THE four greater prophets―greater because of the extent of their books―were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The Minor Prophets are twelve in number, of which Hosea is the first.
Isaiah and Hosea were contemporaries (see first verse of both books); the former, in his comprehensive prophecies, describing the whole circle of God’s intentions respecting the covenant people, while the latter is more circumscribed, omitting all mention of the Gentiles then or in the future, and in an especial way treating of the moral condition of Israel as a whole in his own day, with blessed intimations of millennial times. Both prophets, moreover, carefully distinguish between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
For fully half-a-century our prophet faithfully and energetically warned Israel of coming judgment by the Assyrian, and of Judah by the Chaldean. The symbolic actions of Hosea (chapter 1), and his forcible language in exposing the guilt, hypocrisy, and sin of the covenant people of Jehovah, are most strikingly expressed. The prophet is here witnessed in word and action in a way and manner altogether peculiar to himself.
Chapter 1 would prepare us for the setting aside of all Israel―for the sentence of excision, “Lo-ammi, not my people,” ―being speedily executed; but in the same chapter the reversal of the sentence is as clearly indicated. The number of Israel “as the sand of the sea,” and the dignity of the people,― “Sons of the living God” are expressed in verse 10; while the united gathering of the whole nation in her sacred feasts and festivals, as in days of old and under a Judean prince―Christ’s vicegerent, on the throne (Ezek. 44), is finely told us in verse 11. The quotations from this book by the Apostles Paul and Peter are exceedingly interesting. Paul in Rom. 9:2626And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. (Romans 9:26), applies verse 10 of the first chapter of our prophet to the sovereign call of the Gentiles; while in verse 26 the apostle applies verse 23 of the second chapter of our prophet to God’s sovereign call of the Jews.
Peter, also, in his first epistle (chapter 2:10) quotes from chapter 2 verse 23 of the prophet; this most appropriately, as writing to Jewish believers.
How appropriate the language! How precise and accurate the Spirit of God in inditing Holy Scripture! “Sons of God,” then, are Gentile believers; while “My people” is truly Jewish thought and language, and refers to restored and converted Israel.
The book is divided into two great divisions: The strictly prophetic or dispensational portion in which Israel, not the Gentiles, is exclusively in view (chaps. 1-3).
The prophet lays bare the moral corruption of all classes―king, priests, and people. Ephraim, or the ten tribes, and Judah, too, are frequently distinguished in the forcible appeals and remonstrances in the second part of the book (chaps. 4-14).