A Strange Command
Hosea is, no doubt, the most puzzling prophet who ever existed in Israel. Not many know his story. But it is there, written in the Bible, in a book that bears his name, as a strange testimony of what could happen to anyone who is favored by God. To this date, his story continues to puzzle anyone, reading the Bible, unwarned.
Hosea was a young Israelite, born in a city in the northern part of the country at the start of the 8th century BCE. Although we don’t know his profession, the quality of his sermons gives us reason to imagine that he was a man of great culture.
One day, around the year 745 BCE, God gave Hosea a strange command: “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry” (Hos 1:2).
Even in very liberal and permissive times like ours, these words coming from the mouth of God seem confounding.
Still Another Strange Command
Obeying the Lord’s voice, the young Hosea went to marry Diblaim’s daughter Gomer, with whom he ended up falling in love. Three children were born of this marriage: two boys and one girl. The eldest boy was named Jezreel; the second, a girl, was called Lorujama or ‘Not Pitied’; and the third child was named Loammi or ‘Not My People’(Hos 1:3-9).
As expected, Gomer could not abandon her former wayward habits. That started Hosea’s silent journey towards his own calvary, as he watched his wife sneak out at night to meet with erstwhile lovers. But one day, when he could no longer take it, he announced his intention of divorcing her. Shortly after, he drove her away from his house (Hos 2:4-10).
If we continue reading the book, Ch. 3 offers us another surprise. God spoke once more to Hosea: “Go, love a woman who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress” (Hos 3:1).
This is incredible! How could God ask for such a thing! Yet, before this new command, Hosea was already in search of a woman. He bought her for fifteen silver coins from her husband and took her into his home.
Can This be True?
The marriage of Hosea has been, and still is, a cause for endless discussion among Bible experts who have proposed almost all types of imaginable hypotheses.
For many, the episode is a true one, that God really and truly commanded Hosea to marry a harlot and have children with her. But there must have been a reason for this. Night after night, Hosea’s wife, being a tramp, continued to see other men. Hosea, with the grief of an ill-treated husband, was given the chance to experience how God felt when His people turned their back on him in pursuit of other gods (Hos 1:2).
But such an explanation was not so convincing. St. Jerome commented in the 4th century: “Who would not get scandalized to see Hosea, the first prophet, being commanded to take a prostitute for his wife, and he showed no resistance. Neither did he pretend to refuse, in order to give the impression that he was begrudgingly following an abominable deed. On the contrary, he fulfilled the order willingly, as though he had desired it. Upon hearing the command, Hosea didn’t frown. He didn’t express anguish by turning pale. He didn’t show any sign of shame by turning red. He simply went to the strumpets’ den to look for a wife and immediately led the whore to bed.”
Details that Belie
This perplexing idea led St. Jerome and many other analysts to support the belief that Hosea’s marriage was not real, but rather a literary fiction, a story invented by a certain disciple of the prophet in order to teach a concrete lesson to the readers.
However, this view is not convincing. Scholars have noted, for instance, that the narration not only mentions the name of the girl, but also her father, Diblaim. This technique was used at that time, precisely to better describe a real person. Besides, there are too many concrete details—the number of children, their names, the fact that there was only one girl and two boys, etc.—for the account to be merely symbolic. Finally, it would be ridiculous to present Hosea as a victim of adultery when, in reality, he was happy with his family.
Therefore, it could not have been an invented story.
Preaching with his Life
We have to admit that the family tragedy that befell Hosea is certain and true.
But how can we justify the scandal of a God who incites such a licentious act? This is possible only if we suppose that things happened the other way around. Hosea had to go through a family disgrace not to experience the infidelity of the people toward God. As Hosea faced such a disgrace in his family, he consequently understood the infidelity of the people toward God.
This hypothesis coincides with the mentality of the ancient prophets of Israel, who used to base their preaching on personal experience. Thus, in following the details of the book, we can try to reconstruct what happened to the marriage of Hosea.
Gomer was probably an ordinary maiden who married Hosea before he became a prophet. He felt a deep love for her, and the first years of their marriage were happy. In fact, when their first child was born, there were no signs of friction between the couple. They gave him the name Jezreel, which means “God provides,” a name that spoke of special bliss.
But one day, she became unfaithful to her husband. This is when the drama started. When their daughter was born, he discovered the infidelity of his wife, and he was crushed. The name given to the girl meant “There is no mercy.” Consequently, Hosea could no longer claim the third son borne by Gomer as his. Hence, the name Loammi, which meant “Not my people.” This is when Hosea decided to divorce her and send her away from his house and abandon her.
The Mystery of the Second Woman
Time passed and Hosea could not forget the daughter of Diblaim. He loved her dearly, and could not live without her. He wanted to stop loving her, and to distance her in his mind by calling her a “prostitute” (Hos 2:7), but he understood that this aggression was induced by the love he felt for her. He tried to take revenge by demanding her to return all the gifts he gave her, humiliating her in public (Hos 2: 11-12), but he did not succeed in forgetting her.
Finally, seeing how useless all this was, he decided to win her anew by forgiving her, leading her once more to his house, even though she was not really asking for forgiveness (Hos 2: 16-17).
Hosea thought of this when she was living with another man. Forgiveness seemed impossible. The Law of Moses forbade this. According to Deuteronomy: “If a man marries a woman, and then dislikes her because of some notable defect he discovers in her, he may write a certificate of divorce, give it to the woman, and send her out of his house. If afterwards she becomes the wife of another man and… the first husband who sent her away cannot take her back as wife, since she has been defiled”(Deut 24:1-4).
The poor Hosea had no other choice but to transgress the Law. Such was his love for the woman that he didn’t have second thoughts. He paid the man who was living with her so that he could retrieve her. It was like offering a dowry, or an indemnification for her expenses, which was a common practice during that time. Then he led her to his home. This is the “second woman” who appeared in the account.
Can God Love?
One day when Hosea had not fully recovered from the depressing experience he had, he received enlightenment. In the depth of his grieving love, he discovered a more exalted and sublime love which was reflected in his own personal experience. It was like seeing a reflection of the highest heavens at the bottom of a well. It was the love of God for his people.
God loves his people. Just as a husband, deceived by his wife, God also suffered when his people went in search of other pagan gods.
Hosea remembered his days of anguish when he was not even sure if Gomer’s children were his or somebody else’s. He understood Yahweh’s cry of distress, when he doubted whether the people of Israel were his or of other gods.
He also remembered how he punished and dismissed Gomer because of her infidelity, and how he decided later to forgive her, although she was not asking for forgiveness, even at the expense of transgressing the Law. Then Hosea thought: if I love a woman so much, can God be capable of loving humans in the same way? Even though the people deserved to be abandoned by God because of their infidelity, could God overlook his own laws, welcome his people anew, and love them again as he did Gomer? Yes, of course! This was the revolutionary discovery of Hosea.
A Preacher is Born
From that moment on, Hosea went out and preached the new ideas he had discovered. For twenty years, he was the prophet of the love of God. He visited the most important cities of Israel. He appeared before the king’s palace, he gathered crowds in the temples, and filled the town squares and the market places with his message. He denounced the sin of the people who worshipped other gods, and spoke about the punishment it merited. But he also announced something new and unheard of during that time: that God loves his people and was willing to forgive them.
Hosea discovered his vocation as a prophet by the experience of a matrimonial conflict. This explains the special vocabulary which he used throughout his life. He called God “the husband” (Hos 2:18); the people of Israel, “wife” (Hos 2:4); the covenant made on Mt. Sinai, “marriage”(Hos 2:21); the other gods, “lovers” (Hos 2:7); abandonment of God, “adultery” and “prostitution” (Hos 2:4); and described the period of the first stages of the relationship as “courtship” (Hos 2:16-17).
God’s Own Design
Years passed. Nearing his old age, and not wanting to lose the memory of whatever he preached, Hosea decided to record all his experiences in a book.
Meditating on his past history, he made a second discovery. In his simple and primitive mentality, typical of the Old Testament, he realized that what he experienced was not merely accidental nor fortuitous. Everything was part of God’s Will. God wanted Hosea to go through such affliction so that he would discover His divine love for people.
Therefore, he described out his entire past, from the first moment of his marriage, including God’s words which he heard much later. So he started his book by saying: “Go, take for your wife a woman involved in prostitution and have children born of prostitution, for the land is wholeheartedly falling into prostitution and turning away from Yahweh” (Hos 1:2).
The Revolutionary Reach of Love
When Hosea died, his teachings caused a tremendous impact. No one had ever affirmed before that God was capable of “loving” man.
Until then, Yahweh was known only as a God of justice who punished the sinner and rewarded the good. According to all the preachers, before Hosea, God rewarded the good with wealth, bounty and favor. But there was nothing else about God. The idea of “loving humans” was a completely different story.
It was too radical to affirm the proposition that God who was just, strict and severe was also a God who was capable of loving humans. No one thought of such an idea until the 8th century BCE.
There was an explanation for such reticence. In Hebrew, the verb “to love” had a myriad of sexual connotations and undertones. This explains why people were rather wary in applying the word to God in relation to humans.
Hosea, the obscure husband, after pondering in solitude on his drama, went out to preach about a God who was capable of loving humans. This created quite a disturbance because it was an exceptional breakthrough. Theology advanced considerably in the knowledge of God. From then on, things were no longer the same.
Beyond our Reasoning
The topic of the “love of God” quickly made sweeping success. It enjoyed wide acceptance. The prophets who followed Hosea were captivated by this idea and could not exclude it from their preaching.
Years later, Jeremiah, another of the prophets, preached to the people in God’s name: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, on a land not yet sown” (Jer 2:2).
In another passage, he spoke for Yahweh: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you”(Jer 31:3).
Ezekiel also spoke God’s words: “When I passed by you and looked upon you, you were at the age for love; I made a covenant with you and you became mine” (Ezk 16:8).
Another anonymous prophet, to whom the name “Second Isaiah” was given, exclaimed: “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you” (Is 43:4); “for a moment, in an outburst of anger, I hid my face from you, but with an everlasting love, I will have mercy on you”(Is 54:8). The “Third Isaiah” wrote: “As a young man marries a virgin, so shall your builder marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you”(Is 62:5).
The Innermost Thoughts of God
When Jesus came, he spoke about the love of God for us every possible way. He contributed highly to the spread of this notion, being the spouse of humankind.
St. Matthew told a parable that at the end of the world, Jesus will come again to seek people out as a groom goes out in search of the bride on the day of the wedding feast (Mt 25:1-3). St. Mark presents Jesus as “the bridegroom” of all believers (Mk 2:19).
But the culminating point of the Biblical discourse on the love of God is found in the Theology of St. John. This evangelist wrote: “God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but may have eternal life”(Jn 3:16).
But then, something was still lacking. We have to focus on the fact that the very essence of God, his intimate life, his interior life, consists of Love. St. John first wrote about this progressive notion with a phrase that is loaded with meaning: “God is Love. He who loves, abides in God, and God in him” (1Jn 4:16).
Thus, the long path initiated by Hosea came to its goal. The divine image had been transformed remarkably: from the vindictive God in the Old Testament who would not allow a single sin of the people to go unpunished, to the God who is Love in the New Testament. God has finally shown his real face.
What to Do in the Face of Problems
The young Hosea suffered a personal tragedy. In the midst of his sorrow, God spoke to him and made him see that he could do something more than just feel bitter and crushed. God showed him that it is possible to draw a lesson from the circumstances of one’s life, no matter how wretched.
In life, we all encounter painful situations. We know that God does not “send” problems, as Hosea or the poor Job in the Old Testament believed. Neither are they divine “trials”. They simply happen, since life subjects us constantly to hard blows.
But if we face up to any pain or sorrow with faith, if we discover God in our suffering, and if we hold fast to God wholeheartedly, then our problems—far from causing us to sink—could be transformed into a source of valuable teaching, of wealth, and of a maturity which we would not have reached had we not experienced any grief.
This story is Hosea’s. He came to discover/grasp true love when the daughter of Diblaim caused him the greatest sorrow in his life.
