Under the figure of a wife proving false to her marriage vows, and bearing children that would follow her example, the prophet represents the shameful idolatry of the ten tribes, which provoked God to cast them of. The whole passage is information by action instead of words. This names of the children are all emblematical. The first is intended to put Israel in mind of their unrepented guilt, and the acts of cruelty committed in their palace of Jezreel, (1-Kings 21:1.) The second and third, signifying not finding mercy, and not my people, denote that, in consequence of their guilt, they were to be rejected of God, Hosea 1:1-9. God promises, however, to repair the loss to his Church by calling in the Gentiles, Hosea 1:10; and by uniting all the children of God under one head, the Messiah, in the latter days, Hosea 1:11.

After the general inscription of the book, in which the author, penman, and time of this prophecy, are expressed, Hosea 1:1, the people of Israel are reproved for their idolatry, under the representation of a harlot the prophet is bid to marry, which he is said to do, Hosea 1:2, and their ruin and destruction are foretold in the names of the children he had by her, and by what is said on the occasion of the birth of each, Hosea 1:4, but mercy and salvation are promised to Judah, Hosea 1:7 and the chapter is concluded with a glorious prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles, and the calling of the Jews in the latter day; and of the union of Judah and Israel under one Head and Saviour, Christ; and of the greatness and glory of that day, Hosea 1:10.

(Hosea 1:1-7) Under a figure, is represented the shameful idolatry of the ten tribes.

(Hosea 1:8-11) The calling of the Gentiles, and the uniting Israel and Judah under the Messiah.

I. Israel's Adultery - Hosea 1-3

On the ground of the relation hinted at even in the Pentateuch (Exodus 34:15-16; Leviticus 17:7; Leviticus 20:5-6; Numbers 14:33; Deuteronomy 32:16-21), and still further developed in the Song of Solomon and Psalm 45, where the gracious bond existing between the Lord and the nation of His choice is represented under the figure of a marriage, which Jehovah had contracted with Israel, the falling away of the ten tribes of Israel from Jehovah into idolatry is exhibited as whoredom and adultery, in the following manner. In the first section (Hosea 1:2-2:3), God commands the prophet to marry a wife of whoredoms with children of whoredoms, and gives names to the children born to the prophet by this wife, which indicate the fruits of idolatry, viz., the rejection and putting away of Israel on the part of God (Hosea 1:2-9), with the appended promise of the eventual restoration to favour of the nation thus put away (Hosea 2:1-3). In the second section (Hosea 2:4-23), the Lord announces that He will put an end to the whoredom, i.e., to the idolatry of Israel, and by means of judgments will awaken in it a longing to return to Him (Hosea 2:4-15), that He will thereupon lead the people once more through the wilderness, and, by the renewal of His covenant mercies and blessings, will betroth Himself to it for ever in righteousness, mercy, and truth (Hosea 2:16-23). In the third section (Hosea 3:1-5) the prophet is commanded to love once more a wife beloved of her husband, but one who had committed adultery; and after having secured her, to put her into such a position that it will be impossible for her to carry on her whoredom any longer. And the explanation given is, that the Israelites will sit for a long time without a king, without sacrifice, and without divine worship, but that they will afterwards return, will seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and will rejoice in the goodness of the Lord at the end of the days. Consequently the falling away of the ten tribes from the Lord, their expulsion into exile, and the restoration of those who come to a knowledge of their sin - in other words, the guilt and punishment of Israel, and its restoration to favour - form the common theme of all three sections, and that in the following manner: In the first, the sin, the punishment, and the eventual restoration of Israel, are depicted symbolically in all their magnitude; in the second, the guilt and punishment, and also the restoration and renewal of the relation of grace, are still further explained in simple prophetic words; whilst in the third, this announcement is visibly set forth in a new symbolical act.

In both the first and third sections, the prophet's announcement is embodied in a symbolical act; and the question arises here, Whether the marriage of the prophet with an adulterous woman, which is twice commanded by God, is to be regarded as a marriage that was actually consummated, or merely as an internal occurrence, or as a parabolical representation.

(Note: Compare on this point the fuller discussion of the question by John Marck, Diatribe de muliere fornicationum, Lugd. B. 1696, reprinted in his Comment. in 12 proph. min., ed. Pfaff. 1734, p. 214ff.; and Hengstenberg's Christology, i. p. 177ff., translation, in which, after a historical survey of the different views that have been expressed, he defends the opinion that the occurrence was real, but not outward; whilst Kurtz (Die Ehe des Propheten Hosea, 1859) has entered the lists in defence of the assumption that it was a marriage actually and outwardly consummated.)

The supporters of a marriage outwardly consummated lay the principal stress upon the simple words of the text. The words of Hosea 1:2, "Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms," and of Hosea 1:3, "So he went and took Gomer which conceived," etc., are so definite and so free from ambiguity, that it is impossible, they think, to take them with a good conscience in any other sense than an outward and historical one. But since even Kurtz, who has thrown the argument into this form, feels obliged to admit, with reference to some of the symbolical actions of the prophets, e.g., Jeremiah 25:15. and Zechariah 11, that they were not actually and outwardly performed, it is obvious that the mere words are not sufficient of themselves to decide the question priori, whether such an action took place in the objective outer world, or only inwardly, in the spiritual intuition of the prophet himself.

(Note: It is true that Kurtz endeavours to deprive this concession of all its force, by setting up the canon, that of all the symbolical actions of the prophets the following alone cannot be interpreted as implying either an outward performance or outward experience; viz., (1) those in which the narration itself expressly indicates a visionary basis or a parabolical fiction, and (2) those in which the thing described is physically impossible without the intervention of a miracle. But apart from the arbitrary nature of this second canon, which is apparent from the fact that the prophets both performed and experienced miracles, the symbolical actions recorded in Jeremiah 25 and Zechariah 11 do not fall under either the first or second of these canons. Such a journey as the one which Jeremiah is commanded to take (Jeremiah 25), viz., to the kings of Egypt, of the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Arabians, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Syrians, of Media, Elam, and Babylon, cannot be pronounced an absolute impossibility, however improbable it may be. Still less can the taking of two shepherds' staves, to which the prophet gives the symbolical names Beauty and Bands, or the slaying of three wicked shepherds in one month (Zechariah 11), be said to be physically impossible, notwithstanding the assertion of Kurtz, in which he twists the fact so clearly expressed in the biblical text, viz., that "a staff Beauty does not lie within the sphere of physically outward existence, any more than a staff Bands.")

The reference to Isaiah 7:3, and Isaiah 8:3-4, as analogous cases, does apparently strengthen the conclusion that the occurrence was an outward one; but on closer examination, the similarity between the two passages in Isaiah and the one under consideration is outweighed by the differences that exist between them. It is true that Isaiah gave his two sons names with symbolical meanings, and that in all probability by divine command; but nothing is said about his having married his wife by the command of God, nor is the birth of the first-named son ever mentioned at all. Consequently, all that can be inferred from Isaiah is, that the symbolical names of the children of the prophet Hosea furnish no evidence against the outward reality of the marriage in question. Again, the objection, that the command to marry a wife of whoredoms, if understood as referring to an outward act, would be opposed to the divine holiness, and the divine command, that priests should not marry a harlot, cannot be taken as decisive. For what applied to priests cannot be transferred without reserve to prophets; and the remark, which is quite correct in itself, that God as the Holy One could not command an immoral act, does not touch the case, but simply rests upon a misapprehension of the divine command, viz., upon the idea that God commanded the prophet to beget children with an immoral person without a lawful marriage, or that the "children of whoredom," whom Hosea was to take along with the "wife of whoredom," were the three children whom she bare to him (Hosea 1:3, Hosea 1:6, Hosea 1:8); in which case either the children begotten by the prophet are designated as "children of whoredom," or the wife continued her adulterous habits even after the prophet had married her, and bare to the prophet illegitimate children. But neither of these assumptions has any foundation in the text. The divine command, "Take thee a wife of whoredom, and children of whoredom," neither implies that the wife whom the prophet was to marry was living at that time in virgin chastity, and was called a wife of whoredom simply to indicate that, as the prophet's lawful wife, she would fall into adultery; nor even that the children of whoredom whom the prophet was to take along with the wife of whoredom are the three children whose birth is recorded in Hosea 1:3, Hosea 1:6, Hosea 1:8. The meaning is rather that the prophet is to take, along with the wife, the children whom she already had, and whom she had born as a harlot before her marriage with the prophet. If, therefore, we assume that the prophet was commanded to take this woman and her children, for the purpose, as Jerome has explained it, of rescuing the woman from her sinful course, and bringing up her neglected children under paternal discipline and care; such a command as this would be by no means at variance with the holiness of God, but would rather correspond to the compassionate love of God, which accepts the lost sinner, and seeks to save him. And, as Kurtz has well shown, it cannot be objected to this, that by such a command and the prophet's obedience on his first entering upon his office, all the beneficial effects of that office would inevitably be frustrated. For if it were a well-known fact, that the woman whom the prophet married had hitherto been leading a profligate life, and if the prophet declared freely and openly that he had taken her as his wife for that very reason, and with this intention, according to the command of God; the marriage, the shame of which the prophet had taken upon himself in obedience to the command of God, and in self-denying love to his people, would be a practical and constant sermon to the nation, which might rather promote than hinder the carrying out of his official work. For he did with this woman what Jehovah was doing with Israel, to reveal to the nation its own sin in so impressive a manner, that it could not fail to recognise it in all its glaring and damnable character. But however satisfactorily the divine command could be vindicated on the supposition that this was its design, we cannot found any argument upon this in favour of the outward reality of the prophet's marriage, for the simple reason that the supposed object is neither expressed nor hinted at in the text. According to the distinct meaning of the words, the prophet was to take a "wife of whoredom," for the simple purpose of begetting children by her, whose significant names were to set before the people the disastrous fruits of their spiritual whoredom. The behaviour of the woman after the marriage is no more the point in question than the children of whoredom whom the prophet was to take along with the woman; whereas this is what we should necessarily expect, if the object of the marriage commanded had been the reformation of the woman herself and of her illegitimate children. The very fact that, according to the distinct meaning of the words, there was no other object for the marriage than to beget children, who should receive significant names, renders the assumption of a real marriage, i.e., of a marriage outwardly contracted and consummated, very improbable.

And this supposition becomes absolutely untenable in the case of Hosea 3:1-5, where Jehovah says to the prophet (Hosea 3:1), "Go again, love a woman beloved by the husband, and committing adultery;" and the prophet, in order to fulfil the divine command, purchases the woman for a certain price (Hosea 3:2). The indefinite expression 'issâh, a wife, instead of thy wife, or at any rate the wife, and still more the purchase of the woman, are quite sufficient of themselves to overthrow the opinion, that the prophet is here directed to seek out once more his former wife Gomer, who has been unfaithful, and has run away, and to be reconciled to her again. Ewald therefore observes, and Kurtz supports the assertion, that the pronoun in "I bought her to me," according to the simple meaning of the words, cannot refer to any adulteress you please who had left her husband, but must refer to one already known, and therefore points back to Hosea 1:1-11. But with such paralogisms as these we may insert all kinds of things in the text of Scripture. The suffix in ואכּרה, "I bought her" (Hosea 1:2), simply refers to the "woman beloved of her friend" mentioned in Hosea 1:1, and does not prove in the remotest degree, that the "woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress," is the same person as the Gomer mentioned in Hosea 1:1-11. The indefiniteness of 'issâh without the article, is neither removed by the fact that, in the further course of the narrative, this (indefinite) woman is referred to again, nor by the examples adduced by Kurtz, viz., יקּח־לב in Hosea 4:11, and הלך אחרי־צו in Hosea 5:11, since any linguist knows that these are examples of a totally different kind. The perfectly indefinite אשּׁה receives, no doubt, a more precise definition from the predicates אהסבת רע וּמנאפת, so that we cannot understand it as meaning any adulteress whatever; but it receives no such definition as would refer back to Hosea 1:1-11. A woman beloved of her friend, i.e., of her husband, and committing adultery, is a woman who, although beloved by her husband, or notwithstanding the love shown to her by her husband, commits adultery. Through the participles אהבת and מנאפת, the love of the friend (or husband), and the adultery of the wife, are represented as contemporaneous, in precisely the same manner as in the explanatory clauses which follow: "as Jehovah loveth the children of Israel, and they turn to other gods!" If the 'isshâh thus defined had been the Gomer mentioned in Hosea 1:1-11, the divine command would necessarily have been thus expressed: either, "Go, and love again the wife beloved by her husband, who has committed adultery;" or, "Love again thy wife, who is still loved by her husband, although she has committed adultery." But it is quite as evident that this thought cannot be contained in the words of the text, as that out of two co-ordinate participles it is impossible that the one should have the force of the future or present, and the other that of the pluperfect. Nevertheless, Kurtz has undertaken to prove the possibility of the impossible. He observes, first of all, that we are not justified, of course, in giving to "love" the meaning "love again," as Hofmann does, because the husband has never ceased to love his wife, in spite of her adultery; but for all that, the explanation, restitue amoris signa (restore the pledges of affection), is the only intelligible one; since it cannot be the love itself, but only the manifestation of love, that is here referred to. But the idea of "again" cannot be smuggled into the text by any such arbitrary distinction as this. There is nothing in the text to the effect that the husband had not ceased to love his wife, in spite of her adultery; and this is simply an inference drawn from Hosea 2:11, through the identification of the prophet with Jehovah, and the tacit assumption that the prophet had withdrawn from Gomer the expressions of his love, of all which there is not a single syllable in Hosea 1:1-11. This assumption, and the inference drawn from it, would only be admissible, if the identity of the woman, beloved by her husband and committing adultery, with the prophet's wife Gomer, were an established fact. But so long as this is not proved, the argument merely moves in a circle, assuming the thing to be demonstrated as already proved. But even granting that "love" were equivalent to "love again," or "manifest thy love again to a woman beloved of her husband, and committing adultery," this could not mean the same things as "go to thy former wife, and prove to her by word and deed the continuance of thy love," so long as, according to the simplest rules of logic, "a wife" is not equivalent to "thy wife." And according to sound logical rules, the identity of the 'isshâh in Hosea 3:1 and the Gomer of Hosea 1:3 cannot be inferred from the fact that the expression used in Hosea 3:1, is, "Go love a woman," and not "Go take a wife," or from the fact that in Hosea 1:2 the woman is simply called a shore, not an adulteress, whereas in Hosea 3:1 she is described as an adulteress, not as a whore. The words "love a woman," as distinguished from "take a wife," may indeed be understood, apart from the connection with Hosea 1:2, as implying that the conclusion of a marriage is alluded to; but they can never denote "the restoration of a marriage bond that had existed before," as Kurtz supposes. And the distinction between Hosea 1:2, where the woman is described as "a woman of whoredom," and Hosea 3:1, where she is called "an adulteress," points far more to a distinction between Gomer and the adulterous woman, than to their identity.

But Hosea 3:2, "I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver," etc., points even more than Hosea 3:1 to a difference between the women in Hosea 1:1-11 and Hosea 3:1-5. The verb kârâh, to purchase or acquire by trading, presupposes that the woman had not yet been in the prophet's possession. The only way in which Kurtz is able to evade this conclusion, is by taking the fifteen pieces of silver mentioned in Hosea 3:2, not as the price paid by the prophet to purchase the woman as his wife, but in total disregard of ואמר אליה, in Hosea 3:3, as the cost of her maintenance, which the prophet gave to the woman for the period of her detention, during which she was to sit, and not go with any man. But the arbitrary nature of this explanation is apparent at once. According to the reading of the words, the prophet bought the woman to himself for fifteen pieces of silver and an ephah and a half of barley, i.e., bought her to be his wife, and then said to her, "Thou shalt sit for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot," etc. There is not only not a word in Hosea 3:1-5 about his having assigned her the amount stated for her maintenance; but it cannot be inferred from Hosea 2:9, Hosea 2:11, because there it is not the prophet's wife who is referred to, but Israel personified as a harlot and adulteress. And that what is there affirmed concerning Israel cannot be applied without reserve to explain the symbolical description in Hosea 3:1-5, is evident from the simple fact, that the conduct of Jehovah towards Israel is very differently described in ch. 2, from the course which the prophet is said to have observed towards his wife in Hosea 3:3. In Hosea 2:7, the adulterous woman (Israel) says, "I will go and return to my former husband, for then was it better with me than now;" and Jehovah replies to this (Hosea 2:8-9), "Because she has not discovered that I gave her corn and new wine, etc.; therefore will I return, and take away my corn from her in the season thereof, and my wine," etc. On the other hand, according to the view adopted by Kurtz, the prophet took his wife back again because she felt remorse, and assigned her the necessary maintenance for many days.

From all this it follows, that by the woman spoken of in Hosea 3:1-5, we cannot understand the wife Gomer mentioned in Hosea 1:1-11. The "wife beloved of the companion (i.e., of her husband), and committing adultery," is a different person from the daughter of Diblathaim, by whom the prophet had three children (Hosea 1:1-11). If, then, the prophet really contracted and consummated the marriage commanded by God, we must adopt the explanation already favoured by the earlier commentators, viz., that in the interval between Hosea 1:1-11 and Hosea 3:1-5 Gomer had either died, or been put away by her husband because she would not repent. But we are only warranted in adopting such a solution as this, provided that the assumption of a marriage consummated outwardly either has been or can be conclusively established. And as this is not the case, we are not at liberty to supply things at which the text does not even remotely hint. If, then, in accordance with the text, we must understand the divine commands in Hosea 1:1-11 and Hosea 3:1-5 as relating to two successive marriages on the part of the prophet with unchaste women, every probability is swept away that the command of God and its execution by the prophet fall within the sphere of external reality. For even if, in case of need, the first command, as explained above, could be vindicated as worthy of God, the same vindication would not apply to the command to contract a second marriage of a similar kind. The very end which God is supposed to have had in view in the command to contract such a marriage as this, could only be attained by one marriage. But if Hosea had no sooner dissolved the first marriage, than he proceeded to conclude a second with a person in still worse odour, no one would ever have believed that he did this also in obedience to the command of God. And the divine command itself to contract this second marriage, if it was intended to be actually consummated, would be quite irreconcilable with the holiness of God. For even if God could command a man to marry a harlot, for the purpose of rescuing her from her life of sin and reforming her, it would certainly be at variance with the divine holiness, to command the prophet to marry a person who had either broken the marriage vow already, or who would break it, notwithstanding her husband's love; since God, as the Holy One, cannot possibly sanction adultery.

(Note: This objection to the outward consummation of the prophet's marriage cannot be deprived of its force by the remark made by the older Rivetus, to the effect that "things which are dishonourable in themselves, cannot be honourable in vision, or when merely imaginary." For there is an essential difference between a merely symbolical representation, and the actual performance of anything. The instruction given to a prophet to set forth a sin in a symbolical form, for the purpose of impressing upon the hearts of the people its abominable character, and the punishment it deserved, is not at variance with the holiness of God; whereas the command to commit a sin would be. God, as the Holy One, cannot abolish the laws of morality, or command anything actually immoral, without contradicting Himself, or denying His own nature.)

Consequently no other course is left to us, than the picture to ourselves Hosea's marriages as internal events, i.e., as merely carried out in that inward and spiritual intuition in which the word of God was addressed to him; and this removes all the difficulties that beset the assumption of marriages contracted in outward reality. In occurrences which merely happened to a prophet in spiritual intercourse with God, not only would all reflections as to their being worthy or not worthy of God be absent, when the prophet related them to the people, for the purpose of impressing their meaning upon their hearts, inasmuch as it was simply their significance, which came into consideration and was to be laid to heart; but this would also be the case with the other difficulties to which the external view is exposed - such, for example, as the questions, why the prophet was to take not only a woman of whoredom, but children of whoredom also, when they are never referred to again in the course of the narrative; or what became of Gomer, whether she was dead, or had been put away, when the prophet was commanded the second time to love an adulterous woman - since the sign falls back behind the thing signified.

But if, according to this, we must regard the marriages enjoined upon the prophet as simply facts of inward experience, which took place in his own spiritual intuition, we must not set them down as nothing more than parables which he related to the people, or as poetical fictions, since such assumptions as these are at variance with the words themselves, and reduce the statement, "God said to Hosea," to an unmeaning rhetorical phrase. The inward experience has quite as much reality and truth as the outward; whereas a parable or a poetical fiction has simply a certain truth, so far as the subjective imagination is concerned, but no reality.