Hosea is primarily a love story, specifically one of redemptive love. The pain Hosea has endured in his marriage to unfaithful Gomer uniquely qualifies him for his prophetic ministry to the Lord’s unfaithful people. Failing to trust the Lord, Israel has sought security in foreign powers and false gods. Yet, as Hosea is eager to show, Israel’s unfaithfulness has not diminished God’s love for them. Hosea paints Israel’s spiritual adultery with vivid images, calling God’s people with both warnings and heartfelt appeals to turn back to the Lord. Failure to repent will result in punishment, but God takes no delight in that prospect. Rather, he desires them to turn from idols to him, their true husband and the only one who can provide for their needs.

—Lydia Brownback  

Content taken from Hosea: A 12-Week Study by Lydia Brownback ©2016. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  

The book of Hosea is not about Hosea; it’s not about Gomer; it’s not about Israel; it’s about God who graciously, lovingly, righteously, jealously redeems wayward people—and not because they’re worthy or because they have any promise of fidelity in and of themselves. He loves wayward people because he is God. 

—Reuben Hunter

Source: Reuben Hunter, quoted from his message, “Broken-Hearted Love,” published by The Gospel Coalition. We would strongly encourage you to listen to this full sermon as a family!

Though Hosea is a difficult book, it is also a great book. It is like a tree whose roots go down deep into the Torah and whose branches bear the fruit of a discourse that became the grammar of biblical prophecy. Many of the themes, and much of the vocabulary, of the great literary prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel originate in Hosea. It is also a book that jolts the reader; it refuses to be domesticated and made conventional. It does comfort the afflicted, but it most surely afflicts the comfortable. It is as startling in its presentation of sin as it is surprising in its stubborn certainty of grace. It is as blunt as it is enigmatic. It is a book to be experienced, and the experience is with God.

—Duane A. Garrett  

Source: Duane A. Garrett, quoted from his commentary, “Hosea, Joel: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture,” in the New American Commentary Series.

Because of the characteristics of (northern) Israel in the mid-eighth century BC, God’s prophetic word could hardly have been predominantly positive. Israel was continuing a history of covenant-breaking, and her Lord had determined to move against his people by unleashing the punishments specified in the law. In the short run, therefore, God’s plan for his people was one that would necessarily seem to them negative. In the long run, on the other hand, God’s overall plan of blessing for his chosen nation would still prevail. Accordingly, the book of Hosea now and again contains reminders to the faithful that God would one day again bring prosperity to Israel. But the vast majority of the oracles God spoke through Hosea were of woe, not weal, and they depend for their substance upon the depository of covenant curses found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

—Douglas Stuart 

Source: Douglas Stuart, quoted from his book, “Hosea-Jonah,” in the Word Biblical Commentary Series, published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

From Bibles.net: In other words, God had foreseen the failure of Israel years earlier and had prophesied about their moral collapse in the book of Deuteronomy. The judgment God promises in Hosea isn’t a surprise to them—it’s exactly what God told Israel would happen if Israel was unfaithful to him.

It is a truism to say that Hosea presents the apostasy of Israel under the metaphor of an unfaithful wife. But this analysis only tells half of the story. Hosea did not just have a wife; he also had three children who were themselves signs and symbols to Israel. It is reasonable to suppose that the wife and the three children do not all simply represent “Israel,” as thought there were no difference between mother and children. But wherein lies the distinction? As this commentary will try to demonstrate, Israel the wayward wife is the leadership, institutions, and culture of Israel. The children are the ordinary men and women who are trained and nurtured in that culture. Behind these two metaphors lies a story. 

…The children have followed their mother. Superstitious and fearful while at the same time captivated by that alluring benefit of Baalism, the cult prostitute, they know nothing of their father, Yahweh. Indeed, one cannot even say that Yahweh is their father. They are a lost generation, the children of Baal. They possess none of the three basic qualities that should make the chosen people: integrity, compassion, and the knowledge of God. Their only hope of salvation is to turn from Mother Israel and go back to the one real Father, Yahweh. That is, to be true children of God they would have to abandon Mother Israel, for she is not his wife, and her children are Lo-Ammi, “Not-my-people.” But this they cannot do. She has too well instructed them in her ways and they belong to Baal. What shall Yahweh do with a people who can neither repent, nor even understand the need for it, nor recognize that Baal is a lie, nor divorce themselves from their mother and her ways? He must strip Mother Israel of all she has. That is, the institutions of Israel must die. The shrines must burn, the crops must fail, the kings and army must perish, the priests and princes must fall to disgrace, and Mother Israel and her children must once again wander in the wilderness. When this happens, at last, they will see both the truth and the life for what they are and return to Yahweh, Husband and Father.

—Duane A. Garrett  

Source: Duane A. Garrett, quoted in his commentary, “Hosea, Joel: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture,” in the New American Commentary Series. 

Hosea is believed to be the first prophet to use marriage as a metaphor of the covenant between God and Israel and influenced latter prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In the New Testament, Jesus quoted from Hosea twice when he said: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). 

—The New World Encyclopedia  

Source: The article, “Hosea, Book of” in the New World Encyclopedia

This prophetic book sobers us and fills us with renewed hope. As ugly as Israel’s adulterous faithlessness has been, it cannot extinguish God’s resilient, redemptive love that defies human calculation or annulment.

—James M. Hamilton Jr.

Source: James M. Hamilton Jr., quoted from his article, “The Gospel in Hosea,” published by Crossway Publishers. Used by Permission.

In Hosea, God is by turns ‘cool’ (‘he has withdrawn from them’; ‘Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone’; ‘They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind’ [Hosea 5:6; 4:17; 8:7]) and ‘tough’ (‘I will be like a lion to Ephraim’; ‘he will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins’ [Hosea 5:14; 9:9] ); but above all, ‘tender’ (‘How can I give you up, O Ephraim!… My heart recoils within me’; ‘I will heal their faithlessness…’ [Hosea 11:8; 14:4]).

And Israel? She got it wrong, in the usual human way. God, she reckoned, must be wanting more religion; she would bring more sacrifices. ‘They love sacrifice’, says God. ‘With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord’ (Hosea 8:13; 5:6). But that was not the way to find him. These were religious things, and he wanted people: converted people, deeply repentant, wholly and forever his.

All the ups and downs of the book [of Hosea], the scathing portraits, dire predictions, ardent appeals, add up to this and the book ends by looking to the fruit of all this agony, when this unequal marriage, like Hosea’s, will be no longer full of tensions and betrayals, but secure and blissful, its long winter over and its spring at last arrived and in full flower.

—Derek Kidner

Source: Derek Kidner, quoted from his book, “The Message of Hosea: The Bible Speaks Today,” published by Intervarsity Press.  

We are supposed to be shocked by this calling Hosea has been given [to marry an unfaithful woman]. But an important point that we need to recognize here is this: God is not surprised by our sin. He knows every detail about us. He knows the end from the beginning. Of course he knows every detail about us and he loves us nonetheless. And we choose to love on the basis of all kinds of externals—appearance, wealth, personality, ability. We do, we just do. We need to admit that. It’s not like that with God… In fact, it is precisely because there is nothing lovely about us that God has set his special, saving, covenant love upon us. His desire is to make us lovely through the death of his son. This is the kind of love that God has called Hosea to demonstrate. No calling could be personally more painful and costly than Hosea’s—demonstrating the love of God for, to use the New Testament language, his bride, the church.  

—Reuben Hunter  

Source: Reuben Hunter, quoted from his message, “Broken-Hearted Love,” published by The Gospel Coalition. We would strongly encourage you to listen to this full sermon as a family!

It might not be an unfaithful spouse, but you may be enduring all kinds of other difficulties because of God’s strange providence. It might just be that as he did with Hosea, God has brought a difficult situation your way in order to work out his purposes in and through you. No, you’re not a prophet, but God will be using you through your trials to declare his glory to those around you. Don’t despise your trials.

This is what Hosea was called to—you may be called to something different. He was faithful to demonstrate, as God called him to, to those around him in his hardship God’s faithfulness and his sufficiency. And it may just be that in your hardship—whatever it is—that God is calling you to also to be a visual aid to those around you of his sufficiency and his faithfulness. 

—Reuben Hunter 

Source: Reuben Hunter, quoted from his message, “Broken-Hearted Love,” published by The Gospel Coalition. We would strongly encourage you to listen to this full sermon as a family!