But even although we could not establish, from other sources, the statement contained in the inscription, the inscription itself would nevertheless be a guarantee for it; and the more so, because there are other analogies in favour of so long a duration of the prophetic office, which was sometimes entered upon even in early youth. The inscription has the same authority in its favour as every other part of the book; and it is hardly possible to understand the levity with which it has, in recent times, been pretty generally designated as spurious, or, at least, suspicious. [Pg 173] It is altogether impossible to sever it from the other parts of the book. There must certainly have been some object in view when, in ver. 2, it is expressly remarked, that what follows took place at the _beginning_ of Hosea's ministry. But such an object it will be possible to point out, only in the event of its being more accurately determined at what time this beginning took place--viz., still under the reign of Jeroboam, when the state of things as it appeared to the eye did not yet offer any occasion for such views of the future as are opened up in the first three chapters. Ver. 1 cannot, therefore, be regarded as an addition subsequently made, unless the words in ver. 2, from תחלת to בהושע be so likewise. But these again are most closely connected with what follows by the _Future_ with _Vav convers._, which never can begin a narrative. There remains, therefore, only this alternative:--either to regard the whole as having been written at a later period, or to claim for Hosea the inscription also. We cannot agree with the view of _Simson_, that the remark by which the beginning of the book is assigned to the beginning of the prophet's ministry, originated from a chronological interest only; and we can the less do so, because the prophet does not pay any attention to chronology in any other place, but is anxious to give only the sum and substance of what he had prophesied during a series of years. The only exception which he makes in this respect must have originated from strong reasons; and such do not exist, if the inscription in ver. 1, or the mention of the kings in it, be spurious. The mention of the beginning in ver. 2 would, in that case, be so much the more groundless, as we could know nothing at all regarding the length of his ministry. Much more fruitful, certainly, than all such vain doubts, are the reflections of Calvin on the long duration of the prophet's ministry: "How grievous is it to us when God requires our services for twenty or thirty years; and, especially, when we have to contend with ungodly people, who would not willingly take upon them the yoke, yea, who even obstinately resist us! we then wish to be freed at once, and to become pensioned soldiers. But, seeing this prophet's long protracted ministry, let us take from it an example of patience, that we may not despair although the Lord should not at once free us from our burden."