Opening the text

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the MinorSmith, George Adam

Religion

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the Minor

Name: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the Minor
Author: Smith, George Adam

Smith, George Adam

Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries

But just as the Love which first showed itself in the sunny Parables
of Galilee passed onward to Gethsemane and the Cross, so the love of
Hosea, that had wakened with the spring lilies and dewy summer mornings
of the North, had also, ere his youth was spent, to meet its agony and
shame. These came upon the prophet in his home, and in her in whom so
loyal and tender a heart had hoped to find his chiefest sanctuary next
to God. There are, it is true, some of the ugliest facts of human life
about this prophet's experience; but the message is one very suited to
our own hearts and times. Let us read this story of the Prodigal Wife
as we do that other Galilean tale of the Prodigal Son. There as well
as here are harlots; but here as well as there is the clear mirror of
the Divine Love. For the Bible never shuns realism when it would expose
the exceeding hatefulness of sin or magnify the power of God's love to
redeem. To an age which is always treating conjugal infidelity either
as a matter of comedy or as a problem of despair, the tale of Hosea
and his wife may still become, what it proved to his own generation, a
gospel full of love and hope.

The story, and how it led Hosea to understand God's relations to
sinful men, is told in the first three chapters of his book. It opens
with the very startling sentence: _The beginning of the word of
Jehovah to Hosea:--And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take thee a wife of
harlotry and children of harlotry: for the Land hath committed great
harlotry in departing from Jehovah._[454]

The command was obeyed. _And he went and took Gomer, daughter of
Diblaim;_[455] _and she conceived, and bare to him a son. And
Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little and
I shall visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will
bring to an end the kingdom of the house of Israel; and it shall
be on that day that I shall break the bow of Israel in the Vale
of Jezreel_--the classic battle-field of Israel.[456] _And she
conceived again, and bare a daughter; and He said to him, Call her
name Un-Loved_, or _That-never-knew-a-Father's-Pity;_[457] _for I
will not again have pity_--such pity as a Father hath--_on the house
of Israel, that I should fully forgive them._[458] _And she weaned
Un-Pitied, and conceived, and bare a son. And He said, Call his name
Not-My-People; for ye are not My people, and I--I am not yours._[459]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the MinorSmith, George Adam

Religion

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the Minor

Smith, George Adam

Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries

But just as the Love which first showed itself in the sunny Parables
of Galilee passed onward to Gethsemane and the Cross, so the love of
Hosea, that had wakened with the spring lilies and dewy summer mornings
of the North, had also, ere his youth was spent, to meet its agony and
shame. These came upon the prophet in his home, and in her in whom so
loyal and tender a heart had hoped to find his chiefest sanctuary next
to God. There are, it is true, some of the ugliest facts of human life
about this prophet's experience; but the message is one very suited to
our own hearts and times. Let us read this story of the Prodigal Wife
as we do that other Galilean tale of the Prodigal Son. There as well
as here are harlots; but here as well as there is the clear mirror of
the Divine Love. For the Bible never shuns realism when it would expose
the exceeding hatefulness of sin or magnify the power of God's love to
redeem. To an age which is always treating conjugal infidelity either
as a matter of comedy or as a problem of despair, the tale of Hosea
and his wife may still become, what it proved to his own generation, a
gospel full of love and hope.

The story, and how it led Hosea to understand God's relations to
sinful men, is told in the first three chapters of his book. It opens
with the very startling sentence: _The beginning of the word of
Jehovah to Hosea:--And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take thee a wife of
harlotry and children of harlotry: for the Land hath committed great
harlotry in departing from Jehovah._[454]

The command was obeyed. _And he went and took Gomer, daughter of
Diblaim;_[455] _and she conceived, and bare to him a son. And
Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little and
I shall visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will
bring to an end the kingdom of the house of Israel; and it shall
be on that day that I shall break the bow of Israel in the Vale
of Jezreel_--the classic battle-field of Israel.[456] _And she
conceived again, and bare a daughter; and He said to him, Call her
name Un-Loved_, or _That-never-knew-a-Father's-Pity;_[457] _for I
will not again have pity_--such pity as a Father hath--_on the house
of Israel, that I should fully forgive them._[458] _And she weaned
Un-Pitied, and conceived, and bare a son. And He said, Call his name
Not-My-People; for ye are not My people, and I--I am not yours._[459]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the Minor

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1: Commonly Called the Minor

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