As we mentioned last week, Hosea is the first of the twelve Minor Prophets (minor only in length not in substance). I am going to seek to present this Book more as an overview of the chapters rather than verse by verse which we have done in the shorter Books we have studied. The name “Hosea” appropriately means “salvation”. He prophesized primarily to the Northern Kingdom. The five reigns of the kings mentioned in Hosea 1:1 cover a period of 100 years. Hosea’s ministry may have lasted for at least half that time and it extended long after Jeroboam II died. This would date Hosea’s prophecy somewhere around the middle of the eighth century BC and make him one of the earliest of the prophets. He was a contemporary of Isaiah who was directed by God to give his message to the southern kingdom of Judah while as stated, Hosea prophesied almost exclusively to the northern kingdom of Israel.
There is very little known about Hosea’s background - except that we are told he was the “son of Beeri” (1:1) - and judging by the time period of the kings during the reigns which he prophesied, his ministry extended from about 770-725 BC. He had a very long ministry. There is a sense, though, in which we know him at a deeper level than any of the other Minor Prophets. He has been called ‘The Prophet of the Sorrowing Heart’ and the title fits him well. Two things combined to produce the wrenching grief that gripped Hosea’s heart, a national tragedy and a personal tragedy. He was a native of the kingdom of Israel and was commissioned by the Lord to vividly illustrate the relationship between God and Israel through his marriage to an unfaithful wife. The Prophet Amos – a Judean fig picker from Tekoa – journeyed to Israel to prophesy and was a contemporary of Hosea as well as one who was certainly not afraid to mince words.
The first thing that gripped Hosea’s heart was a national tragedy:
Hosea began prophesying at the end of a period of material prosperity under King Jeroboam II – Israel’s fourteenth king. Israel occupied virtually all of the land God had promised to their forefathers. So far so good. But the outward signs of peace, power and prosperity were not the whole story. Scripture tells us:
Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat (Israel’s first king), which he had caused Israel to commit. 2 Kings 14:23-24 (NIV)
As a result, the moral and spiritual climate of the nation began to crumble, and soon after Jeroboam II died, it fell apart. An old proverb states: “A fish rots from the head down” and spiritual decline began with royalty. While this slide started before Jeroboam’s death it accelerated afterwards. Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea – the kings which followed Jeroboam– godless behaviours dragged the nation the rest of the way down the slippery slope that led to it being swept into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 BC. From that time on the kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. Hosea does not mention these other six rulers who reigned in just over twenty years during his lifetime perhaps because they made no significant difference to the direction in which things were going. Be that as it may, corruption among the leadership was matched by moral and spiritual degradation throughout the land. Society was stained by injustice, corruption, immorality and idolatry – sounds all too familiar to our day and age does it not? Hosea writes in chapter 4:
1 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 acknowledgment of God in the land. 2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. 3 Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away. Hosea 4:1-3 (NIV)
Israel goes from bad to worse in a rapid downward spiral that eventually led to it being wiped out of history altogether, but everything was rooted in this: “Israel has forgotten his Maker” (Hosea 8:14). Red flag, red flag! Remember, remember, remember! What added to the tragedy was that when the nation had been in its forty-year trek through the desert to the Promised Land God had warned it again and again about the danger of doing this. We discussed this passage in Deuteronomy last week but it is worth repeating:
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 6:10-12 (NIV)
“God wants us to reconnect with the powerful and timeless things He has done in the past, enabling us to build on them rather than always starting over. He not only desires that we be encouraged by remembering His past faithfulness, but also to realize that the promises and anointings released during those seasons are still available today.” Dutch Sheets
“One reason we don’t grow in ordinary, grateful obedience as we should is that we’ve got amnesia; we’ve forgotten that we are cleansed from our sins. In other words, ongoing failure in sanctification (the slow process of change into Christlikeness) is the direct result of failing to remember God’s love for us in the gospel. If we lack the comfort and assurance that his love and cleansing are meant to supply, our failures will handcuff us to yesterday’s sins, and we won’t have faith or courage to fight against them, or the love for God that’s meant to empower this war. If we fail to remember our justification, redemption, and reconciliation, we’ll struggle in our sanctification.” Elyse Fitzpatrick
God could not have made things any clearer, yet although He had delivered them from centuries of slavery, established a covenant with them, guided and protected them throughout four decades in the desert, met all their needs, enabled them to defeat all their enemies, brought them safely into Canaan, constituted them as a nation and settled them in a land so fertile that it could be described as “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:17), they forgot Him! They forgot Him! They became so engrossed in their prosperity and progress that they often acted as if God did not exist. Their material prosperity spawned their spiritual poverty. Hosea makes this point clear in chapter 13 verse 6 when he writes:
6 When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. Hosea 13:6 (NIV)
The people’s affluence, however, was accompanied by spiritual bankruptcy during most of Hosea’s lifetime. Remember we are to be careful when God allows things to go swimmingly well, remembering to thank Him for His provisions as well as give Him glory through them. We are to be conduits of His blessings not just complacent or self-indulgent. While we do get to enjoy the benefits we are not to hoard them. Their leaders permitted them to practice idolatry as well:
35 The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. 2 Kings 15:35 (NIV)
They continued to worship both God and idols committing “spiritual adultery” against the Lord as God states through the prophet Hosea:
2 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 (NIV)
12 They consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God. 13 They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar and terebinth, where the shade is pleasant. Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery. 14 "I will not punish your daughters when they turn to prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes-- a people without understanding will come to ruin! Hosea 4:12-14 (NIV)
Quote Isaiah 40 – Comfort, comfort my people…….
They refused to recognize that God had provided them with the wealth that they possessed and even attributed their prosperity to idols:
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold-- which they used for Baal. Hosea 2:8 (NIV)
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’ Hosea 2:5 (NIV)
They became covetous and greedy. Oppressing those who were least able to defend themselves. Remember sin will always spiral down unless repented of:
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Hosea 4:2 (NIV)
13 But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors. Hosea 10:13 (NIV)
6 But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always. 7 The merchant uses dishonest scales; he loves to defraud. 8 Ephraim boasts, “I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin.” Hosea 12:6-8 (NIV)
Despite the punishment that God promised to bring upon them we will also discover the golden cord of a strong sense of hope and evidence of God’s love throughout the book. Just as Hosea bought back his unfaithful wife, Israel will be redeemed by God in the last days.
The message of the first three chapters (and really of the entire book) oscillates between judgment and salvation. Hosea's marital experiences, which included the heartbreak caused by his wife's unfaithfulness and the joy of their renewed relationship, provide the framework for this message.
Interestingly, halfway through the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln made a statement that reflected the same pattern – prosperity, pride, internal strife, the deceitfulness of the human heart and moral decline:
“It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with the assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. We know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of a national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown, but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace and multiplied, enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated by our own unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God Who made us.”
With the exception of the reference to the civil war, every word of Lincoln’s lament could apply to our nation today. Almost never do we hear Biblical Truth being declared with conviction and authority in the corridors of power. Sadly, even many church leaders speak and act as if it is more important to be politically correct than to be Biblically truthful. We have statements of faith on the circumference of our lives but this is worthless if our lives are not being transformed by the Spirit of God.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
We need to learn, relearn and never stop learning the lessons of God’s dealings with His people as recorded in the Bible. We ignore this powerful and vital resource at our peril. Paul states:
4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:4 (NIV)
Indeed, Moses states in Deuteronomy:
45 When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, 46 he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. 47 They are not just idle words for you--they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” Deuteronomy 32:45-47 (NIV)
Every national issue, every social issue, every moral issue, every church issue and every personal issue should be illuminated and evaluated by the light of Scripture, or we will not have it properly in focus. Hosea lived at a time when material prosperity went hand in hand with spiritual poverty – and the danger has not gone away. Beware believer, backsliding has not gone away neither does it begin with a bang. It begins quietly, slowly, subtly.
“Withering is a slow process, barely perceptible at first, either to the one who is being withered or to those who look on.” Donald Grey Barnhouse
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)
Hosea watched with growing grief as he saw the nation’s prosperity eating away at its moral and spiritual integrity. The lesson is crystal clear. Outward success always carries the risk of inward failure and material plenty can mask spiritual poverty. Big is not necessarily beautiful; it may be fatal, as it was in Israel’s case. Hosea’s beloved nation had sidelined God while pretending to serve him, and this terrible truth broke the prophet’s heart. It is no wonder we find in Proverbs:
7 “Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” Proverbs 30:7-9 (NIV)
The second thing that gripped Hosea’s heart was personal tragedy:
God begins by seizing our attention with an explosive and riveting opening to the Book of Hosea. He tells one of His guys (the prophets) to marry a woman who was steeped in the permissive culture of her day and rode roughshod over all God-given standards about sexual morality. This was intensely personal for Hosea and the two disasters for him – personal and national - are linked at the very beginning of his book:
2 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 (NIV)
A God of infinite holiness and purity, as Habakkuk states:
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Habakkuk 1:13 (NIV)
And who, Paul states in Ephesians, commands us to avoid sexual immorality and all impurity:
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Ephesians 5:3 (NIV)
And warns us by the writer of Hebrews that he will judge the sexually immoral:
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)
Gives the Prophet Hosea not only the green light but the command to marry Gomer – a woman of her times.
Hosea’s opening words are so shocking that many people think this book is not a historical account but an allegory, a vision or parable. For some this not only raises eyebrows but objections. Strict rules were laid down regarding women suitable for priests to marry; surely the same high standard would apply to the prospective wives of prophets? What is more, Hosea marrying a woman of loose morals would violate a well-known Biblical principle that had been laid down in the Law of Moses and crystallized centuries later by Paul:
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 (NIV)
These objections lead some highly respected Bible students and expositors to say that Hosea was not recording history but reciting an allegory. Yet this solves nothing because even if this were the case both objections would remain. In any event, God is sovereign and can deal with His creatures in any way He chooses, even if our immediate reaction is to question His wisdom and even His integrity. Though He cannot lie, sin or deny Himself, God has ‘no go’ areas and may bring His choicest servants into the most puzzling or traumatic circumstances for His own eternal purposes and glory. The Lord sometimes required His prophets to carry out orders that many would consider over and above the call of duty (just ask Isaiah and Ezekiel when you get to heaven!) Recognizing this debunks the superficial and fallacious idea that as long as we are committed, faithful and obedient our situations and circumstances will be free from stress and trauma and unaffected but the trials and perplexities that others face. Nothing could be further from the Truth, amen? Job was blameless and upright, feared God and shunned evil yet God called him to go through an almost unbelievable sequence of material, physical and spiritual traumas. Even Job’s experience pales into insignificance compared to that of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was utterly perfect, yet was ‘despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:3). And whom Paul states in Philippians 2:
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11 (NIV)
Any Christian who measures his or her spirituality in terms of outward comfort or success is making a dangerous mistake, and anyone who believes that tough times are an infallible index of God’s displeasure is doing the same.
The link between the national and personal tragedies that tore at Hosea’s heart surfaces in God’s instruction for the prophet to marry a ‘wife of whoredom’. Hosea's relationship with Gomer was designed by God to reflect the Lord's experience of being rejected by His own covenant people Israel. The Lord described this rejection in detail, comparing Israel to an unfaithful wife who chased after lovers. In the process of confirming the nation's guilt, the Lord announced coming punishment. This judgment, however, would not be final, for God intended to draw Israel back and restore the broken covenantal relationship. The woman was called Gomer and we know nothing about her family except that she was ‘the daughter of Diblaim’ (1:3). We also know that to be called such indicated she was a woman of her times steeped in corruption and immorality. Nothing is new under the sun, is it? The term “New Morality” in the decade that marked the 60’s was a strange name as it was neither new nor moral. Kind of like Grape Nuts Cereal which is neither grapes nor nuts.
John Calvin stated that Gomer was most likely “a common harlot who prostituted herself, not once, nor twice, nor to a few men, but to all.” Hosea must have agonized over the issue but the important thing for us to note is his resolute, unqualified obedience. God smiles at this. It means we trust His ways with our lives. Our times are in His hands – as Scripture states.
The story moves rapidly on. Three children are born and God names all three. The key to Hosea’s prophecy lies in the names given to these three children. The first, Jezreel, because God would soon punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. Years earlier, a military commander called Jehu was God’s instrument in securing a significant victory in the valley of Jezreel, but Jehu went far beyond God’s mandate and in a series of ruthless strikes slaughtered countless people. His murderous excesses were motivated by naked ambition, and he seized the nation’s throne but he “was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart” (2 Kings 10:31). In response to his brutality and the nation’s rampant sin, God vowed to bring retribution four generations later. Hosea’s first child’s name was a warning that judgment was to fall upon Israel. Hosea’s chronic grief over Israel’s godlessness must have deepened as he realized that national disaster was now looming.
The narrative moves on and Gomer “conceived again and bore a daughter” (Hosea 1:6). In the case of Gomer’s firstborn we are told that “she bore him (Hosea) a son”, but in this case Hosea is not mentioned. The absence seems significant and could suggest that Gomer was reverting to type and already being unfaithful. This would have been a sickening body blow to Hosea, yet with remarkable restraint he chose not to exercise his right to divorce her. God directed that baby girl to be names “Lo-Ruhama” (Hosea 1:6) meaning “No Mercy” for, God states, “I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.” Certainly this must have sent Hosea reeling under the added pain. God’s dealings with Israel had always been tempered by mercy, love, compassion and patience, but now the axe was about to fall. Despite His gracious character the time does come when “He does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Exodus 34:7) and such a time had come for the Northern Kingdom.
A significant rider to this prophecy was that God would have mercy on the house of Judah and save them not by human strength of horses, bow or sword but by the Lord. Judah would experience the Lord’s love and protection in the form of deliverance from the Assyrians by His own hand. Interestingly, the Psalmist states in Psalms 79 speaking of Israel:
56 But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes. 57 Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow. 58 They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols. 59 When God heard them, he was very angry; he rejected Israel completely. Psalms 78:56-59 (NIV)
Human strength will always prove wanting but not God’s. You can take His Word to the bank.
Once more, Gomer conceived and “bore a son” (Hosea 1:8). Again the father is not mentioned and God’s instruction to call the baby boy “Lo-Ammi” (Hosea 1:9) added another terrible blow. “Lo-Ammi” means “not my people” and carried to Israel the appalling message, “you are not my people, and I am not you God” (Hosea 1:9). With the birth of these three children the warnings became increasingly serious. For God to remove His protection was alarming; to remove His pardon was even worse; but to remove His presence was worst of all. Think Moses in Exodus when the Lord told him He would send him ahead to the Promised Land with an angel but He would not go with them and Moses said do not send us without You:
1 “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. 2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.’… 15 Then Moses said to him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’ 17 And the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.’” Exodus 33:1-3, 15-17 (NIV)
God gave the Israelites time to repent of their follies as we can assume that there was at least one year between the births and perhaps even longer. There was also a time for Israel to repent of its violence, immorality and godlessness and to turn back to God, who had shown himself to be ‘merciful and gracious, and ‘slow to anger’ (exodus 34:6), but it was sadly hell bent on its own course. Oh Lord keep us from this! Keep us quick to repent and return to you for our good and your glory! I am reminded of Henry Blackaby’s statement at the Cove when he said God had given him Isaiah 5:1-7 about America:
1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it." 7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. Isaiah 5:1-7 (NIV)
We are to pray for revival in our churches and the awakening of the lost for salvation in our land.
Gomer’s life is now in ruins and Israel’s moral and spiritual status was in ruins. No wonder Hosea is called ‘The Prophet of the Sorrowful heart’.
God’s ultimate purposes in punishment is always to restore the relationship not terminate it. We discover at the end of Chapter One and Chapter Two remarkable shifts of tone where the Lord declares that the effects of judgment would someday be reversed. He promised a time or rich blessing accompanied by restoration of the covenant relationship and national unity. The Lord Himself will be the One who sows this. He alone can accomplish this. “Great will be the day of Jezreel” could possibly allude to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites in the Valley of Jezreel as the future day of restoration will be ushered in by a great military triumph like that of Gideon. Those who oppose the Lord’s theocratic rule through the messianic King of Kings and Lord of Lords will be defeated. The greatness of this eschatological “Day of Jezreel” will reverse the shame and defeat which Israel experienced there at the hands of the Assyrians.
We find in Chapter Three the stunning message from God in what we have come to know as Hosea’s autobiography. The marriage to Gomer was over. The innocent party had gone through searing agony as his marriage came apart at the seams. There was now an empty place at the table, an empty chair in the room and an empty space in the bed. Gomer presumably offered her body to anyone who wanted it, she had also become a slave. Disgraced, destitute and derelict – not unlike the prodigal son – there was not a good thing to be seen in her and not a good thing to be said about her. And God said to Hosea:
1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” Hosea 3:1 (NIV)
As Hosea's experience with his unfaithful wife portrayed Israel's rejection of the Lord, so the recovery of his wayward wife pictured the Lord's love for and restoration of Israel. For many men this would have been too much to ask. After Gomer’s serial unfaithfulness they would have sued for divorce and been glad to get rid of her, never giving her another charitable thought. Instead, and more than likely in spite of conflicting emotions that must have torn at his heart, Hosea obeyed God’s instruction and made his way to the slave market. Slaves were sold naked and we can imagine Hosea making his way among them, looking for Gomer and scarcely able to recognize this wretched woman with her sunken eyes and ravaged body. The going rate for a slave was thirty shekels of silver. Hosea pays fifteen plus what would have added up to fifteen more in barley – interestingly, this was the price paid to Judas to betray our Lord Jesus:
14 Then one of the Twelve--the one called Judas Iscariot--went to the chief priests 15 and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. 16 From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Matthew 26:14-16 (NIV)
Hosea now owned her and could do with her as he pleased. He could even kill her if he wanted to (and some men might have thought this was a good price to pay for the opportunity!). Instead, Hosea told her:
3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” Hosea 3:3 (NIV)
The choice of words here is very important. “You are to live with me many days” points to the need for a probation period, giving Gomer a chance to show that she was willing to change her ways and from now on remain faithful to Hosea. He would provide for her, protect her, care for her and seek her good, yet there would be a certain distance between them for a while. Only when she had proved herself to be faithful to Hosea would they resume a full relationship as man and wife.
As Hosea's experience with his unfaithful wife portrayed Israel's rejection of the Lord, so the recovery of his wayward wife pictured the Lord's love for and restoration of Israel. The prophetic aspects of verse 4 that end of Chapter Three are currently being fulfilled: Israel has no king, and no temple at which to offer sacrifices, yet they are free from idolatry. The fulfillment of verse 5 is still to come.
These are Beth’s personal notes, due to this fact sources are not often stated.