Prophecies of Hosea in Easton's Bible Dictionary
This book stands first in order among the "Minor Prophets."
"The
probable cause of the location of Hosea may be the
thoroughly
national character of his oracles, their length,
their earnest
tone, and vivid representations." This was the
longest of the
prophetic books written before the Captivity. Hosea
prophesied
in a dark and melancholy period of Israel's history,
the period
of Israel's decline and fall. Their sins had brought
upon them
great national disasters. "Their homicides and
fornication,
their perjury and theft, their idolatry and impiety,
are
censured and satirized with a faithful severity." He
was a
contemporary of Isaiah. The book may be divided into
two parts,
the first containing chapters 1-3, and symbolically
representing
the idolatry of Israel under imagery borrowed from
the
matrimonial relation. The figures of marriage and
adultery are
common in the Old Testament writings to represent
the spiritual
relations between Jehovah and the people of Israel.
Here we see
the apostasy of Israel and their punishment, with
their future
repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.
The second part, containing 4-14, is a summary of
Hosea's
discourses, filled with denunciations, threatenings,
exhortations, promises, and revelations of mercy.
Quotations from Hosea are found in Matt. 2:15; 9:15;
12:7;
Rom. 9:25, 26. There are, in addition, various
allusions to it
in other places (Luke 23:30; Rev. 6:16, comp. Hos.
10:8; Rom.
9:25, 26; 1 Pet. 2:10, comp. Hos. 1:10, etc.).
As regards the style of this writer, it has been
said that
"each verse forms a whole for itself, like one heavy
toll in a
funeral knell." "Inversions (7:8; 9:11, 13; 12: 8),
anacolutha
(9:6; 12:8, etc.), ellipses (9:4; 13:9, etc.),
paranomasias, and
plays upon words, are very characteristic of Hosea
(8:7; 9:15;
10:5; 11:5; 12:11)."
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