Hosea 1

CHAPTER 1THEME: The marriage of Hosea and Gomer, the harlotWhen we come to the prophecy of Hosea, we are coming to one of the great books of the Bible and to a man who was a remarkable prophet. I personally do not like the classification of the prophets as Major and Minor. Every one of these men, whether they wrote a long prophecy or not, was an outstanding man. You wouldn’t call Elijah a minor prophet simply because he never wrote a prophecy, would you? And John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, never wrote anything; yet he was a prophet of God and announced the coming of the Savior. The prophets were not grouped as Major and Minor in the Hebrew Bible. They were arranged as we have them by the church around the third century. If I could have had my way in the arrangement of the books of the Bible, I would have placed each prophet with the historical book to which it corresponds. You will notice that the messages of nearly all the writing prophets belong to the period of the divided kingdom. When the kings failed, God then raised up prophets to speak to the nation. Chronologically, therefore, the prophecy of Hosea belongs before Jeremiah. Hosea was contemporary with Isaiah, Micah, and his compatriot, Amos, in the northern kingdom. Hosea and Amos were prophets in the northern kingdom, Isaiah and Micah in the southern kingdom. Hosea compares in many respects to Jeremiah. Jeremiah was the last prophet before the southern kingdom went into captivity; but more than a hundred years before that, Hosea was a prophet in the northern kingdom. He, like Jeremiah, warned the nation of its impending captivity. Both men spoke out of a heartbreaking personal experience, although Jeremiah’s was more public. Hosea’s experience was in the home while Jeremiah’s was in the nation. Jeremiah loved his nation, and it broke his heart to give them such a harsh message, but God chose a very tenderhearted man for the job.

Perhaps Hosea was not as tenderhearted as Jeremiah, but we will see that he came from the experience of a broken home with a broken heart. His wife was unfaithful to him and became a harlot. He loved her so much that he went back and took her again. And again she played the harlot. Coming from this experience, this man walked out before the nation Israel, with hot tears streaming down his cheeks, and said, “I want to tell you how God feels about you, because I feel the same way. I have had a personal experience in my own home.” Because this man’s heart had been broken, he could speak God’s message to his nation. In the first three chapters of Hosea we have that which is personal, the story of the prophet and his faithless wife, Gomer. We have here the scandal of his home and the gossip of the town.

Hosea 1:1

THE MARRIAGE OF HOSEA AND GOMER, THE HARLOT"Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah"these were the kings in the south at this particular time. “Jereboam the son of Joash, king of Israel"there couldn’t have been a worse king than this king of the northern kingdom.

Hosea 1:2

What the Lord says to the prophet is a rather startling thing, and many interpreters do not take Him literally. I highly recommend The Scofield Reference Bible, and I use the older edition a great deal. Some folk feel that those of us who recommend this Bible believe its notes are inspired. I do not believe they are inspired, and the first note given for this verse in The New Scofield Reference Bible is one that I totally disagree with. It reads: “God did not command Hosea to take an immoral wife but permitted him to carry out his desire to marry Gomer, warning him that she would be unfaithful, and using the prophet’s sad experience as a basis for the presentation of lessons about God’s relation to Israel.” I consider this a very nice way to get God off the hook, but you do not have to get Him off the hookhe takes full responsibility for this. The way that I understand this verse is that God said to Hosea, “Go.” When my parents said that to me as a boy"Go to the store,” or “Go to school"I always interpreted that as a command. When God said to Hosea, “Go,” He was not just granting him permission to marry Gomer; it was a command to do so. Hosea probably was a young man, probably living in the Ephraim country of the northern kingdom. He met this beautiful girl and fell madly in love with her, and then she played the harlot. Naturally he wanted to put her aside. He might have wanted to marry her, but he wouldn’t dare do that in a little townand the Mosaic Law said to stone her.

What is he going to do? God said, “Go and marry her.” God is actually asking him to break the Mosaic Law. Someone will say, “That’s terrible.” Not when God tells you to do it, my friend. God said to him, “Hosea, you were in love with her, and now you want to put her aside. I don’t want you to put her aside; I want you to marry her. She is a wife of harlotry and child of harlotry.” Apparently there was a record of unfaithfulness in her family. Here at the very beginning, the Lord makes clear to Hosea how He is going to use this experience in the prophet’s life. He said, “For the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.” He is comparing that which is physical harlotry or adultery to that which is spiritual harlotry or adultery. This is applicable to the believer today. You can play fast and loose with God, and you are nothing in the world but a harlot, a spiritual harlot, in His sight. That is exactly the language He uses here, and God uses pretty plain language. I wish the pulpit today were a little stronger than it is. We all are trying to be very nice and, as a result, we sometimes do not speak as strongly as the Word of God does.

Hosea 1:3

Not only the marriage but also the children are going to present a real spiritual lesson for the nation Israel. (Remember that Isaiah’s children also had a spiritual message for the nation.) Jezreel is the name of the son; it means “God will scatter.” God says, “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel.” Jezreel is the name of a city and also of a famous plain, the plain of Armageddon, or the Valley of Esdraelon. It has a long, bloody history and will have a similar future as the place where the last war will end. God is saying here that He is going to scatter the northern kingdom.

Hosea 1:6

God named her Lo-ruhamah, which means that she “never knew a father’s pity.” As I indicated previously, it was not that she was an orphan, but she did not know who her father was. This reveals the scandal in the home of Hosea! God is saying through this circumstance to the people of the northern kingdom who had gone into idolatry, “You will not know My pity, for I am not your Father.” There has always been the question as to the possibility of a person stepping over a linethat is, sinking so low in sin that the grace of God cannot reach him. While I do not believe that you could ever get to a place where God by His grace could not save you, I do believe that if you persist in rejecting God’s grace and mercy, the day will come when you will step over that line. This does not mean the grace of God cannot reach you, but it does mean that there will be nothing in you that the grace of God can lay hold of. Let me illustrate this with the story of a man I met when I first came to Pasadena, California, as a pastor in 1940. His wife wanted me to visit him in his home because he was sick and dying. She asked me to present the gospel to him, and I did. He was a very polite man, and he listened to me. Then he said, “I would say, ‘Yes, I will accept Christ as my Savior’in fact, I am going to do it. But I want to tell you this: I have played and trifled with God all my life.

I have been down to an altar twenty-five times. I have made promises to Him and then turned from Him, and I have never been sincere. Honestly, I cannot tell you right now whether I am sincere or not.” All I could do at his funeral as I looked down at him was to say under my breath, “Oh, God, I hope he was sincere. I hope he really meant it. I hope Your grace reached down and touched him.” You can trifle with God too long. The nation Israel did, and the day came when God said, “I will no longer have mercy on you.”

Hosea 1:7

“However,” God said, “I am not ready yet to judge the house of Judah.” Why will He spare Judah and not Israel? For the sake of David. God had said that for the sake of David He would not divide the kingdom under the rule of Solomon. Again and again He said that for the sake of David He would save the southern kingdom. Someone may want to criticize this and say that it is not fair. I don’t know whether it is fair or not, but I thank God that He showed mercy to me, that He was patient and continued to show mercy. And He continues to do so even today. “And will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” In effect, God says, “I am not going to save them by the fact that they have phantom jets and atom bombs. I am not going to save them by the means of arms.” If you read 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37, you will learn how God miraculously delivered the people of the southern kingdom at this time. But He did not deliver the northern kingdom.

Hosea 1:8

In that country they take about two to three years to wean a child. When Lo-ruhamah was weaned, Gomer had another son.

Hosea 1:9

The third child was Lo-ammi, which means “not my people.” If you put this in the singular, it would mean “not my child.” There was a question about the second child; there is no question about this one. And God is saying to the nation Israel, “Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” If this were the only verse in the Bible, I would have to agree with the amillennialists who say that God is through dealing with the nation Israel. All of usincluding many of my premillennial brethrenneed to be very careful not to reach into the Bible and pull out a verse here or there and say that it is being fulfilled. If the entire prophecy of Hosea is read, no one can convincingly argue that God is through with the nation Israel. The next verse makes this very clear

Hosea 1:10

“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered.” The Hebrew people have been decimated again and again by persecutionthink of what Hitler did! Yet here is a marvelous prophecy that God is going to increase their number. “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.” In that day there will be a great turning to God. God is not through with Israelthat is clear when you read the entire Word of God.

Hosea 1:11

“Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together.” The nation shall come together. There are no “ten lost tribes of Israel,” by the way. “And appoint themselves one head.” They don’t have that todaythey are not all in agreement with their leadership. The “one head” referred to in Hosea’s prophecy is the Messiah, of course. “And they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel"what a wonderful prophecy this is. However, I disagree with the viewpoint that the present return to Israel is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. We shall deal with that in greater detail as we go through the Book of Hosea.