Judah is to be understood relatively only. Such suppositions, indeed, show very plainly how distinctly the future lay before the eyes of the prophet.[5]--With regard, now, to the historical reference,--it must, in the first place, be remarked, that whatever is here determined concerning it, must be applicable to all other [Pg 227] parallel passages also, in which a future reunion of Israel and Judah, and their common return to the promised land, are announced; _e.g._, Jer. iii. 18: "In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given to their fathers;" l. 4: "In those days the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, weeping shall they come and seek the Lord their God." Compare also Is. xi.; Ezek. xxxvii. 19, 20. In the passage under consideration, several interpreters, as _Theodoret_, think of the return from Babylon, and refer the "one head" to Zerubbabel. Now we certainly cannot deny that, in that event, there is a small beginning of the fulfilment. But if that had been the entire fulfilment, Hosea would more resemble a dreamer and an enthusiast than a true prophet of the living God. The objection which immediately presents itself--viz., that, after all, the greatest portion of the ten tribes, and a very considerable part of Judah, remained in captivity--is by no means the strongest. Although the whole both of Judah and Israel had returned, the real and final fulfilment could not be sought for in that event. It is not the renewed possession of the country, as such, which the prophet promises, but rather a certain kind of possession,--such a possession as that the land is completely the land of God, partaking in all the fulness of His blessings, and thus a worthy residence for the people of God, and for their children. One may be in Canaan, and yet, at the same time, in Babylon or in Assyria. Had not the threatened punishment of God been indeed as fully executed upon those who, during the Assyrian and Babylonish captivities, wandered about the country in sorrow and misery, as upon those who were carried away? Can the circumstance that Jews are even now living in Jerusalem in the deepest misery, be adduced as a proof that the loss of the promised land, with which the people were threatened, had not been completely fulfilled? It is true that, during the times of the Old Covenant, there existed a certain connection betwixt the lower and the higher kinds of possession. As soon as the people ceased to be the people of the Lord, they lost with the former, after being often previously warned by the decrease of it, the latter also. As soon as they obtained again the lower kind of possession, which could happen only in the case of a [Pg 228] return to the Lord, they recovered, to a certain degree, in proportion to the earnestness and sincerity of their conversion, the higher kind of possession also.