Book. that at the end of the prophet's life he
put together the essential contents of his prophecies condensed into short, separate oracles. The book begins with the narration of two prophetic experiences of the prophet, not put in allegorical form, but as in the sphere of external events which he was called upon to undergo in the service of God. Chap. i. tells of his marriage to a woman of whom it is implied that she will not be true to him, to represent the case of Israel unfaithful to its God, for which judgment comes, but with the prospect of salvation (ii. 1 sqq.). The symbolic names of the prophet's children (i. 6, 9) are changed, in consequence of the people's repentance, to their opposites (ii. 1), while Jezreel (i. 4) is changed in significance from a place stained with blood to a place sown with seed. Chap. iii. makes the experience of the prophet with his unfaithful wife the symbol of Yahweh's experience with unfaithful Israel. A long-continued deprivation of enjoyment of political and religious associations (in exile) is to bring the people to order aright its common life, when that people will return to its God and its king. The second part of the book, which unmistakably' exhibits the unrestful period following the death of ^Jeroboam II., is composed of separate pieces. Chap.iv. portrays the thorough religious and moral deterioration of the whole people; v.-vii. impeaches the leaders whose duties it had been to direct the people in right ways; viii.-ix. 9 recounts anew the sins of the people committed under a false sense of security, which must lead to the destruction of the northern kingdom; in viii. 10-xi. the prophet three times recalls Israel's beginnings only to show its repeated fall from duty; xii.-xiii. shows that in spite of experiences of grace and of punishment the people had opposed God and refused his help, with the result that the death of Israel is decreed, out of which a miracle of resurrection shall restore them, meanwhile judgment must come; the book closes,
Hosea
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOi'.
chap, xiv., with exhortation to make confession of
sin, which is to be accepted with the result of
renewed prosperity.
Of the three reproaches of Hosea against the
people, viz., ethical degeneracy, religious demoralization, and coquetting with world 4. The powers, the second is important here. Complete The tendency of Israel to idolatry, to Law worship of Baal and to calf-worship, Implied, is bewailed by the prophet, also the erection of altars and images, though they suppose that they worship in them Yahweh, the God of revelation. Of their Baal-worship they are to be so ashamed that the name Baal as name for husband will be abandoned (ii. 16-17). The aim of the prophet is to portray the dire results of the syncretism of worship which made worship of their own God take the form of worship of Baal and so denied real honor to Yahweh. The prophet speaks of a torah (" law "), the infringement of which he deplores, and that this was in writing is indicated by viii. 12: "Though I record [not, as Wellhausen would have it: though I prescribe for him] myriads [of precepts] of my law, they are counted as a strange thing." The sense is that, if the law were even more comprehensive and more specific than it is, yet neither as a whole nor in its particulars would Ephraim regard it. Since the preceding complaint is grounded upon the fact that Israel, which should have had only one altar in the place chosen by God, had multiplied altars to the increase of sins, and since the prophet inveighs against idolatry, the precepts of the law can not have been simply ethical, but must have been cultic and of such a form as exist in the Book of the Covenant, in Deuteronomy, and in the Priest Code. The various kinds of sacrifice and of materials of sacrifice and the sacred times, persons, and seasons appear in one or the other of these books (cf. Hosea ii. 13, v. 6-8, vi. 6, ix. 3-5, xii. 10-12; Amos ii. 11-12, iii. 14, iv. 4-5, v. 21-22, viii. 5, 10). The position of the priests appears in Hosea iv. 4-9, though their actual character is revealed in vi. 9.
That the sentence of disapproval which Hosea pronounces upon the northern kingdom relates to this only in its degenerate performance and to its syncretistic obscuration, and not to the matter of sacrifice in itself, is shown by ix. 1-3, where the prophet tells Israel not to rejoice, since the days come when they will be able to bring to Yahweh neither wine as drink-offering nor well-pleasing sacrifices, for they are to return to Egypt and are to eat unclean food in Assyria where consecration of offerings will not be possible for them. When he says that God prefers mercy to sacrifice anTT" knowledge of God to burnt offerings (vi. 6) , he refers not to sacrifice in general but to sacrifice in which the soul does not join and by a people which can not distinguish between Yahweh and Baal. Indeed, Hosea does not appear as the herald of a new religious idea or of a new knowledge of the being of Yahweh and of the right method of worshiping him. He and Amos proclaim the God of the fathers of the people who had been known throughout Israel's history through prophetic instruction and revelation. If it be said that Hosea first developed
the idea of a marriage between Yahweh and Israel, it must be recalled that this idea underlies the " jealous God " of Ex. xx. 5; and, if he carried it out more thoroughly, it was not on a basis of legalism, but on one of mutual love (ii 17- 18, 21).
The dependence of Hosea upon Amos is indisputable, and in part verbal (cf. iv. 3 with Amos viii. 8-
iv. 15 with Amos v. 5; viii. 14 with
5. Literary Amos ii. 5; vii. 12 with Amos ix. 2).
Features. But while Amos and Hosea agree
closely in the basis of their prophecies and in their liking for reviewing the history of their people, they differ in methods of speech and exposition. Hosea is full of uncommon words, forms, and collocations, and has a distinct northern cast of idiom. His style is less polished than that of Amos, but more emotional; consequently there is more abruptness in his sentences, less sequence in his figures. The text is at times corrupt, and often the Septuagint indicates the method of emendation. Certain passages of the Masoretic text are full of difficulty, especially vii. 5-6, viii. 10, and xiii. 1.