some six yee.rs before its close. This reckoning would e.llow about fifty years for the do.re.tion of Hosee.'s prophetical life. Bo.t late discoveries he.ve given ree.eon to suppose that Jotham we.s joint sovereign with his fother, and that Ahaz also we.s sole monarch for a very short time. This alters Hezekiah's date from B.O. 708 to B.O. 728, and allows for the prophet's ministry some thirty years. Oo.r view of the prophet's date is, however, not dependent wholly upon the title of the book. Further information can he derived from the contents. First, as to the close of his ministry. Though he foretold the fall of Samaria (eh. x. 5; xiii.' 16), he does not mention the capture of the city and the destruction of the kingdom of Israel in the sixth year of Hezekiah, B.O. 722, an event of such overwhelming importance that he could not have passed it over unnoticed, had he been a.live when it occurred. The predictions concerning this event seem to ha.ve been uttered about the middle of the reign of Hoshea., the last king, which would be just at the time of the accession of Hezekiah. Secondly, as to the commencement of his prophetical office. He could not have prophesied long under Jeroboam. The long and prosperous reign of that king, when the fortunes of Israel were raised to an unprecedented height, could never have given occasion to the descriptions of confusion, anarchy, and disaster which frequently occur (comp. eh. vii. 1, 7; viii. 4). Such allusions seem rather to belong to an interregnum that followed on the death of Jeroboam, or to the time of his successors in the kingdom. The first portion of the book (eh. i.-iii.) was written in Jeroboam's time, since it speaks of the fall of the house of Jehu as still future (eh. i. 4), and the kingdom of Israel as still prosperous. But the remainder belongs to times subsequent, when a rapid decline had begun, and events were leading up to the fatal consum- mation. The prophet, indeed, complains in an early chapter (ii. 16, 17) of the dishonour done to the Lord by coniounding him with local Baalim, but he does not denounce the gross moral corruption of the people till he is constrained to do so by the view of their condition and actions after J ero- boam's death. When we se.id above that the genuineness of the title is generally allowed, we did not mean that it had never been questioned, but that the balance of authority was greatly in its favour. Of late yea.re, Kuenen, Dr. Cheyne in his commentary, and Professor W. R. Smith (' The Prophets of Israel,' lect. iv.), have thrown discredit on the heading as being a careless combi- nation of two distinct traditions referring to different pa.rte of the prophet's writings. The mention of Jeroboam, they say, rightly fixes the date of the first part of the prophecy ; the rest of the heading was added by a scribe during the exile, probably the same who wrote the names of the same four kings of Judah at the beginning of Isaiah; and it is argued that, as it is plain that when eh. xiv. 3 was written the Jews had not finally broken with Assyria, the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah could not synchronize with any part of Hosea. But the final rupture with Assyria, which led to the fe.11 of Samaria, took place B.O. \'22, in Hezekiah's sixth year; and Hosea's INTRODOOTION TO
prophec:y might have boon written in the earliest portion of Hozekiah's reign. which, u we said above, would be su.tlicient to prove the correctness of the title. The notion of the scribe's blunder is a. mere oonjecl;u1'8, in itself improbable, and certainly not required by any internal consideration.
§ III. GENERAL CHARAOTER, "Osee," says St. Jerome, "oomma.ticus est, et qua.si per se~tentias loquens "-" Hosea. is concise, and speaks in detached sentences." This is one reason of the obscurity of his writings. Conciseness, compined with a. folness of meaning which needs much expansion to be intelligible, occasions perplerity and confusion. The truth is that the prophet feels too deeply to express himself calmly; the sorrow and the indignation within him force utterance, without regard to logical connection or ce.refnl arrangement. Verse is bound to verse "Simply by identity of feeling; the prevalence of one pathetic colouring unites the several parts of the picture. He cannot stoop to the niceties of pa.ra.llelism and to the scrupulous balancing of clauses; his grief, his upbra.idings, his pleadings, are artless -and _untram- melled. In his vehemence he oversteps the bounds of grammatical propriety, and hturies the h~r a.long, regardless of rules which a Jess feeli,ng writer would 4tftt been careful tp observe. ,Abruptly he Pll.!i!SOS from one µpage to another without fully developing either; he draws his figure~ ,from the field, the mountain, the forest. God's loud ca.ll to repentarrne, 11,wfuJ and far-reaching, is the roar of a. lion (eh. :ri.. 10); in .the fierceness of· his anger he is swift a.s the leopard, furious as the she-bear bereft of her whelps (eh. xiii. 7, 8). .A.t another time he uses mild chastisements, as the moth frets a garment ( eh. v. 12) ; or he sends blessing like the gentle spring and autumn rain-(:t;b. vi. 4) ev.en upon Ephraim,whose,goc;>dne1m'j~,~ morning cloud, which glistens in the sun and soon disappears. The repen~t Israel shall receive the dew of God's grace, and shall grow pure as the lily, strong a.s the cedar, ever beautiful as the olive tree, fragrant_ and sweet as the wine of Lebanon (eh. xiv. 5-7). Such accomulations of fiITTUes, 1unex- plained and isolated, tend to obscurity. Another cause th11:t occa11ions the same result is the use of peculiar words and unusual constructions. Hosea, too, is very fond of paronomasias. "Shoot (tremach) brings no fruit (kemach)" (eh. viii _7); the altars in Gilgal are as "heaps of ._stones (gallim)" (eh. xii.11); Beth-el," the house of God," has become Beth-aven, '' the house of vanity" (eh. x. 5). Yet, with all his obscurity, how touching and winning is his utterance! Amid a.ll his threats and denunciations his.tender love for Israel .beams forth. He rejoices when he has a message of m~rcy to deliver; and his style loses its stern abroptness, and he dwells with placid delight on the prospect before him; his impetoous boldness sobers down into the gentle flow of calm confidence. But this happier aspect of his prophecy is rarely seen. , His mPssage is generally full of mourning and woe. The prophets of Judah 'fHE BOOK OF HOSEA. xi