Hi James and Ellen,
Hosea is a chapter in the autobiography of a middle class merchant’s kid. Hosea – which is the kid’s name, means ‘salvation’. Because Hosea’s dad – whose name was Beeri, was a well-known and respected Ephraim or a Manasseh tribal clan member, Hosea could trace his ancestry back to Joseph. Ephraim and Manasseh were Joseph’s kids. The tribal clans of Ephraim and Manasseh helped to make up Israel’s breakaway northern kingdom – which took on the name of Israel, in the land of Canaan, which is the land that God gave to His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, to always have to live in as their very own land if . . . Hosea was born sometime between 786 B.C. and 746 B.C. – which is the timeframe when Jeroboam II was ruling as king over Israel’s northern kingdom’s guys and gals. Hosea grew up during a period of exponential economic and commercial development. Wealth accruement became the norm during this period of time. Guys and gals who were living in Israel’s northern kingdom took on materialistic driven lifestyles as well as cultic driven rituals that were marked by drunkenness, debauchery, violence and indulgences. Instead of God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Israel’s northern kingdom exclusively obeying the God-ordered Mosaic Law mandates – which God gave to Moses when He met with Moses on Mount Sinai to pass on to His specially chosen guys and gals as His Sinaitic covenant, God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Israel’s northern kingdom were degenerately by this time defying God by shamelessly worshipping pagan deities. Unbridled, immoral behavior underpinned the rituals that were associated with worshipping these abhorrent, repugnant pagan Canaanite idol gods. Instead of waking up to the fact that they were on a slippery slope that was sliding them away from God’s warm security hope blanket, God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Israel’s northern kingdom had taken to pursuing magic and mythology in an attempt to try to assuage a God-imputed angst agitating emptiness.
Hosea’s social conditioning environs could have led him to decide to join his compatriots who were adopting self-indulgent lifestyles but . . . Hosea instead was God-led to pursue knowledge. Hosea became a profound spiritual visionary. Because of a God-embedded intellect, Hosea was able to get his arms around the negative effects that the guys and gals who were in Israel’s tribal clans that made up Israel’s northern kingdom were experiencing from their downward spiral because of turning away from only worshipping God to worshipping false idols. Hosea determined that what was going down at this time in Israel’s history was linked directly to God giving His wayward specially chosen guys and gals – who were the Israelite people group guys and gals, who made up Israel’s northern kingdom an opportunity to internalize not just the consequence of becoming utterly perverted but to have them internalize that God – because of His committed love for them, will continue to pursue them and if they repent of their evilness, that He will restore them to a hope filled life.
Hosea used his marriage in his Hosea Book’s 14 chapters as an example of how God never gives up on a guy, gal or kid – no matter how putrid his or her life has been and who He has chosen or elected to be His adopted kid. Hosea’s marriage was God-mandated. God told Hosea to marry a prostitute. Gomer is the name of the prostitute who Hosea married. God told Hosea to name his first kid Jezreel. Jezreel’s name means ‘God scatters’. God used Jezreel’s name to remind His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Israel’s northern kingdom of the massacre that the house of Jehu instigated that took place in the town of Jezreel. Jehu ruled as king over the guys and gals who lived in Isreal’s northern kingdom. Jeroboam II was a descendent of Jehu. The second kid who was born to Gomer was a girl and whose dad may not have been Hosea. God told Hosea to name the kid Lo-Ruhamah. Lo-Ruhamah’s name conveys a meaning that God is telling His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, who lived in Israel’s northern kingdom that He is taking away His love from them. When Gomer had a third kid – who this time was a boy and whose dad may not have been Hosea, God told Hosea to name this kid Lo-Ammi. Lo-Ammi’s name conveys a meaning that God is telling the Israelite people group guys and gals who lived in Israel’s northern kingdom that they are no longer His people and that He is no longer their God. God used Gomer through how she lived her life as a harlot and an adulteress to illustrate to every guy and gals who knew Hosea the lack of respect and the absence of fear that the guys and gals who lived in Israel’s northern kingdom had come of have of Him. Hosea’s life through wittingly in real life marrying a prostitute and then honorably continuing to living with a philanderer, was a redemptive visual to every guy and gal who knew him as the kind of unwavering, covenantal commitment that God had for them. Your grandpaa believes that his country today is having to suffer the consequence of going down the path that God’s specially chosen guys and gals – who lived over 2,750 years ago in Israel’s northern kingdom, took when they pursued personal opulence and personalized destinies instead of living out the expectations of the one true God. Your grandpaa is very thankful that God led your grandmaa to marry Him.
Hosea