BSN home page

***

Introduction

The book of Hosea is the first of what are called “the twelve minor prophets” (Major and Minor Prophets).

The author is the prophet Hosea. He lived and prophesied in the northern kingdom during and after the reign of King Jeroboam II. (The Divided Kingdom) Hosea was, roughly speaking, a contemporary of the prophets Amos and Jonah, who were also based in the northern kingdom. Contemporaneous prophets in the southern kingdom included Joel and Isaiah. Micah was a contemporary who prophesied to both kingdoms.

***

Hosea 1

Hosea’s Wife and Children

Hos 1:1 – Note some of the same names of kings show up in Isaiah 1:1 and Micah 1:1. This is one of the ways we can identify and correlate time periods in the Old Testament even though they didn’t have the calendar that we use today. Our calendar rightly identifies Jesus as the the center of all history, numbering all years by how long each occurred before Him (BC) and how long each is occurring after Him (AD). (BC-AD)

Hos 1:10 – In his letter to the believers in Rome, Paul spends the first eight chapters describing why and how the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ applies to both Jews and Gentiles. Beginning with the ninth chapter, he takes three chapters (Rom 9-11) to explain what the Old Testament has to say about how a gospel for both Jew and Gentile is going to work given the existence of the nation Israel and its leadership’s opposition to that gospel. For more information about this, see the BSN notes on Romans for those three chapters. For here, I just wanted give the context for Paul’s quotation of Hosea.

Paul quotes both Hos 1:10 and 2:23. Since he packs them together and uses the pair to make one point, I’m likewise going to treat them as a unit. Paul actually quotes Hos 2:23 before 1:10, but the order in which they appear is not critical to the point he is making.

Rom 9:22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
Rom 9:23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
Rom 9:24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
Rom 9:25 As He says also in Hosea,
“I WILL CALL THOSE WHO WERE NOT MY PEOPLE, ‘MY PEOPLE,’
AND HER WHO WAS NOT BELOVED, ‘BELOVED.'”
Rom 9:26 “AND IT SHALL BE THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID TO THEM, ‘YOU ARE NOT MY PEOPLE,’
THERE THEY SHALL BE CALLED SONS OF THE LIVING GOD.”

In his first two chapters, Hosea describes how troubled God had become with Israel’s sinful behavior. It had deteriorated to the point that God had said, “You are not my people and I am not your God.” But God goes on to say that at some unspecified time after that He would once again claim them as His people and even call them His sons! (This may be why Paul reversed the order because the logic of his point flows even better from this order rather than the one Hosea used; the two quotes are separated by 20 verses in Hosea.)

The main point that Hosea was making and that Paul wants to use in his letter is that God felt so violated by His people in Hosea’s time that He had disowned them, all the while planning to restore them to Himself and closer than ever. Paul’s point to the Romans is that just because someone is rejecting God in the short term does not mean they will reject Him in the long term. Consider Adam and Eve. God created them, and out of the gate they broke His heart. He exiled them from the garden of Eden but even when He was exiling them He was advancing His messianic plan to restore them to Himself. Given the nature of God’s love (lovingkindness), this is just the way He thinks. Wise and godly people have known this all along.

2 Sam 14:14 “For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him.

***

Ps 68:20 God is to us a God of deliverances;
And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death.

***

Philem 1:15 For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever,
Philem 1:16 no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

One of the things all three of these verses have in common is that God is willing to lose in the short term to win in the long term. However, if sinful human behavior is what turned God off, how could He be sure that He could one day restore humans to Himself? Simple. (Not easy, but simple.) That future restoration would not be based on their righteousness, but rather on His.

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
2 Cor 5:18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
2 Cor 5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
2 Cor 5:20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2 Cor 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The old covenant was broken by human disobedience and God cast it aside, replacing it with the new covenant based on the obedience of Jesus Christ. Once He was raised from the dead and re-enthroned in heaven, He opened His arms to the Jews who had previously disqualified themselves from deserving the title “people of God” – this would include Paul himself! Then He called the Gentiles to His arms just as He had the Jews. Thus the New Testament church was bulging at the seams with Jews and Gentiles right up until the second coming. At that time, the kingdom of God came and the new covenant was established in every corner of the universe. From that time forward, not only could believers – Jew or Gentile – continue coming to Him, but even unbelievers – once they died and lost their blinders – could join everyone else.

• Everyone Is Going to Heaven
• Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again
• Judgment Is upon Us
• Repentance Is Required (Repentance is not required to get you into heaven…but it does determine how good a seat you get; it also helps you avoid hell on earth.)

How can we know that everyone is going to heaven? Many ways, but one of them is knowing from the book of Hosea that everyone who is said to not be a son of God will be a son of God. In fact, Hosea says it twice.

Hos 1:10 “…
And in the place
Where it is said to them,
“You are not My people,”
It will be said to them,
“You are the sons of the living God.”

***

Hos 2:23 “…
And I will say to those who were not My people,
‘You are My people!’
And they will say, ‘You are my God!'”

Paul confirms Hosea’s logic not just explicitly in Romans 9, but also implicitly in Romans 4 and Romans 11.

Rom 4:17 …God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

***

Rom 11:29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

God’s promise is that those who are not sons will be sons. Hallelujah!

***

Hosea 2

Israel’s Unfaithfulness Condemned

Hos 2:8 – “Baal“

Hos 2:13 – “Baals“

Restoration of Israel

Hos 2:16-17 – “Baali” means “my Baal.”

Hos 2:23 – Paul quotes this verse in Rom 9:25. Since he does so in conjunction with quoting Hos 1:10, see notes on both at Hos 1:10 above.

***

Hosea 3

Hosea’s Second Symbolic Marriage

Hos 3:4-5 – In the first two chapters, God has been speaking through Hosea about rejecting and later accepting His people. This pair of verses speaks to those same two stages or phases of relationship. In this pair, there is a specific allusion to David’s descendant – the Messiah. #FJOT

***

Hosea 4

God’s Controversy with Israel

Hos 4:6 – Alas, America has seen this negative dynamic at work in our midst. Recent generations have not passed on the knowledge of the Lord to the rising generation, and, as a result, society is being destroyed…slowly at first, and then at a rapidly increasing pace.

***

Hosea 5

The People’s Apostasy Rebuked

Hos 5:14-15 – This passage foreshadows Messiah’s ministry on earth. He is like the lion and He “carries away” the captives of death. After being rejected and crucified, Messiah “goes away” and “returns to” His place – which is heaven. From there He waits for sinners to seek His forgiveness and restoration – requests He happily grants, for those are the very things He hoped for when He laid down His life for us. #FJOT

***

Hosea 6

The Response to God’s Rebuke

Hos 6:1 – This thought flows directly from, and should be considered as directly connected to, Hos 5:15. (Always keep in mind that the chapter and verses divisions are like the latitude and longitude lines on a globe.)

Hos 6:2 – Hmm. Being “raised on the third day” – where have we heard that before?

Hos 6:6 – In Hosea’s day, people were going through the motions of animal sacrifice – not really thinking through what they were doing. Matthew shows us that on at least two occasions, Jesus said to His fellow Jews that many of them were just going through the motions as their ancestors had.

Matt 9:10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
Matt 9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”
Matt 9:12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.
Matt 9:13 “But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

***

Matt 12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.
Matt 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.”
Matt 12:3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions,
Matt 12:4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?
Matt 12:5 “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent?
Matt 12:6 “But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.
Matt 12:7 “But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
Matt 12:8 “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

The new covenant would do away with the rote routines that the Pharisees had made out of the Law of Moses. Alas, once the apostles had all died, men reverted to making even the new covenant into mindless rituals. We must always resist such tendencies.

Hos 6:7 – Truly, we human beings have sinned from the beginning.

***

Hosea 7

Ephraim’s Iniquity

***

Hosea 8

Israel Reaps the Whirlwind

***

Hosea 9

Ephraim Punished

***

Hosea 10

Retribution for Israel’s Sin

Hos 10:5-6 – “The calf of Beth-aven” means “the calf of the house of wickedness” and is an allusion to the golden calf King Jeroboam I established in Bethel (which means “the house of God). See The Divided Kingdom and “From Dan to Beersheba.” ***** “The thing itself will be carried to Assyria” was a prophecy of Assyria’s eventual conquest of the northern kingdom, taking the golden calf and its trapping as spoils of war, and scattering of all its inhabitants to the four winds. (The Diaspora)

Hos 10:8 – Hosea lived and prophesied in a time when judgment was approaching Israel. By quoting from him to the women below, Jesus is conveying a sense of urgency about the difficult times to come for their nation. For as the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed within decades of Hosea’s death, so Jerusalem was destroyed within decades of Jesus’ death. (Key Dates for Ancient Israel)

Luke 23:26 When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.
Luke 23:27 And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him.
Luke 23:28 But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
Luke 23:29 “For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
Luke 23:30 “Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US.’
Luke 23:31 “For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

***

Hosea 11

God Yearns over His People

Hos 11:1 – #FJOT

Matt 2:13 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.”
Matt 2:14 So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt.
Matt 2:15 He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON.”

For an explanation of how this verse can be both a historical reference to the nation of Israel as well as a prophetic reference to the Messiah, see Israel as God’s Son.

Hos 11:8 – “Admah” and “Zeboiim,” were cities destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah (Deut 29:23). Similarly, God reaches out through other prophets to the southern kingdom comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah (such as Jer 23:14)

***

Hosea 12

Ephraim Reminded

Hos 12:13 – Moses was the “prophet” through whom “the Lord brought Israel from Egypt.” Hosea was one of the many prophets – both writing prophets and non-writing prophets like Micaiah, Elijah, and Elisha – who “kept” Israel for Him. Jesus, because He never dies again, is the prophet who both “brings us out” of our slavery to sin and “keeps us” as well.

***

Hosea 13

Ephraim’s Idolatry

Hos 13:14 – During the time between Jesus’ resurrection and His return (the Second Coming), He was the only person ever to ascend from the place of the dead (Sheol/Hades) to heaven. All the rest of the dead remained waiting below until the kingdom of God would come. That, of course, happened (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again) late in the 1st century. That was “the twinkling of an eye” when the dead were all raised to heaven, Sheol (Hades) was emptied out and thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14), and thereafter every person who died would ascend immediately to heaven instead of descending immediately into Sheol (Hades). This is what Paul was looking forward to when he wrote to the Corinthians what you see below.

1 Cor 15:50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
1 Cor 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
1 Cor 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
1 Cor 15:53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1 Cor 15:54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. [from Isaiah 25:8]
1 Cor 15:55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” [from Hos 13:14]
1 Cor 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
1 Cor 15:57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death has no sting if it leads to heaven. But as long as death was still leading downward to Sheol (Hades), it still stung because as long as death takes you down – farther away from God – it still defeats you. That’s why Paul said in verse 54 “then will come about the saying” – the “then” is the second coming.

Thus, in Hos 13:14, we have God’s promise that death will cease to have the last word. This is just the beginning of the benefits Jesus bestows on humanity – but it’s a whopper.

Heb 2:14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
Heb 2:15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

***

Hosea 14

Israel’s Future Blessing

***

BSN home page