kingdom of God (xl.-xlviii.). HOSEA The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's death.[1] But i.-iii. seem to be the result of long and agonized meditation on the meaning of his wedded life: it was not at once that he discovered Gomer to be an unfaithful wife, i. 2, and it must have been later still that he learned to interpret the impulse which led him to her and threw such sorrow about his life, as a word of the Lord, i. 2. These chapters were probably therefore written late, though the experiences they record were early. [Footnote 1: Zechariah his son reigned for only six months.] Of the date, generally speaking, of iv.-xiv. there can be no doubt: they reflect but too faithfully the confusion of the times that followed Jeroboam's death. It is a period of hopeless anarchy. Moral law is set at defiance, and society, from one end to the other, is in confusion, iv. 1, 2, vii. 1. The court is corrupt, conspiracies are rife, kings are assassinated, vii. 3-7, x. 15. We are irresistibly reminded of the rapid succession of kings that followed Jeroboam--Zechariah his son, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah. Gilead, however, is still part of the northern kingdom, vi. 8, xii. 11, so that the deportation effected by Tiglath Pileser in 734 B.C. has not yet taken place (2 Kings xv. 29). Further, there is no mention of the combination of Israel and Aram against Judah; and, as Hosea was a very close observer of the political situation, his silence on this point may be assumed to imply that his prophecies fall earlier than 735. The date of his prophetic career may safely be set about 743-736 B.C. In chs. i. and iii. Hosea reads the experiences of his wedded life as a symbol of Jehovah's experience with Israel. Gomer bore him three children, to whom he gave names symbolic of the impending fate[1] of Israel, i. 1-9. The faithless Gomer abandons Hosea for a paramour, but he is moved by his love for her to buy her out of the degradation into which she has fallen, and takes earnest measures to wean her to a better mind. All this Hosea learns to interpret as symbolic of the divine love for Israel, which refuses to be defeated, but will seek to recover the people, though it be through the stern discipline of exile (iii.). Ch. ii. elaborates the idea, suggested by these chapters, of Israel's adultery, i.e. of her unfaithfulness to Jehovah, of the fate to which it will bring her, and of her redemption from that fate by the love of her God.[2] [Footnote 1: Chs. i. 10-ii. 1 interrupts the stern context with an