a husband confronting an adulterous wife and more straightforward words about the fate of the land of Israel. This literary slippage creates a danger, which readers must studiously avoid, of seeing a sanction for domestic violence in this chapter. Although it does describe God inflicting devastation on Israel’s land, the text never describes Hosea physically abusing Gomer.

  2.2 Individual Israelites should join God’s legal action against their mother, corporate Israel. The aim is settling the conflict, not a divorce. On cultic jewelry, see note on 2.13.

  2.3 Strip her, shocking—not pornographic—language, forcing its original audience to contemplate a coming humiliation and stripping as war prisoners (cf. Isa 20.3–4; and Assyria’s own depictions of its prisoners). Applied to the arable land, the reference is to agricultural failure (v. 9).

  2.5 My lovers, the fertility deities, thought by Hosea’s audience to control the land’s fruitfulness.

  2.6–7 Frustration over access to a beloved is a motif of ancient love poetry (cf. Song 5.6). A call to return (i.e., repent) is key to Hosea’s message (3.5; 5.4; 7.10; 11.5; 12.6; 14.1; cf. 5.15; 10.12).

  2.8–13 Hosea’s traditions emphasized the Lord’s control of the land’s fertility (Pss 78.23–27; 81.9–10, 16, psalms of Asaph; Deut 11.11–12; Jer 5.24; 14.22). Withholding the produce of the land will demonstrate who its real giver is (cf. 1 Kings 17.1).

  2.11 Festivals. See Ex 23.14–17; 34.22–24. New moons. See 2 Kings 4.23; Am 8.5.

  2.13 Baals (plural), the deity’s various manifestations at local shrines (cf. Gen 35.7; Num 25.3). On sacred jewelry, cf. 2.2; Gen 35.3–4; and the pendant amulets of the goddess Asherah unearthed at Tell el-‘Ajjul. On the idiom forgot me, cf. Ps 50.22, a psalm of Asaph.

  2.14–23 A plan for Israel’s rehabilitation (vv. 14–15) that is then developed in a series of promises (vv. 16–23).

  2.14 In the wilderness, after the exodus, Israel was truly dependent on the Lord, and the corrupting influences of the monarchy were unknown (cf. 9.10; 12.9; Jer 2.2).

  2.15 The Lord will recapitulate the original gift of the divine manor. The Valley of Achor, Israel’s “Heartbreak Valley”(cf. Josh 7.22–26), now becomes a gateway of hope, a route into the heart of the land.

  2.16–17 In Hebrew Baal is both a divine name and a term for “master” (text note a). Israel apparently was using Baal as a title for Yahweh, running the risk of confusing the Lord with Canaan’s storm deity. My husband (Hebrew ’ishi), God’s title of preference here, is a more intimate and personal title than “Baal.”

  2.18 The gift of safety (cf. Mic 4.4).

  2.19–20 The new marriage. The five virtues listed are either qualities imparted to Israel as a betrothal gift (cf. Gen 24.22, 53) or a display of divine affection understood metaphorically as a payment of the bride-price (cf. 1 Sam 18.25).

  2.20 Know the LORD, be faithful to the covenant (cf. 4.1, 6; 5.4; 6.6; Deut 7.9), which includes both obedience to the law (torah; cf. Jer 22.16) and loving intimacy with God (see, e.g., Gen 19.8; 24.16).

  2.21–23 The repetition of answer connects the Lord with every phase of fertility.

  2.22 Jezreel means “God sows!” Israel’s God, not Baal, sows the crops; and in v. 23 God also sows Israel back into its land (see Ps 80.8–10, 15, a psalm of Asaph; Ex 15.17).

  2.23 The names Lo-ruhamah (1.6) and Lo-ammi (1.9) are revoked, as already in 2.1.

  HOSEA 3

  Further Assurances of God’s Redeeming Love

  1The LORD said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” 2So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine.a 3And I said to her, “You must rema
in as mine for many days; you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.” 4For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

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  a Gk: Heb a homer of barley and a lethech of barley

  3.1–5 Hosea’s marriage is restored. Ch. 3—at least in the book’s present canonical form—picks up where 1.9 left off. God’s first instructions (1.2) to Hosea are clearly not the end of the story.

  3.1 Hosea is to retrieve his lost wife, just as God is determined to retrieve Israel (2.19–20). Lover echoes the Hebrew wording of Lev 20.10. Raisin cakes, offerings shaped like a fertility goddess (cf. Jer 7.18; 44.19; and the terra-cotta cake mold unearthed in Cyprus).

  3.2 Payment of a price implies that the woman has lost her freedom, perhaps through a vow to a deity, falling into debt slavery, or committing a crime. Hosea paid half in money and half in produce.

  3.4 Israel must live without its monarchy and all the other false stand-ins for its covenant Lord. Prince means royal officer—Hosea consistently lambastes Israel’s current hierarchically based organization (5.1; 8.4; 13.10–11). Sacrifice has become a problem according to 4.13, 19; 8.11–13; 10.1–2. Pillar, a sacred standing stone (see 10.2; Mic 5.13; Deut 7.5; 2 Kings 17.10; 23.14). Ephod, a box for divinatory instruments (Judg 8.27; 17.5); to believe such instruments can compel God’s guidance is idolatrous. Teraphim, religious images also used in divination (Judg 17.5; 18.14; 2 Kings 23.24; Zech 10.2). Again, the Lord of the covenant resists being tamed by any such instrument.