Ch. 3. The second part of the parable of Hosea’s family-life

1. Go yet, love] Rather, Once more go love, indicating that the narrative dropped at Hosea 1:9 is now resumed. (Notice also in this connexion the change of the third person into the first in chap. 3) It is the same woman who is meant; otherwise a different form of expression would have been used (like that in Hosea 1:2), besides which the allegory would have been spoiled had there been two women concerned. Gomer is throughout the symbol of faithless but not forsaken Israel. The narrative is told in a condensed allusive style, which makes some demand on the imagination of the reader. If Gomer is to be taken back, it is clear that she must have left her husband, and the price at which (Hosea 3:2) she has to be brought back shews that she had fallen into depths of misery.

beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress] Rather, beloved of a paramour, and an adulteress. As if Jehovah had said, Love her just as she is; the definition is added for the reader’s sake, to show how great an act was demanded of Hosea, like ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest’ (Genesis 22:2). For the rendering ‘paramour’, comp. Jeremiah 3:20; Lamentations 1:2.

who look …] Rather, whereas they (on their side) turn.

flagons of wine] Rather, cakes of grapes. Cakes of dried grapes were common articles of food, mentioned with cakes of figs, bread, and wine, and parched corn (1 Samuel 25:18). The cakes here mentioned, however, must have been of a superior kind; they bear a different name, and appear from Isaiah 16:7 (corrected translation) to have been considered as luxuries. They formed part of David’s royal bounty on the removal of the ark to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:19), or more correctly of the sacrificial feast implied by the context. This latter point is interesting as it suggests that Baal-worship was closely related to the festivities of the vintage (Prof. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 434). Hosea too seems to refer to these cakes in connexion with the sacrificial feasts, not without a touch of sarcasm.

I bought her to me] Why Hosea had to buy his wife back from her paramour, does not appear; had he lost his rights over her by her flight and adultery? Perhaps it was simply to avoid an altercation with the adulterer, or we may imagine such a scene as is depicted by Dean Plumptre in his poem Gomer’ (Lazarus p. 87). The view of Pococke and Pusey that Hosea means to explain how he undertook to allow his wife just sufficient for a decent maintenance till she should be reinstated in her full position, accounts no doubt for grain being given as well as money, but does violence to the letter of the text, as there is no sufficient proof of the rendering ‘I provided her with food’.

for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley] In 2 Kings 7:18 two seahs of barley are rated at a shekel. This however was immediately after the siege of Samaria had been raised; the normal rate would probably have been lower, say three seahs at a shekel, so that a homer (= 30 seahs) would have cost ten shekels and a homer and a half fifteen. The total price paid by Hosea would therefore be thirty shekels (about £ 3. 15s.) the average value of a slave (see Exodus 21:32). Why it was paid partly in money, partly in kind, cannot be determined. Hosea only tells us enough to make the allegory intelligible. Gomer in her misery is a type of Israel in her unhappy alienation from her God.

a half-homer] Strictly, a lethech. The Sept. has ‘a bottle of wine’ (νέβελ οἴνου). Probably the translator was unacquainted with the ‘lethech’, which was apparently not a primitive measure. Its precise relation to the homer is uncertain; A.V. however is borne out by the Jewish tradition. There is nothing analogous to it in the Egyptian dry measure, which in other details agrees exactly with the Hebrew (Révillout, Revue égyptologique 11. 190).

3. Thou shalt abide for me many days] Rather, shalt sit still (as Isaiah 30:7, Jeremiah 8:14 in A. V.). Gomer is to lead a quiet secluded life; her licentious course is cut short, and her conjugal intercourse may not yet be resumed. This is to last for ‘many days,’ i.e. as long as is necessary to assure Hosea of Gomer’s moral amendment.

so (will) I also (be) for thee] i. e. Hosea plights his troth that he will form no connexion with any other woman but Gomer. ‘Ego vicissim tibi fidem meam obligo’, Calvin. Others, with Aben Ezra and Kimchi, understand, instead of ‘will be’, ‘will not go in’, taking the clause as a contrast to that which precedes (‘but I will not go in unto thee’). Ewald renders, ‘and yet I am kind unto thee’. It is possible that some short word (such as ‘so’ or ‘not’) has dropped out of the text.

4. For …] The explanation of this latter part of the prophet’s acted allegory. As he has restrained his erring wife from even the legitimate gratification of her natural instincts, so Jehovah will chastise idolatrous Israel by depriving her of her civil and religious institutions. By ‘the children of Israel’ Hosea means the Ten Tribes, as elsewhere in these chapters,

shall abide] Rather, shall sit still (as Hosea 3:3).

many days] The prophet has received no revelation as to the duration of the captivity of the Ten Tribes.

without a king and without a prince] The abolition of ‘king and princes’ corresponds to the denial of intercourse with her lovers to Gomer. The term ‘prince’ is used partly of the magnates of the state in general, partly of the ‘elders’ or heads of families, who played such an important part in the Israelitish community (comp. Exodus 3:16; 2 Samuel 19:11; 1 Kings 8:1; 1 Kings 20:7; Jeremiah 26:17). A king and princes are mentioned together again in Hosea 7:3, Hosea 13:10 (and probably in Hosea 8:10).

without a sacrifice and without an image] The withholding of this and the next pair of objects corresponds to the cessation of conjugal intercourse between Hosea and Gomer. Consequently as Hosea represents Jehovah, the ‘image’ (or rather consecrated pillar, Heb. maçççbah) spoken of must stand in some relation to Jehovah, must in fact be of one of those pillars sacred to Jehovah, which, as many think, lasted on in Judah (much more therefore in Israel) at any rate till the time of Hezekiah: see note on Hosea 10:1. The ‘pillars’ were the distinguishing marks of holy places, and are therefore very naturally combined by Hosea with sacrifices or altars (Sept., followed by Pesh. and Vulg. reads ‘altar’ here instead of ‘sacrifice’). Comp. Dean Plumptre:

No pomp of kings, no priests in gorgeous robes,

No victims bleeding on the altar-fires,

No golden ephod set with sparkling gems,

No pillar speaking of the gate of heaven,

No Teraphim with strange mysterious gleam

Shall give their signs oracular.

(Lazarus, p. 90.)

It follows from this passage of Hosea that the worship of Jehovah in northern Israel presented features altogether alien to the orthodox worship of Jehovah according to the Law, and that Hosea raises no protest against it. He refers to its suspension as a privation corresponding to and equally felt with that of king and princes. We must remember however that the kings of N. Israel were regarded by Hosea as usurpers.

without an ephod] The high priest’s ephod is described in Exodus 28:6-14. It was a sleeveless coat of splendid and costly material, and with two ouches of onyx on the shoulders, bound by a rich girdle. Over it was worn the so-called choshen, a jewelled breastplate, with the Urim and Thummim. But what connexion had this coat with the sacred ‘pillar’ and the teraphim? It is as difficult to answer as the question with regard to Gideon’s ephod in Jdg 8:24-27. The root-meaning of ephod is simply to overlay, and the feminine form of the word ephod (aphuddâh) is used in Isaiah 30:22 of the gold plating of images. The easiest supposition is that both in Judg. l.c. and here ‘ephod’ means, not an article of sacerdotal dress but an image of Jehovah overlaid with gold or silver (so in Judges 17, 18; 1 Samuel 21:10; 1 Samuel 23:6; 1 Samuel 23:9; 1 Samuel 30:7-8, but not 1 Samuel 2:18; 1 Samuel 22:18). It is no doubt strange to find this idolatry of Jehovah still prevalent among the larger section of the Israelites. But the fact is in harmony with all that Hosea tells us of the religious state of his country elsewhere.

and without teraphim] Ephod and teraphim were evidently used for similar purposes (see Judges 17, 18). The latter word only occurs in the plural form; the teraphim seem to have been household gods (see Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:34; 1 Samuel 19:13; 1 Samuel 19:16), and regarded as the protectors of domestic happiness (if we may derive from root taraf to fare well). Very possibly they were representations of the animals worshipped by the Semitic clans of Syria in primitive times—survivals of a fetishistic period in Semitic heathenism (see Prof. Robertson Smith’s article in the Journal of Philology, 1880, and compare, on the general question of fetishism in the Old Testament, Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 60). If so, we may connect them with the ‘creeping things and beasts and idols (gillûlîm) of the house of Israel’ which Ezekiel saw ‘pourtrayed upon the wall’ in the ‘chambers of imagery’ (Ezekiel 8:10-12). Josiah indeed had attempted to put away ‘the teraphim and the gillûlîm’ (2 Kings 23:24), but in vain; the Jews took them with them into exile. Ezekiel represents the king of Babylon as seeking an oracle from his teraphim (Ezekiel 21:21); at any rate, this was the principal use of the teraphim to the Israelites—to divine by (Zechariah 10:2). The meaning of ‘ephod and teraphim’ was already forgotten in the time of the Septuagint translator of Hosea, who renders οὐδὲ ἱερατείας οὐδὲ δήλων (he identifies the teraphim with the Thummim, comp. Sept. Deuteronomy 33:8; elsewhere δῆλα or δήλωσις = the Urim).

5. return] i.e. from their evil courses of disobedience to their God and to the legitimate royal house.

David their king] There is a great body of authority for regarding this as an expression for the Messiah. So the Targum took it, so Aben Ezra, and other Jewish writers cited by Pococke. The interpretation rests on the undoubted fact that in Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel 37:24-25 ‘David’ means the ideal king of the future who should prove as it were a second David. In all these passages however there is something in the context to determine the reference to a person, and all these passages belong to a later period in the development of the Messianic revelation. The analogy of Amos 9:11 suggests that what is in Hosea’s mind is, not the person of the king, but the dynasty. In short, ‘David’ = the representative of David. Precisely so Rehoboam is still ‘David’ in 1 Kings 12:16, and the high priest ‘Aaron’ in Psalm 133:2. Hosea does not sanction the usurping dynasties (see on Hosea 1:11).

and shall fear the Lord and his goodness] Rather, and shall come eagerly to Jehovah and to his goodness (or, ‘to His good things’). ‘Come eagerly to’ is literally, ‘tremble to’, but the idea is not that they will tremble at their own unworthiness, but rather ‘trement præ gaudio’ (as the same verb means in Isaiah 60:8). Comp. the similar expression in Hosea 11:10, where however the idea of speech is included. The parallel passage in Jeremiah 31:10 proves that the revived love of the Israelites for Jehovah will have ‘cast out fear’.

in the latter days] Rather, in the days to come (lit., ‘in the sequel of the days’); see on Micah 4:1. Hosea does not mean to say that this will be the last αἰὼν in the course of history; but only that after Israel’s captivity, nothing will arise to break the harmony between Jehovah and his people.