Hosea 4-10

The legal metaphor forms the structure of the beginning of Chapter 4, as “the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land,” followed by a list of charges:

• No faithfulness

• No loyalty

• No knowledge of God

• Swearing

• Lying

• Murder

• Stealing

• Adultery

• Bloodshed

The first three charges provide the most contrast to the condemnations of Amos. Hosea is much more considered with the Israelites’ theology: his complaints seem to be that the Israelites are worshiping other gods and believing the wrong things. He lays the blame for this at the feet of the priests, calling them whores and promising to “destroy [their] mother (4:5).”

There are poetic details here that are likely references to specific religious practices, but they’re likely nearly impossible to decode.

“Wine and new wine take away the understanding. My people consult a piece of wood, and their divining rod gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and make offerings upon the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good.”

-Hosea 4:11b-13a

There is a lot in these verses that is typical of the prophet - the gratuitous accusations of WHOREDOM, the glimpses into pre-monotheistic practices (divining rods), and the lines that don’t make much sense in context, making me wonder what sarcastic reference I’m missing  (because their shade is good). Was the wine a reference to the practices of other cults? What, exactly, was “consult[ing] a piece of wood?” Are the references to whoring intended to mock the cult of a goddess, such as Asherah? Where would the prophet want the Israelites to offer sacrifices? How many of these complaints are related to rival cults and how many are about the practices of the followers of the Lord?

Another example of tantalizing historical content turned mystifying insult is found in 5:7, “now the new moon shall devour them in their fields.” From Amos and Hosea, we are aware that new moon festivals were an important part of ancient Israelite practice, but that does not make the line understandable. Even a straightforward interpretation doesn’t make sense - the new moon is the phase during which the moon is not visible. It’s hardly capable of devouring.

Hosea then warns Israel against “let[ting] Judah become guilty (4:15)” and worshiping at two of the shrines near the border of Judah, even using a (somewhat childish) pejorative for Bethel. This certainly seems to be confirmation that the prophet sees the religious practices of the two kingdoms to be linked. This follows a reference at the end of the first chapter to both kingdoms uniting on “the day of Jezreel.” It also suggests the prophet has a political agenda distinct from Amos, who was focused on the exploitation of the poor within Israel. Hosea seems to care about unification of the two kingdoms, though only on monotheistic terms, lest Judah be corrupted.

Following allegations of drunkenness and orgies, we get clues to the political situation. The prophet gloats over the destruction of Israel:

“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound.”

-Hosea 5:13

This was likely written in the 720s, as Israel was engaging in its final rebellions against Assyria. Hosea also seems to predict a similar fate for Judah, which did not happen for several reasons, most notably a possible outbreak of plague within the Assyrian army and, most importantly, the willingness of later Judahite kings to accept vassal status.

Also, Hosea frequently uses the term “Ephraim” to refer to Israel. I do not know what the connotations of one name over the other would have been at the time, though my Bible suggests that it was due to Israel’s territorial losses, meaning that only the core hill country of Ephraim was left to the state of Israel.

Hosea’s own opinions on Israel’s political options are somewhat unclear. Like most of the prophets, he castigates the political leaders for not relying on God, but he mocks Israel both for fighting against the Assyrians* and for negotiating with them and Egypt**. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The consistent throughline is that they deserve destruction, and so it will come.

*Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after vanity (5:11)

**Ephraim has become like a dove, silly and without sense; they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria (7:11)

After this promise of judgment and punishment, the prophet predicts that the people of Israel will wish to “return to the Lord.'' However, as their devotion is “like the dew,” this appeasement will be rejected. This section ends with the most well-known verse from the book, Hosea 6:6:

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

There are two aspects of this verse I find revealing. The first is the adjective “steadfast.” This continues the metaphor of the unfaithful wife present throughout the text and reinforces the notion of a jealous god. While there will eventually be a promise of forgiveness at the end of the book, the idea of repentance being rejected by God is a distinctly un-Christian one, and so I wanted to highlight it.

The other theme, which I have already mentioned, is that, unlike Amos’ God’s requirement of justice and righteousness, Hosea’s God requires knowledge of himself. This suggests to me that the spread of monotheism and theological conflicts with (at least some of) the existing priesthood were much more central to Hosea’s thought than that of Amos. While Amos was threatened by an Israelite priest, it appeared to be on an explicitly political charge - sedition. Hosea, of course, is no stranger to sedition, predicting unavoidable disaster for the Israelite state at every turn, but the emphasis on knowledge* is new.

*It is, therefore, extremely ironic that the references and arguments in Hosea are much more obscure to later generations than those in Amos.

The next several chapters follow a similar formula of fulmination and punishment, with some interesting poetic phrases thrown in.* The most frustrating aspect of these oracles is the lack of specificity of the crimes of Israel. In chapter 7, the complaint has something to do with foreigners. Whether the crime is political alliances with foreigners, intermarrying with foreigners, something else, or both is not entirely clear.

*Some of the better ones: For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind (8:7); litigation springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field (10:4); you have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies (10:13)

In the next chapter, the prophet claims “They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes without my knowledge. (8:4)” What does Hosea actually want here? We saw an indication in the first chapter that he sees the house of Jehu as illegitimate. Does he want to bring the Omrides back? Does he not want a monarchy at all? Does he, as a prophet, want the ability to choose the king? He almost certainly does not want the existing priests to have a role in the process. He then later condemns the people of Israel for not fearing a king (10:3), making the whole subject even more muddled. The lack of specificity makes it easy to read one’s own values into the text, which is probably why it survived, but difficult to determine what was actually happening at the time.

There is an interesting verse, 8:14a, which reads “Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities” followed by a promise to rain down destruction on said cities. Is the crime building palaces and fortified cities? This would suggest that Hosea is a sort of primitivist, idealizing a decentralized, perhaps semi-nomadic past. Or it’s equally possible that “forgotten his Maker” refers to religious practices and the other clauses are there to set up the punishment for those religious crimes.

The other specific crime I can find is in 9:7:

“The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come; Israel cries, ‘The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!’ Because of your great iniquity, your hostility is great.”

I do not think it is a stretch to assume that the prophet referred to in these verses is Hosea himself, suggesting a personal grievance against the existing Israelite religious establishment. Again, though, there’s not enough substance to really understand the origins of the disagreement, so by this point it seems like recriminations for their own sake.

I am moving through these chapters relatively quickly, by my standards, because I believe that the conflicts, motivations, and even ideologies have been lost in translation to an extent and writing over and over “I don’t know what this means” is not very interesting. The lack of specificity surrounding the crimes of Israel, other than a general list at the beginning of chapter 4 which could apply to literally every society ever, makes this a frustrating book. It is one that can be incorporated into many theologies due to its promise of punishment for one’s enemies and conception of a relationship with God as a legal arrangement, but, unlike Amos, cannot lay a coherent moral foundation for a belief system.