they were not God's people (Lectures on the yewish Antiquities and Scriptures, by J. G. Palfrey, vol. ii. 422, Boston, N.A., 1841). The space we have already occupied precludes more minute criticism.
The integrity of a portion of Hosea has been faintly questioned only by Redslob (Hamburg 1842). Recent writers, such as Bertholdt, Eichhorn, De \Vette, Stuck, Maurer, Ewald, Umbreit, Koster, and Hitzig, have laboured much, but in vain, to divide the book of Hosea into separate portions, assigning to each the period at which it was writ ten ; but front the want of sufficient data the attempt must rest principally on taste and fancy. A sufficient proof of the correctness of our opinion may be found in tbe contradictory sections and allotments of the various critics who have engaged in the task. Chapters i. ii. and iii. evidently form one division, as Havernick and others have shewn, but it is next to impossible to separate and distin guish the other chapters. The form and style are very similar throughout all the second portion ; though in reading it we seem, in the words of Lowth, in sparsa quawlam Sibyllae folio incia'ere. The oracles are so brief and fragmentary, and the allusions so curt and obscure, especially in the darker pictures and denunciations, that the pro phecy appears to be notes or reminiscences of vvhat the seer had uttered during- his long, and try ing career. It is also to be noticed that very often it is God who address the people directly, and not the prophet in God's name.
The peculiarities of Hosea's style have been often remarked. Jerome says of him, Commati cus est, et quasi per sententias loquens' (Pr,rf. aa' Proph.) His style,' says De \Vette, ' is abrupt, unrounded, and ebullient ; his rhythm hard, leaping, and violent. The language is pecu liar and difficult' (Einleitung, sec. 228). Lowth (Preelect. 21) speaks of him as the most difficult and perplexed of the prophets. Bishop Horsley has remarked his peculiar idioms—his change of person, anomalies of gender and number, and use of the nominative absolute ( Works, vol. iii.) Eich hom's description of his style was probably at the same time meant as an imitation of it (Einleitung-, sec. 555) His discourse is like a garland woven of a multiplicity of flowers : images are woven upon images, comparison wound upon comparison, metaphor strung upon metaphor. He plucks one flower, and throsvs it down that it may directly break off another. Like a bee he flies from one flower-bed to another, that he may suck his honey from the most varied pieces. It is a natural con
sequence that his figures sometimes form strings of pearls. Often is he prone to approach to allegory —often he sinks down in obscurity' (comp. ch. v. 9 ; vi. 3 ; vii. ; xiii. 3, 7, 8, 16). Unusual words and forms of connection sometimes occur (De Wette, sec. 228). Of the former, examples are to be found in ch. viii. 13, wzrizri; xiii.
; X. 2, rin.V; xi- 7, N&1; v. 13 ; x. 6, 1*/3 ; of the latter, in ch. vii. 16, t•4 ; ix. 8, bl/ rItY ; xiv. 3, n+In vntuo, etc. Many examples occur of the com paratio decurtata, arising from ellipses and the peculiar abruptness of tbe style ; the particles of connection, causal, adversative, and transitive, being frequently omitted. Paronomasia occur also, with many other peculiarities, which render the interpre tation difficult. Some of these peculiarities may have originated in his use of the people's dialect, which was marked by Aramxisms ; the northern tribes being less under refining influences than Ju dah and its great capital. But much of this ellip tical ruggedness and unfashioned terseness arose from the prophet's eager temperament, from his earnest desire to express with brevity thoughts that crowded upon him too thickly for distinct and full formed utterance, and suggestions that jostled and obscured one another by their sudden and rapid up springing within him.
Hosea, as a prophet, is expressly quoted by Matthew (ii. 15). The citation is from the first verse of ch. xi. Hosea vi. 6 is quoted twice by the sante evangelist (ix. 13 ; xii. 7). Quotations from his prophecies are also to be found in Rom. ix. 25, 26. References to them occur in 1 Con xv. 55, and in I Pet. ii. to. Messianic references are not clearly and prominently developed. This book, however, is not without them ; but they lie more in the spirit of its allusions than in the letter. Hosea's Christology appears written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, on the fleshly tables of his heart.' The future conversion of his people to the Lord their God and David their king, their glorious privilege in becoming sons of the living God, the fulfilment of the original pro mise to Abraham, that the number of his spiritual seed should be as the sand of the sea, .and the re betrothal and re-institution of the nuptial covenant with her who had so long and so wantonly forgot ten the love of her espousals, are among the oracles which will take effect only under the new dispensation.