HOSEA, BOOK OF.
(1) Against Whom Directed. The prophecies of Hosea were directed especially against the coun try whose sin had brought upon it such disasters— prolonged anarchy and final captivity. Israel, or Ephraim, is the people especially addressed. Their homicides and fornications, their perjury and theft, their idolatry and impiety are censured and satir ized with a faithful severity. Judah is sometimes, indeed, introduced, warned and admonished. Bishop Horsley (Works, iii, 236), reckons it a mistake to suppose 'that Hosea's prophecies are almost wholly directed against the kingdom of Israel.' The bishop describes what he thinks the correct extent of Hosea's commission, but has adduced no proof of his assertion. Any one reading Hosea will at once discover that the oracles having rela tion to Israel are primary, while the references to Judah are only incidental. In chap. i :7, Judah is mentioned in contrast with Israel, to whose condition the symbolic name of the prophet's son is specially applicable. In verse ir the future union of the two nations is predicted. The long oracle in chap. ii has no relation to Judah, nor the symbolic representation in chap. iii. Chap. iv is severe upon Ephraim and ends with a very brief exhortation to Judah not to follow his ex ample. In the succeeding chapters allusions to Judah do indeed occasionally occur, when similar sins can be predicated of both branches of the nation. The prophet's mind was intensely inter ested in the destinies of his own people. The nations around him are unheeded; his prophetic eye beholds the crisis approaching his country, and sees its cantons ravaged, its tribes murdered or enslaved. No wonder that his rebukes were so terrible, his menaces so alarming, that his soul poured forth its strength in .an ecstasy of grief and affection. Invitations, replete with tenderness and pathos, are interspersed with his warnings and expostulations. NOW we are startled with a vision of the throne, at first shrouded in dark ness, and sending forth lightnings, thunders and voices ; but while we gaze, it becomes encircled with a rainbow, which gradually expands till it is lost in that universal brilliancy which itself had originated (chap. xi and xiv).
(2) Peculiar Mode of Instruction. The pe culiar mode of instruction which the prophet de tails in the first and third chapters of his oracles has given rise to many disputed theories. We refer to the command expressed in chap. i :2: 'And the Lord said unto Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms,' etc.; chap. iii :1, 'Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress,' etc. What was the precise nature of the transactions here recorded? Were they real events, the result of divine injunctions lit erally understood, and as literally fulfilled'? or were these intimations to the prophet only in tended to be pictorial illustrations of the apostasy and spiritual folly and unfaithfulness of Israel? The former view, viz., that the prophet actually
and literally entered into this impure connubial alliance, was advocated in ancient times by Cyril, Theodoret, Basil and Augustine; and more re cently has been maintained by Mercer, Grotius, Houbigant, Manger, Horsley and Stuck. Fanci ful theories are also rife on this subject. Luther supposed the prophet to perform a kind of drama in view of the people, giving his lawful wife and children these mystical appellations. Newcome (Min. Prophets) thinks that a wife of fornica tion means merely an Israelite, a woman of apos tate and adulterous Israel. So Jac. Capellus (In Hoseam; Opera, p. 683). Hengstenberg sup poses the prophet to relate actions which hap pened, indeed, actually, but not outwardly. Some, with Maimonides (Moreh Nevochim, part ii), imagine it to be a nocturnal vision; while others make it wholly an allegory, as the Chaldee Para phrast, Jerome, Drusius, Bauer, Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel and Lmirth. The view of Hengstenberg, and such as have held his theory (Markii Diatribe de uxore fornicationum accipienda, etc., Lugd. Batav., 1696), is not materially different from the last to which we have referred. Both agree in condemning the first opinion, which the fast md forward mind of Horsley so strenuously maintained. Hengstenberg, at great length and with much force, has refuted this strange hypoth esis (Christology, 11-12). Besides other guments resting on the impurity and loathsome ness of the supposed nuptial contract, it may be argued against the external reality of the event, that it must have required several years for its completion, and that the impressiveness of the symbol would therefore be weakened and oblit erated. Other prophetic transactions of a similar nature might be referred to. Jerome (Comment. in loc.) has referred to Ezek. iv:4. It is not to bc supposed, as has sometimes been argued, that the prophet was commanded to commit fornica tion. The divine injunction was to marry— 'Scortunt aliquis duccre potest sine peccato, scor tari non item.' Drusius (Comm. in /oc. sit Critici Sacri, tom. v). Whichever way this question may be solved, whether these occurrences be regarded as a real and external transaction, or as a piece of spiritual scenery, or only, as is most probable (Witsii Miscc11. Soc., p. go), an allegorical de scription, it is agreed on all hands that the actions are typical; that they are, as Jerome calls them, sacrament° futurorunt.