Hosea (Part 1)

Richard Belcher delves into the biblical book of Hosea, emphasizing themes of God’s persistent love and faithfulness despite Israel’s infidelity. Belcher explores Hosea’s role as a prophet and the symbolic actions God commanded him to perform, demonstrating God’s enduring commitment to His covenant people even in the face of their repeated disobedience.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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This audio lecture is brought to you by RTS on iTunesu at the virtual campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. To listen to other lectures and to access additional resources, please visit us at itunes rts.edu. For additional information on how to take distance education courses for credit towards a fully accredited Master of Arts in religion degree, please visit our website at virtual rts.edu. Hosea is a word from God, a prophecy that is primarily directed against the northern kingdom. So we have Amos against the northern kingdom, and now we have Hosea primarily against the northern kingdom.

But as we will see, the message of Hosea and Amos is broader. It does relate to the southern kingdom. We’ll see that in Hosea especially. It’s also a prophecy against the house of Jehu, the dynasty of Jehu. Remember, the northern kingdom has had a turnover of dynasties. Jehu was king from 841 to about 814, and Hosea is somewhere around 700 and 740 somewhere in there. And it is a prophecy against the house of Jehu that this dynasty will come to an end. So when Shalom assassinates Zechariah, that ends the dynasty of Jehu.

And if you got your chart, you can take a look at that. Now, when Hosea begins his prophecy, Jeroboam II is still king in Israel. He is the only northern kingdom king mentioned in the title. Chapter one, verse one Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So it’s the same historical situation as the book of Amos. However, when Jeroboam II is no longer king, there is a period of political anarchy that follows in the northern kingdom. And you can see that on your chart of prophets and the kingdoms that you have bought.

Six kings reign in a 30 year period. Three of those kings rule two years or less. Four of those kings are assassinated. So it’s political turmoil, chaos, anarchy that may be reflected in Hosea seven seven, where it says all of them are hot as an oven and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen and none of them calls upon me.

⁷ All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me. (Hosea 7:7, ESV)

That may be a reflection of that chaotic situation. I have listed in your notes the assyrian kings that are prominent. Assyria becomes powerful.

Now at the beginning when Uzziah and Jeroboam II, Uzziah king of the southern kingdom, Jeroboam II of the northern kingdom, you know, that is a period of political stability. There is no foreign king or nation that is powerful between 800 and 750 about, but Assyria becomes the next powerful kingdom. It’s thought that chapters one through three of Hosea are early, maybe during the period when Israel is strong and Assyria is weak.

And then maybe the prophecies from four through 14, they seem to reflect a different setting, a different situation, perhaps when Israel and Judah are becoming weaker and Assyria is becoming stronger. Tiglath Pilser III, who’s listed in your notes? Shalmaneser V, Sargon II. Those are the assyrian kings that are powerful kings. There’s also I have listed in your notes some political intrigue. We’ll not go into that. We’ll briefly comment on a section of Hosea that may deal primarily with some of the politics. But the northern kingdom falls in 722.

Israel goes from the height of her power and stability, and in a 30-year period, falls to Assyria. So, it is a very quick descent after Jeroboam II. Now, the fall of the northern kingdom is not reflected in the book. Scholars don’t believe it’s reflected in the book. And so, maybe Hosea, his prophecies were completed before the fall of the northern kingdom. However, you notice in the title of the book there is a long line of kings from Judah, listed one.

One the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, son of Berea, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We will learn about those kings, especially under Isaiah, kings of the southern kingdom, kings of Judah. This may give us some intimation that the Book of Hosea is not just for the northern kingdom, but the message of this book is relevant to the southern kingdom. We’ll see that especially at the end of the book. And you could say the same thing for Amos.

These prophecies to the northern kingdom are not just for the northern kingdom, but they’re for God’s people in the southern kingdom as well. For God’s people in exile, for God’s people in the post angelic situation. Their message is for God’s people today. All of that is important, but you have something specific here in the book of Hosea that reminds you that this message is relevant to the southern kingdom of Judah as well.

Now, each prophetic book seems to have its challenge, issue, or question you have to deal with, and one of the major questions is in the Book of Hosea. We will focus most of our comments on chapters one through three. We’ll comment briefly on chapters four through 14 when we get there, but we’ll spend most of our time on chapters one through three. The question in chapters one through three relates to Hosea’s marriage, and especially what Hosea 1:2 means, which says, and I’m using the ESV.

² When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord .” (Hosea 1:2, ESV)

And here’s one place the ESV adds a little interpretation. Have children. The have’s not there. I’m going to leave it out. So verse three.

³ So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (Hosea 1:3, ESV)

Now, what does this mean? Does God really tell Hosea to go marry a woman who is unfaithful, a sexually immoral woman? That supposed moral difficulty has led to a variety of responses to what’s going on here. I’d like to briefly just go through several of those responses. Some argue that what’s in view here is spiritual unfaithfulness, not physical unfaithfulness. So when it talks about a wife of whoredom, it’s not talking about a woman who is engaged in sexual unfaithfulness, physical unfaithfulness, but it’s talking about a woman who is spiritually unfaithful to God.

So Gomer would be a worshiper of false gods, which would be very prominent in the northern kingdom, as we’ll see. The problem with this is it doesn’t solve the original difficulty. Is it just as problematic for God to tell Hosea to go marry an idolater as it is to tell him to go marry a woman who is sexually unfaithful, immoral? So that maybe doesn’t really take away the problem. Plus, you could argue that in the context of the northern kingdom, it’s not an either/or situation. It’s not either spiritual unfaithfulness or physical unfaithfulness.

Both of those probably go together in the northern kingdom, perhaps related to the worship. Now, we’ll talk more about that, but it’s not an either-or situation. Spiritual unfaithfulness, physical unfaithfulness were connected in the northern kingdom. So that view doesn’t answer the question. Ej young, in his introduction to the Old Testament, argues for a symbolic interpretation; some use the term allegorical interpretation.

Ej young says, if Hosea had actually married an adulterous woman, would he not by that act, destroy the effectiveness of his ministry, sort of taking the qualifications for elder, maybe in the book of Timothy and reading them back and applying it to Hosea the prophet, would that not have destroyed the effectiveness of his ministry? So he argues, God revealed this message to Hosea. Hosea revealed this message to the people. It is all symbolic. It did not literally take place. Hosea did not literally marry a sexually unfaithful woman.

But it’s just, this is the message God revealed to Hosea. Hosea then turned around and revealed this message to God’s people. He did not actually marry someone. This view argues that the symbolism in the names of the children supports the symbolic view. And we’ll talk about the names of the children. They do have symbolic significance, and so that is used to sort of undergird the symbolic understanding. However, problems with this view. The account reads like a straightforward historical account. The superscription would lead you in that direction.

And the name of Hosea’s wife has no symbolic significance. You would think if this was to be all symbolic, that her name might have some significance. Her name doesn’t, which leads you to think that she is a real woman, Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. So, I don’t think this view answers all the questions. Douglas Stewart, who has the commentary on Hosea? I think it’s Hosea through Jonah in the WBC, the Word Biblical Commentary series, which is an excellent commentary.

However, there’s going to be several places I disagree with him, but it’s still an excellent commentary coming at this from a covenantal perspective. That’s his emphasis. He takes what’s called a non-biographical view. Some use the term metaphorical. He says we just don’t have enough emphasis. I’m sorry, enough information to draw firm conclusions about the historical details of Hosea’s marriage. We just don’t know enough.

Now, he does argue that it is a historical marriage. Hosea did marry a woman named Gomer, but we just don’t have enough information to draw conclusions about their marriage.

And then he says, and this is where we will come back and talk about this later, he says that the woman in chapter 3 may not even be the same woman in chapter one. We’ll come back and talk about that when we come to chapter three. But it sort of fits in with the fact that he just doesn’t think we have enough information to draw firm conclusions. It’s an historical marriage, but we just don’t know. I agree with Stewart that the marriage is historical, but I think we can draw some conclusions.

So we come to a view that argues that the marriage of Hosea Tegomer is historical. Marriage. And we could give you, you know, Hosea reads like other prophets. The symbolism in the names is not uncommon. Isaiah. We’ll see when we get over there. His children’s names are symbolic, but they are real children. So just, just because the children have symbolic names doesn’t mean they’re not real historical children. The difference comes with how you handle the problem of the character of Gomer.

There are two basic views that I want to lay out for you, and then I want to nuance one of those views. Both of these views argue on the same premises: the plural, a woman of Zenunim, plural, whoredom, harlotry, harlotries, maybe it’s translated. Both of them argue on the basis of the plural. How the children fit in is extremely important to both of these views we’re going to look at. And then the early history of Israel is also extremely important. So, we’re going to look at two views that use these three premises to support their argument.

The first view says that Gomer was a chaste, faithful woman when Hosea married her, but then later became sexually unfaithful. That view is argued by Hubbard in the Tyndale Old Testament commentary series. She was a woman who had tendencies toward unfaithfulness, but at the time of the marriage, she was not necessarily unfaithful. Now, it uses the plural “woman of Zenunim,” a woman, a wife, as it’s translated in the ESV, a wife or woman of whoredom. It’s an abstract plural that refers to a trait, not a profession.

So she’s not called a prostitute, but she is a woman who has this trait. This tendency, the singular zona, which would be the term prostitute, is not used of her is the way the argument goes. This is supported by how the children fit in this view that argues that Gomer is chaste at the time of the marriage, believes that there is one group, children. So when it says in Chapter 1:2, “Go take to yourself a wife of whoredom.”

And the ESV supports this in terms of what they say, “and have children of whoredom.”

² When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord .” (Hosea 1:2, ESV)

God tells Hosea, “Go marry Gomer and produce children from Gomer.” Those children will become children of whoredom. So that the children described in verses four and following of chapter one are the children referred to back up in chapter one, verse two. One group of children, Hosea goes, marries. He marries Gomer. She has no children at the time of the marriage, and they produce children together.

And these children at the time of their birth are not children of whoredom, but they become children of whoredom. And that sort of parallels Gomer. Gomer at the time of the marriage is not unfaithful, but she has tendencies toward unfaithfulness. So the children would reinforce the idea that Gomer is chaste at the time of the marriage and later becomes unfaithful. The children born to this marriage would not be illegitimate or children of whoredom when they are born, but that’s what they become.

Then you have this view referring to passages in the prophets that talk about the early history of Israel as being positive. Ultimately, Hosea Gomer is going to be about Yahweh Israel, right? And so if you can find passages that talk about the relationship between Yahweh and Israel as being positive early on, that would undergird your view that the relationship between Hosea and Gomer is positive early on. And so this view finds passages that are positive relating to the early history of Israel. Jeremiah 2:2-3 would be one of them.

² “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord , “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. ³ Israel was holy to the Lord , the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them, declares the Lord .” (Jeremiah 2:2-3, ESV)

So passages like that would support this view. The other side argues that Gomer was sexually immoral at the time of the marriage, and it all depends on who you read as to what they press. Some might say she was a known prostitute; some might say she was a temple prostitute.

But the general idea behind this second view is that she was a woman who had been involved in sexual unfaithfulness. And these three things are used to support this view. The plural, by the way, McComiskey argues this view. McComiskey is the editor of a three volume commentary on the minor prophets. He also, I have to double check this. He may have done the one in the expositors bible commentary, but I have to check that. And there are others. The plural, a woman of Zanunim, a woman of whoredom, a woman of harlotries.

This view doesn’t stress the plural as much as it stresses the genitive relationship. A woman of harlot trees. And they would say this characterizes the present state of Gomer, not what she would become. And they use Proverbs 21:9, a woman of contention, a contentious woman. It’s not what she will become, but it’s what she is. This is a great example, is it not, that grammar and syntax gives you your options, but it does not always. It’s not always the determining factor of your final answer.

Grammar and syntax give you options, and sometimes you have to make choices, and those choices are based on context, the book, your theology as a whole; all those things go into those choices. So, learning Hebrew is greatly beneficial. Learning Greek is as well. But they don’t answer all your problems. Some say they give you more. Now, how do the children fit in? This particular view says there are two groups of children. When you go back up to chapter one, verse two, go take.

And that verb “take” is the regular verb that would be used to refer to marriage. Take to yourself a wife of whoredom, and take children of whoredom. So that verb “take” goes both with the wife, the woman, and it goes with the children. Take a woman, take children. This verb “take” can be used in the sense of adoption. The Book of Esther uses this verb in the sense of adoption. This would say that the ESV here is not a good translation. Have children.

This is one place where the ESV sort of adds an editorial comment that I think maybe not the best. Go take a wife. Marry a wife and adopt her children, children that she already has. Then produce with this woman children of your own. You see two groups of children. You take Gomer and you adopt her children. She already has children because she has been sexually unfaithful. And now raise up with her children of your own. That is described. The raising up of children of your own is described then in verses four and following.

So two groups of children. And then this view would, early history of Israel would find those passages in the prophets that talk about how Israel was not very pure when God called her. So that can sort of cut both ways. Now, I want to give you a little bit different nuance to this. I do believe that this view that Gomer was a woman already involved in sexual immorality is the more appropriate view. Put it that way.

I think based on Hebrew, Hosea 1:2, with the verb “take,” going with “wife of whoredom” and “take children of whoredom,” you can argue that Hosea marries Gomer and adopts her children and then goes on to have other children with her versus foreign following.

² When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord .” (Hosea 1:2, ESV)

But I want to nuance this a little bit. Gomer, I don’t think, and you can’t totally take out of the equation the whole issue of prostitution and temple prostitution because it probably was a part of the culture and the worship. Now, that’s part of what’s debated today.

There are people that are arguing today and may just have a little part of your notes, sort of a re-evaluation of the whole concept of temple prostitution. And there are scholars that I think are going too far in denying it. I don’t want to do that. I think there’s evidence that there was this kind of activity taking place as a part of the worship of the northern kingdom of Israel, influenced by Baal worship, fertility god. However, it is significant that Gomer is not called the term that is used to refer to a temple prostitute.

She’s not called by that term kadesha. I think that is in your notes. It’s not. It is used in Hosea 4:14, and it does show how it seems rampant in that society. This whole concept of sexual immorality is addressed in Hosea 4:14,

¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin. (Hosea 4:14, ESV)

So that was going on, and you can’t totally remove that angle from this discussion. It’s possible Gomer was a temple prostitute.

However, she’s never called a kadesha. She’s never called a zona prostitute. Now, again, it’s possible she may be. I’m not sure the word prostitute communicates specifically what we think of when we think of prostitute. But I would perhaps argue, and this argument is not meant to soften the picture at all. I’m not trying to soften this picture of sexual immorality, not by any means. But I think you can argue, based on some statements that we’ll come to in chapter two, that Gomer, she may have participated in temple prostitution. I wouldn’t deny that.

But she seems to be presented as a paramour, a woman who has a variety lovers who give her support. And we’ll see that in chapter two, where she finds her support from these lovers. And so you may have a picture here of a woman who is involved in a variety of relationships with a variety of men, and as a part of this, they support her in her life. That’s how she gets to give her gifts and food and everything for this.

That’s not a whole lot different, perhaps, than cult prostitution in some ways, but it’s, you know, sometimes when we think of prostitution, we tend to think of anonymous clients, and that’s possible here, but it may be more of several different lovers that she knows and that support her and she gives them these favors. I think it’s possible to argue that as well. We don’t know for sure, but I do think that in some way she has been involved in sexual immorality.

You read 414 and it’s almost like, would there have been a woman in the northern kingdom who would not have been involved in sexual immorality. And these are not the only views I could mention. Just to give you another option, Wolf. Wolf argues that every woman of the northern kingdom would have participated in some kind of bridal rite of initiation related to baal worship, related to issues of sexual immorality. So that’s another angle as to what may be going on here. And his commentary is in the Hermonia series, if you want to look at that.

But we will see that Gomer finds her support from these lovers. And in chapter three, there is a term that’s used that may support this view. Go again. Love a woman who’s loved by Araya, another man. It’s translated, but it may have a different nuance than that. So I do think this view over here is the stronger view, and then you just sort of have to nuance it. But you don’t want to nuance difficulty away. You have to decide in your own context, teaching context, preaching context, how much you need to nuance it.

But don’t take away the problem here. Gomer is a woman involved in sexual unfaithfulness who, it seems, has had children through a variety of these relationships, whether that’s cult prostitution or whether it’s just being supported by lovers, or maybe she’s supported by lovers and is just a part of that sexual degradation that’s going on in the northern kingdom at this time, perhaps sometimes related to baal worship. We just don’t know for sure. But the point of the Book of Hosea is not primarily Hosea and Gomer.

The point of the Book of Hosea is Yahweh and Israel, because this relationship, this covenant relationship between Hosea and Gomer becomes a picture of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. That’s the point. Israel is an adulterous wife who has been unfaithful to the Lord. The marriage relationship is supposed to be an exclusive relationship between husband and wife, with no other relationship coming into that relationship.

And that is a picture of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel to be an exclusive relationship, Israel worshipping Yahweh and Yahweh alone, and no other gods are to come into that relationship. That’s the point of the Book of Hosea. So it’s important that we talk about some of these views, but ultimately, that’s where the book of Hosea is going. Israel has broken the covenant, and the marriage of Hosea and Gomer is a picture of what Israel has become because she has broken the covenant. So that’s the ultimate point.

And then the children that are born to Hosea and Gomer, the names given to those children at chapter one, verses four and following, reflect the judgment that is going to come on God’s people. Verse four.

⁴ And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. ⁵ And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” (Hosea 1:4-5, ESV)

The Lord said to him, this is the son that’s born. Call his name Jezreel. That would have brought to mind another Jezreel, a place where Jehu massacred the sons of Ahab. A massacre at Jezreel. Remember that. There’s going to be another massacre. Because the judgment of God is going to come against his people. There’s going to be another Jezreel. Jehu’s dynasty is going to come to an end. The northern kingdom eventually is going to come to an end. As verses four and five go on to say, I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. Jezreel massacre.

Remember Jezreel, in the past, there will be another one, another massacre, another Jezreel. Judgment. The second child, a daughter, verse six. Call her name. No mercy. Lo Ruhamah. Like to have that name. No mercy. Come over here. God will not show mercy, compassion to his people any longer. It says in verse six,

⁶ She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. (Hosea 1:6, ESV)

No more mercy, no more compassion. And then the third child, verse nine. Call his name Lo Ami. Lo means not; Ami means my people, not my people.

⁹ And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” (Hosea 1:8, ESV)

Covenant terminology. God rejecting his covenant people because of their covenant disobedience, broken covenant, relationship between God and Israel. Now we will see that these names also have a positive counterpart, but we’ll get to that in due course. Here the stress is on judgment. Actually, chapter one ends on a positive note. We’ll come and look at the positive side of the names of these children a little bit later, but we come to chapter two.

Yes, sir, I’ve got questions as far as back to God demanded people not to be honey pleas with the pagans, and it seems like here he commands. Hosea did the exact opposite. Well, but she’s an Israelite, even though she’s prostituted. This is a struggle that people have. She is an Israelite; she’s not a Canaanite, is part of the response. However, she’s living like a Canaanite. But this is to make a point. There is nothing in the law. If Hosea was a priest, this would be problematic according to the law.

There’s nothing in the law that would prohibit a prophet from marrying someone outside of just general standards of morality. But you raise a good question. She’s Israelite, very Canaanite. How could God tell Hosea? That’s the million dollar question. How could God tell Hosea to go marry a woman like this? Part of it is it shows the extent of the depravity. We overthink it virtually. Maybe that. Is there a remnant in the northern kingdom at this time? We don’t know.

Through the judgment of the northern kingdom, God promises a remnant, but it may be that most women in Israel would be this way. So your pool for marriage is not a huge pool. How do you answer that question? Yeah, I can’t give them my email, but it is. Israel is still a part of the covenant community. I think that’s significant. Still a part of the covenant community. So it’s not as if God is. He’s marrying within the covenant. It’s just that within the covenant is weak. But, yeah, that’s kind of the struggle.

You had your hand up the practice of paying off the debt in this way the women would have. That was a very common thing at the time. Possibly prostitution, to pay off a debt. That’s prohibited in the law, which shows you how widespread a practice it might have been. But this is what’s debated: How much was prostitution a part of veil worship? How much was prostitution a part of the whole temple thing? Some want to not deny that it was there, but want to sort of put it at the periphery.

Others, I think, legitimately think it was much more a part of what was going on. So that’s where some of the debate. But it does seem to be a practice in the ancient Near East that if a woman had a vow to pay, one way to do it was through prostitution, and then she could. Yeah, what difference does that make when things are this low? I mean, you have to. The northern kingdom is, you know, we see in the book of Amos they’ve rejected the word of God.

They set up a whole worship system originally that is in dire opposition to the word of God. What hinders them from doing this? If they reject the word of God, there’s nothing there that’s stopping them from participating in these activities. Now, if they’re going to commit themselves to the word of God, then that would be a problem. But Jeroboam, in setting up that worship system, sort of put them on this direction. Let’s go a few minutes in chapter two where there is a trial brought against Israel for adultery.

And what you have in chapter two, actually, is you have the chapter begins with the relationship between Hosea and Gomer. And then somewhere in the middle of that chapter, Hosea and Gomer fade into the background and Yahweh and Israel come to the forefront. So you start talking about Hosea and Gomer, but then all of a sudden you’re talking about Yahweh and Israel. That’s because this whole situation is to be a teaching tool about Yahweh and Israel. So you’ll see that as you read through chapter two. But the chapter two opens with an accusation.

Why don’t you just close that door? An accusation in chapter two, verse four, that the husband, the aggrieved husband and father, is bringing before the court, and he asks the children to participate in accusing their mother in this lawsuit. And the word, this is verse two, actually. Chapter two, verse two. It’s the Hebrew, 2:4. But in English it’s 2:2. Plead with your mother. That word plead is the term that we talked about on the first day of class. Reeve, bring a covenant lawsuit. Bring a charge against your mother.

² “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; (Hosea 2:2, ESV)

That’s the plea he’s bringing: a covenant lawsuit. That’s followed by an admonition. An admonition for the wife to change her way of life, which includes a change of appearance, but also a change of mentality.

If you look at Chapter 2:13, she adorned herself with her ring and jewelry and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord.

¹³ And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord . (Hosea 2:13, ESV)

That’s the problem, a forgetting of Yahweh by Israel. The threat in this lawsuit is the removal of food, clothing, and shelter. In that culture, the husband was responsible to provide food, clothing, and shelter for the wife. That was the husband’s legal responsibility. The threat here is that Hosea is going to take away that provision. Verse three, lest I strip her naked. She has thought that her provision has come from Baal or her other lovers. You see, Gomer has tried to find her provision not from her husband, but from other lovers.

And the parallel is that Israel has thought that her provisions have not come from Yahweh, but have come from Baal or some syncretistic worship of Yahweh and Baal together. Verse eight: She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, the oil, who lavished on her silver and gold which they used for Baal.

⁸ And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. (Hosea 2:8, ESV)

I provided these things, not the lovers, not Baal, but Gomer and Israel believed that these possessions provisions were provided in some other source. And we will see, as this chapter moves on, Baal, the whole concept of Baal is addressed.

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