Hosea 1 KJV
Hosea's Wife and Children
Hosea Chapter 1: Hosea's Wife and Children
The naming of the first son Jezreel invokes the specific site of Jehu's massacre (2 Kings 9-10) to announce the termination of the entire Jehu dynasty, tying Hosea's sign-act to a precise eighth-century political event rather than generic judgment.
1he 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.
2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.
7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.
9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.
10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
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Did You Know?
The naming of the first son Jezreel invokes the specific site of Jehu's massacre (2 Kings 9-10) to announce the termination of the entire Jehu dynasty, tying Hosea's sign-act to a precise eighth-century political event rather than generic judgment.
By commanding Hosea to marry a 'wife of whoredoms,' the chapter makes the prophet's domestic life an enacted covenant lawsuit in which YHWH assumes the role of the betrayed husband, a metaphor that later prophets (Jeremiah 3, Ezekiel 16) expand but never replicate in literal obedience.
The second child's name Lo-ruhamah withholds the maternal epithet 'compassion' that ancient Near Eastern treaties used for a suzerain's protection, thereby reversing the standard covenant formula before any explicit statement of divorce.
Verse 11's promise that Judah and Israel will appoint 'one head' uses the rare term ro'sh rather than the expected melek, subtly pointing to a future unified ruler whose identity is left open for messianic reading while remaining within the eighth-century horizon of Assyrian threat.
The abrupt shift from judgment names to the future reversal formula in 1:10 ('Ye are the sons of the living God') imports the exact covenant language of Exodus 19:5-6 into a northern Israelite context, creating an intertextual bridge between Sinai and the coming restoration that bypasses the Mosaic institutions of the divided monarchy.