INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA

Hosea was one of the earliest of the writing prophets, living at the same time as Isaiah in the eighth century B.C. It was a period of great military turbulence in the Middle East, with Assyria, Babylon and Egypt all vying for power. Israel was a tiny state, caught in the middle of all this. Find a map to give you a visual sense of the threat felt by God's people.

Under Jeroboam II, Israel regained control of the trading routes, and the rise of a merchant class brought prosperity and a revival of culture. Archaeology has discovered luxurious houses from this period, decorated with ivory imported from Egypt and the Orient.

But other influences came with trade. In particular, the worship of Baal.

Baal, the god of the Canaanites, had threatened the worship of the Israelites ever since they entered the Promised Land. By the time of Hosea, his cult had become the religion of the masses.

The ancients understood religion very differently from the way we do today. Whereas we think of religion as a personal choice among various gods on offer, to the ancients, their worship infiltrated all of life, especially agriculture and fertility. They believed that sexual behaviour with priests of their fertility gods would, by sympathetic magic, bring about the fertility of the crops. Worshipping Baal was as normal to them as using fertilizer is to us. Cultic ceremonies involved prostitution, drunkenness, and violence.

With the death of Jeroboam II came political disaster in the northern kingdom of Israel, as one after another of the kings who succeeded him became caught up in futile attempts to resist the encroaching power of the Assyrians.

Into the middle of this collapse, God called Hosea to act out how he, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, felt about the idolatry of his people. Hosea married the prostitute, Gomer.

The first three chapters of the book tell us about his relationship with her, and the rest of the book elaborates on the themes of love, faithfulness, faithlessness and forgiveness.

Annabel Robinson

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®).