Hosea – chapter 1

     Unlike Micah, we know much more about Hosea and the details of his life, especially his marriage. As with most of the bible, scholars may disagree about many details. For example, there are the details about Hosea’s marriage in chapters 1 and 3. The first chapter is reported in third person and appear to tell the story from someone else’s point of view. The third chapter seem to be told from Hosea’s point of view. This may explain some of the differences. The two reports about his marriage are also told for different reasons. The focus of the first chapter is the prophetic names of Hosea and Gomer’s children. The story that Hosea tells in his own voice dwells upon his relationship with his wife.
     As one scholar explains, the biographical details for a prophet are only important in how they help convey God’s message to the people. Hosea marries a woman with morals far different than his own. He marries her as a symbolic act in his prophetic career and names his children symbolically. Yet no one seems to doubt that he came to genuinely love Gomer. This in turn had an impact upon his understanding of God and of God’s relationship with the Hebrew people.
     In the book we immediately hear how God told Hosea to marry a woman of wanton character. The eighth century b.c. was not a time when a man normally did this knowingly. The statement could reflect a subsequent event in Hosea’s marriage when he redeemed Gomer from a life led in later years. Henry McKeating of the Cambridge Bible Commentary points out that we hear things only from Hosea’s point of view and it may not have been easy for Gomer married to a man of Hosea’s temperament and prophetic career. However she is viewed, she did not remain faithful.
     Hosea and Gomer’s first child was named Jezreel. Perhaps he felt more hopeful about his marriage at the time. Jezreel means, “God sows.” Yet it was also the name of the place where Ahab had murdered Naboth and some prophets seemed to view it as a place where vengeance would come upon Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. A violent revolution subsequently took place with the support of the northern prophets. Jehu and his descendents ruled the Northern Kingdom afterwards. Yet Jehu’s reign was also disastrous and his line met its doom also at Jezreel. For Hosea, the failed policy of northern prophets would have been symbolized by Jezreel. All of this to say that, though Hosea might have felt better about his marriage at the birth of his first son, the choice of name still had strong prophetic purpose.
     Did the name of Jezreel reflect more than disillusionment? Could there have been a layer of hope that even in the place of failure God still sows?
     Gomer’s second child, however, receives a depressing name: Lo-ruhamah, which means ‘unloved.’ Hosea may have questioned whether the child was even his. In the intimate connection between his own private life and that of the nation, Hosea looks at an unfaithful people and considers it impossible that God can continue to love them. A third child comes and is named Lo-ammi, which meant “not my people.” The covenant between God and Israel had been that ‘I shall be your God and you shall be my people.’ But Israel has not been faithful and has worshipped other gods. So they won’t be loved and shall no longer belong in this special relationship with Yahweh.
     The seventh verse in the first chapter gives a more hopeful and contradictory image to the message Hosea relayed in the naming of his children. This unusual circumstance could be understood in varying ways. Some scholars say it simply doesn’t belong there and got placed in that position by a later editor or by some corruption of the text. But this story invites also a more imaginative understanding. Could Hosea been struggling with God? Could the prophet have been utterly convinced by both the sinfulness of the people and the destruction of his marriage, that no one deserved a second chance? Did God’s voice whisper of hope that Hosea simply didn’t want to hear? A few verses later (beginning at 10) we hear far more hopeful images. This could have been placed in this part of the book because of the play on the names of Hosea’s children. The book is a collection of prophecies, rather than one unified message. It was put together by a later editor. Yet the contrasting words could reflect, again, Hosea’s struggle.
     This is just the beginning of the book, of Hosea’s journey and the arc of his understanding of God. His pilgrimage is both an inward and an outward one. His marriage had to have influenced how he saw God and the people, and his book makes clear that God had a hand in this circumstance.