1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take to you a wife of prostitutions and children of prostitutions: for the land has committed great prostitution, departing from the LORD.

3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bore him a son.

4 And the LORD said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.

5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel, in the valley of Jezreel.

6 And she conceived again, and bore a daughter. And God said to him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.

7 But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, 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.

8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for you are not my people, and I will not be your God.

10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there it shall be said to them, You are the sons of the living God.

11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Hos 1:1. Title. The title which was prefixed to the whole Book is due to an editor or editors. The mention of the Jewish kings, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah only one of whom, Uzziah, can have been contemporary with Jeroboam II (c. 782- 743 B.C.) must be due to a post-exilic editor. An earlier heading can be detected in Hos 1:2 a.

Hosea's Marriage: a Parable of Yahweh's Relations with Israel. The prophet receives a Divine command to take (i.e. marry) a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom. The reason given for this startling procedure is that the land (i.e. the land of Israel) doth commit great whoredom departing from the LORD. Hosea obeys and takes as his wife Gomer bath Diblaim (? daughter of fig-cakes), who bears three children to him. These are given symbolical names: the first, a son, is called Jezreel, a prophetic name pointing to the coming of vengeance on the house of Jehu [7] for the massacre at Jezreel of Ahab's house ( 2Ki 10:11); the second a daughter and the third a son, bearing the names Lo-ruhamah (uncompassionated) and Lo-ammi (not my people), in token of Yahweh's rejection of Ephraim.

[7] Jeroboam II. whose son Zechariah was the last of Jehu's kin to reign, must still have been on the throne when Jezreel was born.

Hos 1:2 a. Render the beginning of Yahweh's speaking by (or to) Hosea. The clause is abrupt, and may have stood at the head of the Book before the title in Hos 1:1 had been added: Here beginneth the prophecy of Hosea.

Hos 1:4. Hosea regards the massacre of Ahab's family by Jehu unfavourably (contrast 2Ki 10:30). Jezreel: see Hos 2:21 f.*

Hos 1:7. Probably a post-exilic interpolation. The exception of Judah from the doom pronounced upon Israel is obviously out of place in a prophecy otherwise dealing with Israel exclusively.

The old interpretation of Hos 1:2-9, which regarded the prophet's marriage as pure allegory, may rightly be dismissed. Gomer is the name of a real person. But can the narrative be accepted literally? By some scholars (Volz, J. M. P. Smith, Toy) the language descriptive of Gomer is taken literally. Hosea, according to this view, was commanded to marry a woman of notoriously profligate life. Hosea was not led blind folded by Yahweh into a marriage that was to break his heart and wreck his life. On the contrary, he married a woman of evil reputation with his eyes wide open. The Divine command had a higher purpose in view to bring home, by a startling parable in action, the unfaithfulness of Israel to her Divine spouse, Yahweh (cf. Isa 20:2 ff., Eze 22:9 ff.). The parable was intended to reflect the existing situation in Israel, from the Divine standpoint. By most the language is interpreted proleptically. When the prophet married Gomer she was a pure maiden (this symbolises Israel's early faithfulness to Yahweh (cf. Hos 11:1, Ezekiel 16), but she afterwards became profligate. Brooding over the tragedy of his married home-life and still yearning with love to redeem the fallen Gomer, Hosea is led to see a Divine lesson in it all of Yahweh's unconquerable love for faithless Israel

Hos 1:10-11; Hos 1:1 (= Heb 2:1-3). A Promise of Restoration. The children of Israel are destined to be increased in numbers indefinitely, and instead of being called ( Hos 1:10 mg.) Ye are not my people they shall be called children of the living God. Judæ ans and Israelites shall assemble, and under one head go up victoriously from the land (see below), and on the same battlefield (Jezreel), which has witnessed the utter defeat of present-day Israel, shall enjoy a glorious triumph. Then the ominous names, Lo-ammi (not my people) and Lo-ruhamah (uncompassionated) shall be reversed.

Hos 1:10. Cf. Gen 22:17; 1Ki 4:20; Isa 48:19.

Hos 1:11. What is meant by go up from the land? Either (a) from the holy land to conquer foreign lands; or (b) from different parts of the holy land to Jezreel for battle then the meaning would be shall gain the mastery of the land (cf. Exo 1:10); or (c) from the land of exile to Palestine (cf. Jer 3:18; Eze 37:21). The day of Jezreel, as the name Jezreel suggests, means the day when Yahweh once more sows His people in their land.