The Book of Hosea

Bonds of Love

From 931 B.C. on, the people of Israel were divided into two kingdoms (see 1 Ki 12). The northern kingdom, often called Israel or Ephraim, chose Samaria as its capital and celebrated the worship of the true God especially at Dan and Bethel. The southern kingdom, that of Judah, had its center in Jerusalem. There were conflicts between the two fraternal kingdoms; in addition, the northern kingdom had to win back territories from its Syrian neighbor; it also lived through many palace revolts. But in the middle of the eighth century all this seemed to belong to the distant past, while on another front, Assyria had been in eclipse for about thirty years. As a result, peace and prosperity seemed to be a reality toward the end of the long reign of Jeroboam II.

Around 750 B.C., a new prophet appeared. His name was Hosea, and he had undoubtedly felt the influence of the priests who maintained the ancient sanctuaries and preserved the traditions. Hosea spoke on behalf of the covenant and made it clear that this no longer really inspired the life of the people. He stated that the security that people felt at this time was a false security; and, in fact after Jeroboam II, the successive regimes in Samaria proved to be short-lived. Assyria, though momentarily occupied elsewhere, would fulfill its dream of dominating the Near East.

In 733 B.C. Samaria and Damascus hoped to gain release from Assyrian tutelage and sought to draw Judah into their conspiracy. A hopeless undertaking! It would, however, lead to the Syro-Ephraimite War, and the politics of alliances would poison the life of the two kingdoms. In 732 B.C. the northern kingdom came under Assyrian domination and in 728 B.C. it finally collapsed with the fall of Samaria. Hosea sensed the danger lurking behind the facade of peace and prosperity. He roused his people, who were ready to betray the ideal of the covenant and were giving themselves to the superstitious and erotic practices of the worship of Baal, the god of fertility. God was being forgotten, and the law governing the life of the people was being mocked.

The task of the prophets was to maintain and continually renew the covenant in the hearts of the people, and Hosea did this in an original fashion, as he pleaded the cause of God with the unfaithful people. In Hosea’s view, the Lord is bound to his people with ties that are not simply those of possession and belonging, but of love. His relationship with them unfolds like that of a father’s or a spouse’s love; the prophet summons up all the degrees of feeling: lasting affection, restless passion, profound tenderness, and inexorable fierceness.

The Book that brings us the words of the prophet was, in all probability, written by a disciple and weighed down by numerous commentaries. In speaking of relations between God and Israel, between God and humanity, the prophet has achieved a new delicacy and a new sensitivity. He uses the image of marriage, which is common in the biblical tradition and will be taken over into the New Testament especially by St. John (Jn 3:29; Rev 19:7; 21:2; etc.) and St. Paul (Eph 5:22f; 2 Cor 11:2f), who apply it to Jesus and to the Church, the new Israel, in which every baptized person enters into a special relationship with the Lord.

The Book of Hosea may be divided as follows:

I: Prologue: The Word of the Lord (1:1)

II: The Marriage of Hosea is a Symbol (1:2—3:5)

III: God Puts an Adulterous People on Trial (4:1—9:9)

IV: At the Roots of the Evil of Israel (9:10—14:10)