The only fe.et in the prophet's life with which we !11'8 acquainted is hi11 martio.ge with e, woman called Gomer at God's command ( eh. i. 2, etc.): "Go, te,ke utito thee," Mo.id God to him, "e. wi£e df whoredoms and children of whoredoms,'' by.which union he was to off!ll" to hie people a symbolical representation 0£ their unfaithfolness and of God's forbearance. The tram:i- o.ction has seemed to many so unnatural and revolting that they have refused to admit the literal fulfilment of the command, and relegate the whole matter to the regions of allegory, drama, or vision. Bnt, as Dr. Posey says (' Minor Prophets,' p. 4), "there is no ground to justify onr taking as a parable what Holy Scripture relates as a fact. There is no instanc~ in which it can be shown that. Holy Scripture relates that a. thing was done, and that with the names of persons, and yet that God did not intend it to be taken as literally true. There would. then be left no test of what was real, what imaginary; and the histories of Holy Scriptnre would be left to be a prey to indi:yidual caprice, to be explained away as parables when men misliked them." So we must believe that Hosea took this woman as wife, and became by her the father of three children, to whom at God's command he gave symbolical names. The first was called J ezreel, in commemoration _of the evil memories attached to that place now to be visited for; the second, a daughter, Lo-ruhamah, "Not pitied," in token of the universal destruction th:r;ea.tened; and the third, Lo-ammi, "Not my people," a warning of the rejection and dispersion of Israel. After a time, the evil of Gomer's natnre reasserted itself. She-fled from her husband, and proved unfaithful to him. But her paramour did not long care for her; and Hosea, seeking her, found her deserted and despised, perhaps sold as a slave. Yet his love was not yet wearied out. He purchased her freedom, and took her to his house, no longer to enjoy the privileges of an honoured wife, which she had flnng away, but to repair the past and atone for the sin by mortification, seclu- sion, and tears. The chief difficulty in regarding this transaction as real and historical is that it would have taken some years to accomplish. But, on the other hand, it was more impressive for the people to have this acted parable placed before their eyes for a long continuance. Nor were snch lengthened symbolical actions unusual in the domain of prophecy (comp. Isa. xx. 3; Ezek. iv. 5, 6, 9); A merely recounted vision must have had.a far. weaker effecti\,than this piece of real li£e. I£ Gomer was known to be of loose character, her conversion into the chaste wife of a holy prophet must have led.people to think and to inquire into the cause of this seemingly anomalous. proceeding. ".Nee culpe.ndus propheta," says St. J erom:e, " si meretricem converterit • ad pudicitiam, sed potius lauda.ndns quod ex mala bonam fecerit. Non enim qui ponus permanet ipse polluitnr, si sc:icietur me.lo ; sed qui ma.lus est in bonum vertitnr, si bona exempla. sectetur. Ex quo iutelligimus non prophetam perdidisse pudicitiam forni- carire copulatum, sed fornicariam ll,!Jsumsisse pudicitiam quam antea non habebat." We kuow nothing of the latter days of Hosea. It is probable that he yffi INTRODUOTION TO
finished his life in Jndme., as the p'l'eserve.tion of his book e,mid the ruin of Samaria is thus more easily accounted for. The place a.nd date of his death are eq ua.lly unknown. A. tomb is shown e.e his between Na.blue and Es-se.lt; but there is no ground for supposing that it has ever contained the prophet's remains. Hosea stands first in the book of the minor prophets, whioh some have supposed t.o be arranged in cbronologioa.l order. But closer investigation does not confirm all the details of this arrangement. We may safely say that the books a.re distributed chronologically thus far: first are placed those seers that prophesied in the Assyrian period, viz. Hosea to Na.hum; then those in the Chaldean era, Habakknk and Zephaniah; and lastly, those in poet-e:rilian times. To Hosea is assigned the foremost place, because, although not the longest of the twelve (for Zeohariah ie somewhat more lengthy, the Masorites reckoning one hundred and ninety-seven verses for Hosea., e.nd two hundred and eleven for Zechariah), it ie the most important of those in the first cycle. Joel and A.mos were probably prior to Hosea.; but he exercised his office much longer than any of the others, and this, perhaps, was one reason for giving} him the position which he occupies in the Hebrew Bible. A. mistranslation has played some pa.rt in the matter. The first clause of the second verse, " The beginning of the Word of the Lord by Hosea," which ie a. kind of heading to the first part of the book, has been rendered, " The beginning of the Lord bath spoken •by Hosea," as if the sentence referred to his priority compared with the other prophets, whereas it appertains only to the predictions to which it is prefixed. In the title, the genuineness of which ie generally e.llowed, Hosea is said to have prophesied "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, A.haz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, e.nd in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, King of Israel." The statement seems to be plain enough till it ie examined care- fully; it is then seen to need some elucidation. Uzziah began t.o reign (if we accept the dates ascertained by Assyrian monuments) B.O. 792, and died in B.c. 740, and sixteen yea.re each being allotted to Jotham and A.haz, and Hezekiah's first regnal year being assumed to be B.O. 708,-thus, supposing that Hosea. began his ce.reer in Uzziah's first year, at the age of twenty (which, indeed, i.s at least ten years too young), and continued it for a year or two in Hezekiah's time, he must have been one hundred and five in the early part of that monarch's reign, and hie ministry must have lasted between eighty and ninety years ; while, if we consider that he prophesied till the close of Hezekiah's life, the duration of hie ministry is inconceivable and absurd. But it is quite unnecessary to suppose that Hosea's prophetic activity extended over the entire reigns of the kings named in the title. A. limitation is added by the introduction of the name of Jeroboam II., who reigned from B.c. 790 t.o B.C. 749; so that we may conclude that Hosea entered upon hie office during some part of Uzziah's reign vchich was contemporary with Jeroboam, or about B.c. 755, which wo.s THE BOOK OF HOSEA. ix