Dr Paul Allen

Hosea the prophet, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites , because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land”  ( Hosea 4:1). The prophets were called by God to bring His covenant lawsuit against the nation Israel . At the beginning of his series of oracles (Hosea 4–14), Hosea summoned the nation to hear God’s charge against them.  In Hosea 4:2, God charged them with breaking the Ten Commandments , mentioning cursing, murder, adultery, stealing, and lying. Not only were the people doing these evil deeds, but they were doing them repeatedly, so that “bloodshed followed bloodshed.” God was judging the land already by letting them experience the consequences of their behavior. The land was not yielding its produce, the people were wasting away, and even the animals were dying off (Hosea 4:3). The...

The Prophet Hosea, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, in the Siena Cathedral (c. 1309-1311) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD” (Hosea 1:2). God instructed Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer . There is no reason to think that Gomer was a woman of ill repute at the time of her marriage to Hosea, but God told Hosea from the start that she would be unfaithful to him.  She would prove to be an adulterous wife, and her children would be of questionable parentage. God was calling Hosea to experience a little taste of what He Himself had experienced with Israel . God had married Israel in her youth, knowing in advance that she would prove unfaithful to Him. How painful this must have been for Hosea. Yet, because of his love for her, and God’s command, he married her anyway, ...