Hosea 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah… Consider here - I. THE PROPHET. "Hoses, the son of Beeri." Hoses, whose name (Hoshea, "salvation") remittals of Jesus (Matthew 1:20), was: 1. A native of Israel. One, therefore, who lived in the midst of the evils which he describes, and felt a patriot's love for his people. 2. A man of gentle, pensive, and confiding nature. This made his anguish at the thought of the nation's sins and impending ruin the more poignant. There are striking resemblances between this prophet and Jeremiah, who sustained a relation to Judah similar to that which Hoses sustained to Israel. 3. A man sorely tried by domestic sorrow. Hoses was no mere spectator of the evils of the time. The iron had entered his own soul. He had been tried in the sorest way a man can be tried, by the unfaithfulness of his with. It was, however, in connection with this sorrow that God's word came to him (ver. 2). It was his own experience which enabled him to enter so deeply into the mystery of God's love to Israel. II. HIS TIMES. "In the days of Uzziah, Jotham," etc. He dates by the reigns of the legitimate kings of the house of David. Israel, after the fall of Jeroboam's house, was governed by usurpers (Menahem, Pekah, Hoshea, etc.). 1. The chronology of the times. This has important bearings on the duration of the prophet's ministry, and on the time which elapsed before the downfall of the kingdom. We cannot here, however, enter at length into the tangled questions raised by the apparent conflict of Hebrew and Assyrian dates (cf. Robertson Smith, 'Prophet of Israel,' Leer. 4. and notes), It seems to us (1) that the biblical data do not warrant us in assuming the identity of the Pul of 2 Kings 15:19, 20, to whom Menahem paid tribute, with Tiglath-pileser (cf. 1 Chronicles 6:26); and that insuperable difficulties attend the lowering of the dates of the kings to the degree necessary to bring them into entire accord with the dates in the Assyrian canon. We believe it will be found that there is a break in the canon at B.C.. 745, sufficient for the insertion of the reign of Pul, and that the Menahem of the monuments, who paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser in B.C. 738, is not the Menahem of Scripture, but probably a second Menahem, a rival of Pekah's, whom Tiglath-pileser, after putting down the revolts of B.C. 743-748, attempted to set on the throne in his own interest. We have a Menahem of Samaria, clearly an Assyrian viceroy, as late as B.C. 702, in the reign of Sennacherib (Smith, 'History of Assyria,' p. 113). (2) On the other hand, there are strong grounds for believing that the interregna commonly assumed to have existed between the death of Jeroboam II. and the accession of Zachariah (eleven years), and again, between the murder of Pekah and the accession of Hoshea (eight or nine years), must be abandoned as untenable. Scripture does not recognize them, and, as shown by the monuments, Pekah and Rezin of Damascus (2 Kings 16:5; Isaiah 7:1) were certainly at war in B.C. 734. The numbers are probably to be harmonized by assuming that the regnal years of Uzziah and Jotham include, the former, eleven years of association with Amaziab, and the latter, eight or nine years of association with Uzziah (cf. 2 Chronicles 26:21). For an example of this mode of reckoning, see 2 Chronicles 21:5 compared with 2 Kings 8:16. This lowers the dates by nineteen years, and assuming a break of twenty-eight years in the canon at date of Pul (Rawlinson, 'Ancient History,' allows him twenty-five years), we bring the two chronologies from Ahab downwards into harmony. A formidable objection to the theory of a break in the canon is the mention, under date June, , of an eclipse of the sun, known to astronomy to have taken place at that date; but it is noteworthy that a similar eclipse took l lace June, , that is, twenty-eight years earlier, which exactly satisfies the conditions of our hypothesis (see Pusey on Amos 8:9). The seventeenth of Pekah, given in 1 Kings 16., as the year of the accession of Ahaz, must, on this theory, be corrected to the seventh, and this is the only change required in the biblical numbers. Accepting these dates, it will follow that Jeroboam II. died about B.C. 762 or 763, a little more than forty years before the fall of Samaria ( B.C. 721). If, further, we assume Hosea 1-3, of this book to be based on real history, and to have been composed before the downfall of the house of Jehu, we must suppose the prophet to have commenced his ministry about the middle of Jeroboam's reign, and to have labored for nearly sixty years. 2. The character of the times. They were evil exceedingly. The state was tottering to its downfall. Revolution succeeded revolution (Hosea 7:7). The land was filled with idolatry and with every species of wickedness (Hosea 4:1, 19). Priests and prophets, instead of reproving sin, openly encouraged it (Hosea 4:5-9). The result was a general dissolution of social ties (Hosea 4:2). To internal miseries were added the horrors of foreign invasion (Hosea 5:8-11). Yet in their distress the people sought not to God, but turned instead to Assyria and Egypt (Hosea 5:13; Hosea 7:11; Hosea 8:9; Hosea 10:6; Hosea 12:1). The nation, in short, was reeling to its ruin, and remonstrance and warning had no longer any effect upon it. The blow fell in the capture of Samaria, followed by the captivity of the people (Hosea 13:16). III. HIS MISSION. "The word of the Lord that came unto Hoses." Hosea's task in Israel was: 1. To testify against Israel for its sins; to hold up to the people a mirror which should show them to themselves. 2. To show them the root of their transgressions in apostasy from God. 3. To show them how God felt to them in their backslidings - how strong, pure, consistent, and unchanging was his affection towards them. 4. To warn them of the inevitable destruction they were bringing on themselves by sin. 5. To blend promise with threatening, and declare how grace would triumph even over Israel's unfaithfulness. Though sharing in many of the calamities of the latter days of the nation, Hosea seems to have been removed before the final stroke fell. This was God's mercy to him; he was "taken away from the evil to come" (Isaiah 57:1). IV. HIS BOOK. Hosea's prophecy preserves to us the substance of his public teaching. The materials wrought up in it belong to different periods of his ministry. Hosea 1-3, belong to the, reign of Jeroboam (Hosea 1:4). They show no traces of the anarchy which set in after that monarch's death. Hosea 4-6., belong to the succeeding period, the reign of Menahem, and earlier years of Pekah. Hosea 7. and 8. may be a little later. They speak of a time of busy political intrigue, and of chastisement by the Assyrians. We are disposed to refer them to the middle of the reign of Pekah, when the Assyrians were frequently in Palestine (B.C. 743-73?). The key-note of Hosea 9., "Rejoice not," suggests a gleam of returning prosperity. This answers to Pekah's later days when at war with Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28.), prior to the crushing of his power by Tigtath-pileser (1 Kings 15:29). Hosea 10. plainly takes us unto the times of Hoshea, while Hosea 11-13., refer to the very last days of the kingdom. The abruptness, pathos, and quick emotional transitions which have been noted as characteristic of the prophet's style appear in these chapters in an exceptional degree. Hosea 14. is the fitting conclusion to the whole. Calm succeeds to storm. The language is soft, gliding, peaceful, and laden with tenderness; the imagery is idyllic; glorious vistas open themselves into the future. Keil's division of the second part of the book into three sections, viz. Hosea 4-6:3; Hosea 6:4-11:11; Hosea 12.-14., each section rounded off by promise, is as good as any. - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. |
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