Hosea
A prophet of the northern kingdom in its last years, whose own marriage became his message. Told to take a wife of whoredom, he married Gomer and named their children Jezreel, No Mercy and Not My People; when she left he was told to love her again and buy her back. The book turns on that image — Israel as an unfaithful wife, God as the wounded husband who will not let her go — and includes the lines Jesus twice quoted: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.'
What we know — and how we know it
Where in scripture
HoseaRomansYahweh’s word that came to 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.
Hosea 1:1
When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”
Hosea 1:2 — Marries Gomer
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
Hosea 11:1 — 'Out of Egypt I called my son'
As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”
Romans 9:25
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation.
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