Day 28 – Saturday -- The Book of Hosea

Day 28 – Saturday

The Book of Hosea

Have you heard of Gomer? No, not Gomer Pyle. I’m talking about Hosea’s wife. Her name was Gomer. God gives an unusual command. God tells Hosea to go and marry a prostitute. He marries Gomer. They have children with funny names. Well, not funny, but unusual names—the ones God gives them: a son named Jezreel; a daughter named No-Mercy; another son named Nobody (I’m using Eugene Peterson’s translation).

As we go through the Scriptures we keep seeing this metaphor of the marriage between God and Israel. Chronologically speaking, Hosea was the first prophet to introduce the marital image. Hosea is writing 75-725 BCE in the northern kingdom. This is before the northern kingdom is taken down by the Assyrians in 722.

In the first three chapters Hosea dramatizes the three parts of the Opera “The Marriage of Israel”: love, separation, reunion. Hosea marries Gomer; she is unfaithful to him; he seeks her out and brings her back. Hosea’s lived-out drama mirrors God’s experience with Israel. (This is the parable of the Prodigal Wife.)

Hosea accuses Israel of three crimes: (1) trusting in its military strength; (2) making treaties with foreign powers; (3) running after the Baals, the gods of fertility. (There actually were temple prostitutes of Baal. It was a religious act to have intercourse with the priestess in order for Baal to bless their crops.)

Hosea’s poetry uses beautiful similes:

• Your loyalty is like the morning mist (6.4)
• Ephraim [Israel] is an unturned cake (7.8)
• Ephraim is like a dove, silly and senseless (7.11)
• They have been like a treacherous bow (7.16)
• When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind (8.7)
• Israel is like…a useless vessel (8.8)
• Break up a new field…till [God] comes and rains justice upon you (10.12)
• Ephraim shepherds the wind (12.2)
• They will be like a morning cloud…or like smoke out the windows (13.3)
• I [God] am like a verdant cypress tree (14.9)
(all of the above are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition)


A feature of Hosea (that we also see in other prophets) is God’s going back and forth in feelings and intentions.

• I will put an end to all her joy (2.13)
• I will betroth you to me forever (2.21)
• Upon them I will pour out my wrath like water (5.10)
• On the third day he will raise us up (6.2)
• Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me (7.12)
• They have come, the days of punishment (9.7)
• I will love them no longer (9.15)
• My pity is stirred…I will not come in my wrath (11.8-9)
• I will destroy you, Israel (13.9)
• I will heal their apostasy, I will love them (14.5)
    (all verses from the NAB)

This going-back-and-forth is the dialectical and dialogical nature of God’s relationship with Israel. The good news is that the last word is always mercy.


One of the great chapters in the Bible is Hosea 11. Whereas the book begins with the metaphor of marriage, this chapter offers the metaphor of parenthood. Here we see a God who is deeply emotional.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.
…It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
    I took them up in my arms;
    but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
    with bands of love.
I was to them like those
    who lift infants to their cheeks.[d]
    I bent down to them and fed them…
How can I give you up, Ephraim?
    How can I hand you over, O Israel?
…My heart recoils within me;
    my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
    I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
    the Holy One in your midst,
    and I will not come in wrath.
     (11.1-9, selected, NRSV)

Here is a picture of God as parent, who is deeply troubled, ambivalent, struggling to make the right decision about his son. He feels twisted inside. He is anguishing over what to do. Finally, compassion overrules every other feeling and inclination. And he declares that his anger will not win the inner battle because “I am God and no moral, the Holy One.” A marvelous affirmation that one difference between God and people is that God’s compassion always wins out; God not only has love, God is love.

(A minor note: Feminists might want to take note that the literal translation of verse nine is, I am God and not a man/male. Therefore, although the Bible nowhere quotes God as saying, “I am not a woman,” it does say here, “I am not a man.” Instead of using the Hebrew word adam which means “a human,” Hosea uses the word ish which means “a male” rather than ishah “a female.” Let’s not make too much out of this; but when in debate with patriarchal folk who tend to be rather literal, here is a literal statement supportive of feminism.)


St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15 uses Hosea’s words, O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? (13.14, ESV). But whereas in Hosea God is calling on Death to punish Israel, Paul turns the words around as words of hope:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christians, the beginning of Hosea six resonates with the Christ Story:

Come, let us return to the Lord…
After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will raise us up,
    that we may live before him (6.1-2)

Jesus quotes from Hosea 6.6:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Jesus learned from the Book of Hosea that the core message about God is God’s steadfast love, God’s mercy. When we think about “the Old Testament God,” let’s not caricature the Divine nature as essentially wrathful. Rather, let’s acknowledge a God who is shown with a wide range of emotion, including anger, but one who is essentially merciful. Love wins out in the “Old” Testament as much as in the “New” Testament. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is the loving Spouse and the loving Parent.

Answer this: Do you feel God to be more like your Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Mother, or your Divine Lover?