Hosea

INTRODUCTION THE MINOR PROPHETS: This term “Minor Prophets” came in the septuagenarian version and in the Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew version. This nomination is not due to a lesser importance of those prophets among the other prophets of the Old Testament, but to the small size of their books of prophecy. The Jews gave so much importance to those books that they put them together in one book as they serve one integral goal. That is covering the dark period through which both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, lived, whether prior to the captivation of Israel by Assyria or the captivation of Judah by Babylon, during those periods of captivation, and after them. We have already distributed the periods of those prophets’ ministries over the long captivation period. HOSEA: “Hosea” is a Hebrew word meaning (Jehovah saves), from which the name “Joshua” or “Jesus” was derived. “Hosea” was one of the prophets before the captivity who witnessed the captivation of Israel or the fall of Samaria by Assyria in the year 722 B.C. He was also a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah (See Hosea 1: 1; Isaiah 1: 1), Micah in Judah; and Amos in Israel. Mentioning ‘Ephraim’, does not refer to the tribe of Ephraim alone, but to the northern kingdom of Israel as a whole. Yet mentioning it 36 times, would probably hint that he was a citizen of Mount Ephraim. Hosea is considered a prophet of Israel. The fact that his prophecies sometimes include Judah is explicable as it is claimed that he lived his last days in Judah and prophesied there. CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS POROPHECY: 1. This book gives us an idea about the extent of the ethical and religious collapse that prevailed after the second reign of Jeroboam II. In his prophecies, there is a clear echo of the chaos events, murders, idolatry, pride and adultery. The prophecy also describes the situation of spiritual stagnancy that prevailed over the people of all levels, whether the religious and civil leaderships, or the general congregation, who forgot the Lord (Hosea 13: 6). Those circumstances led Hosea to talk about Israel as a land: “For like a wanton this land is unfaithful to the Lord” (Hosea 1: 2); “There is no good faith or mutual trust, no knowledge of god in the land” (Hosea 4: 1); “Therefore the land shall be dried up” (Hosea 4: 3) etc… Israel became ‘land’ and ‘ashes’ because of its corruption. Hosea concentrated in several locations on its deprivation of the knowledge of God (Hosea 4: 1, 6; 5: 4; 6: 3, 6); although he, in faithfulness, betrothed it to himself, so as to make it know the Lord (Hosea 2: 20). 2. The prophet Hosea was contemporary of six kings of Israel and of about eleven years during which the throne was vacant; as indicated by his words: “Well may they say, “We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord” (Hosea 10: 3) Because of those unsettled situations and because of the nearby Assyrian attack, his prophecy came with such harsh and concise words. FEATURES OF THE BOOK: 4 1. the most important feature of this book of Hosea is revealing the relationship of the Lord with His people. Although it likened Israel to a harlot wife, it revealed God’s longing for humanity as being His bride, with whom He seeks to unite, to live together with Him in His heavens, His unique house of matrimony, and to give Him children who are holy in the truth. She is the one bride! All believers are members in that one bride, to whom He talks, not as individuals assembled, but as members of one body! Because the relationship between God and humanity is based upon the personal internal relationship binding God to man, He commands us, saying “When you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place…” (Matthew 6: 6). However, this relationship is not based upon isolated individualism, but God encounters us as being members of His holy bride. That is why He provided us with His “Lord’s prayer” as a living model of the accepted prayer, in which we do not find a single individual supplication; but each member prays in the name and to the account of the whole congregation. It says “Our Father who art in heaven”, and not ‘My Father’; “Give us this day our bread of the morrow”, and not ‘my bread’; and “Forgive us our trespasses”, and not ‘my trespasses’, and so on. It is as though the Lord provides us, through this prayer, with a collective spiritual way of thinking; abolishing any tendencies of isolation. This tendency is confirmed not only in the book of Hosea, but also in the entire Holy Bible, especially in the books of the prophets. Here, the prophet talks about Israel as one congregation, committed to a collective holy life in the Lord; counting the tendency to selfishness and isolation as their major sin; saying: “For, like a wild ass that has left the herd, they have run to Assyria” (Hosea 8: 9) 2. If this book introduces the people of God as His bride; yet she was inflicted with a sickness (Hosea 5: 13), and being her Groom, He approaches her as the true Physician, who alone, can cure her (Hosea 14: 4). So promising her, He had to expose to her the nature and extent of her sickness, that once she realizes the seriousness of her condition, she would accept from His hand the scalpel that cuts to cure; and that hurts to bring comfort. In short, we can set the broad lines of the sickness of the people as introduced by the book of Hosea in the following points: First: The lack of knowledge: “My people destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4: 6). Sin has corrupted the insight of both the congregation and their shepherds. Everyone has become like blind, unable to behold God and recognize His secrets. If this book, in its essence, is a call to repentance and returning to God in order to enjoy life with Him, through rising from the death of sin (6: 2) it would be through knowing Him (6: 3). Have the knowledge of the bride raised from the dead to live in the bosom of her groom – the grantor of resurrection. That is why we should not marvel to hear Him confirm to His bride, who is sick with the lack of knowledge: God desires “not wholeofferings but the knowledge of God” (Hosea 6: 6). Second: The attachment to the land: Israel’s lack of knowledge of its heavenly groom has drawn it to another, namely to the ‘Baal’ through whom it bowed with all its energies to the carnal lusts and the love of the earthly things, that it became itself a ‘land’. That is why He calls it ‘land’ instead of ‘Israel’; saying: “For like a wanton this land is unfaithful to the Lord” (Hosea 1: 2). It forsook the Heavenly, to be confined to the earthly; and, instead of having a heavenly heart, it turned into a ‘land’, in which case the 5 heavenly Physician is needed, who alone, can bring it back from that corrupt nature. “I will heal their apostasy” (Hosea 14: 4) Third: Its loss of fulfillment: Bowing toward the land, with the assumption that it would enjoy temporal pleasures, it did not realize that it was actually losing every pleasure and fulfillment to become in bitterness, hunger, and thirst. God diagnosed its sickness saying: “They shall eat but never be satisfied, behave wantonly but their lust will never be overtaxed, for they have forsaken the Lord” (Hosea 4: 10); “Israel sows the wind and reaps the whirlwind” (Hosea 8: 7); and, “Their root is withered, and they yield no fruit” (Hosea 9: 16). Instead of the hear rejoicing fruit, “thorns and thistles grow over her altars” (Hosea 10: 8). Instead of delight, they taste bitterness: “Litigation spreads like a poisonous weed along the furrows of the fields” (Hosea 10: 4). As to the true groom, namely God, His fruit is sweet (Songs 2: 3), His words are sweet (Psalms 119: 103), His light is sweet (Ecclesiastes 11: 7), even His yoke is sweet to the soul (Matthew 11: 30). Fourth: The disability of differentiation: The desire of the heart of the heavenly groom is to see His bride like Him, bearing His Holy Spirit, that of wisdom and distinction. Having rejected Him, and bowed down to feed on the dust, it would never feel saturated. It became a “wild as a heifer” (Hosea 4: 16), a “silly senseless pigeon” (Hosea 7: 11). About the princes of Judah, He says that they became like those “who remove their neighbor’s boundary” (Hosea 5: 10) which means that they removed the distinctive marks between the kingdom of God and that of the devil, between the worship of the living God and that of ‘Baal’, and between the good and the evil. They lost the spirit of distinction commanded by God: “between sacred and profane, between clean and unclean” (Leviticus 10: 10); and “between living creatures that may be eaten and living creatures that may not be eaten” (Leviticus 11: 47). Fifth: Nonchalance: Every weakness would draw the bride to another weakness, and every sin would cast her into another sin. Losing the spirit of distinction, leads to a loss of seriousness in life and of the longing for eternity, this would make one walk carelessly for anything. Man would hear the voice of God calling him without responding (Hosea 7: 1, 2). Sixth: Pride: “Israel’s arrogance cries out against him” (Hosea 5: 5). Instead of submitting to God in abidance and accepting His counsel to be healed, Israel chose its destiny by its own mind, resorted to others than its healing Groom. “When Ephraim found that he was sick, Judah that he was covered with sores, Ephraim went to Assyria, he went in haste to the Great King; but he has no power to cure you or to heal your sores” (Hosea 5: 13). In all their affairs, they refused to humble themselves before God: “They make kings, but not by my will; they set up officers, but without my knowledge” (Hosea 8: 4). Seventh: Seeking His gifts, and not to unify with Him: As much as God proclaimed His love for His bride though being a harlot, to make her holy anew, and even while angry with her because of her increasing evils, He says: “My heart is changed within me, my remorse kindles already” (Hosea 11: 8). Israel, His bride, met His flaring jealousy with great unconcern. When she cried out to God in hardship, He says, “There is no sincerity in their cry to me; for all their howling on their pallets and gashing of themselves over corn and new wine, they are turning away from me”. (Hosea 7: 14) It is 6 as if they as for His gratuity and not for their uniting with Him. They ask Him to save them, yet would not give Him their hearts. These are some of the symptoms of the sickness in the beloved patient, as revealed by her true Physician, neither to expose her, nor to justify His chastisements against her, but to bring her back to Him by love. 3. Seeing how the people have diverted to the worship of Baal, and plunged into its rites, including drinking wine and eating cakes made of discs of pressed raisins and figs. Hosea saw that, instead of being a holy vine, or a blessed fig tree (Hosea 8), the people have become raisins and figs eaten to the account of the demons. What brings grief to the heart of God is that what should have been holy for Him, became unclean and used for evil. What should have brought pleasure to Him, brought joy to the devil. The Lord says, “I came upon Israel like grapes in the wilderness, I looked on their forefathers with joy like the first ripe figs; but they resorted to Ball-peor and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame” (Hosea 9: 10). When God sees His church – the new Israel – as a vineyard in the middle of a barren wilderness; or as a virgin fig tree among the world fruitless trees, He rejoices in her, and says: “The green figs will ripen on the fig trees and the blossom vines give forth their fragrance.” (Songs 2: 13) It is His own fig tree and His own vineyard! Yet, unfortunately, it sometimes presents itself as food for His enemy – Baal Peor, namely, “master or lord of abominations”. Instead of presenting herself to her true Planter, who watered her with His precious blood, and refreshed her with His Holy Spirit, being the Firstfruit of the whole humanity, she delivers herself to abomination, to become a corrupt grape and fig! That is why He says: “I will ravage the vines and the fig-trees, which she says are the fee with which her lovers have hired her, and turn them into jungle where wild beasts shall feed” (Hosea 2: 12). 4. The sin of Israel at that time concentrated more on the worship of Baal, with what it included: of practicing magic, adultery, and all kinds of abominations. It also tended toward leaning upon the human arm. This way it entered into a continuous debate between being allied to the Pharaoh of Egypt or the king of Assyria, to have the support of the one against the other. The prophet Hosea was a contemporary when Israel made an alliance with Assyria against Egypt; as well as when it cast itself into the bosom of the Pharaoh of Egypt against the king of Assyria. In either ways, Israel did not resort to God by repentance and returning to him through a holy life, but it leant upon the human arm instead, and rejected its true King. It became like a nation with no king, or as though it has chosen for it kings according to her own whims, which do not walk according to the Spirit of God. “Well may they say, ‘We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord; and what can the king do for us?’” (Hosea 10: 3). Also: “But Israel is utterly loathsome; and therefore he shall run before the enemy. They make kings, but not by my will; they set up officers, but without y knowledge” (Hosea 8: 3, 4) 5. Having sometimes resorted to the Pharaoh of Egypt to support it against the king of Assyria, instead of resorting to God, God rebukes Israel, reminding it of the time when He saved it from the bondage of Pharaoh, when he was just a child. God brought it out to the wilderness to shepherd it by Himself, brought it to the promised land, and set for it fortified cities. How could it now get back to Pharaoh to seek his protection?! The Lord admonishes His people, saying: “When Israel was a boy, I loved him; I called my son out of Egypt” (Hosea 11: 1). “Their guilt will be remembered and their sins 7 punished. They shall go back to Egypt, or in Assyria they shall eat unclean food” (Hosea 8: 13, 14) “For look, they have fled from a scene of devastation: Egypt shall receive them, Memphis shall be their grave” (Hosea 9: 6). “He makes treaty with Assyria and carries tribute of oil to Egypt” (12: 1) “Yet I have been the Lord your God since your days in Egypt; I wil make you live in tents yet again, as in the old days” (12: 9) 6. The book of Hosea is one of the most prominent books of the Holy Bible that deals with the issue of ‘repentance’, and demonstrates its concepts, especially in its last chapter. This book is characterized by a spirit of hope, given to all sinners amid divine threats of firm and bitter chastisements; saying: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us and will heal us, he has struck us and he will bind up our wounds” (Hosea 6: 1). In the first chapter, God threatens to chasten them and not to have mercy, to forsake them, and warning them that neither they will be His people anymore, nor will He be their God. Then, in the same talk, He gets back to open before them the door of hope saying: “The Israelites shall become countless as the sands of the sea which can neither be measured nor numbered; it shall no longer be said, ‘They are not my people’, they shall be called Sons of the Living God” (Hosea 1: 10). With all love, He says about His rebellious bride (Israel): “But now listen, I will woo her, I will go with her into the wilderness and comfort her” (Hosea 2: 14). As to the subject of her hope is the Lord Christ who grants her the resurrection at the dawn of the third day: “After two days he will revive us, on the third day he will restore us, that in his presence we may live… whose justice dawns like morning light”(Hosea 6: 2, 3). He will grant us His Holy Spirit in the fullness of time “like spring rains that water the earth” (Hosea 6: 3). If this book has demonstrated how far the people have reached in their evil until they came to be in a state of near death, yet the curtain has not yet fallen in this chapter, but the prophet reveals the greatness of the salvation granted to us, that would swallow death to the end. He said, “Oh, for your plagues, O death! Oh, for your sting, Sheol!” (Hosea 13: 14) 7. On the one hand, God connects between His firm chastisements and the hope open before all sinners, lest anyone would fall in despair. On the other hand, God, while proclaiming His unlimited love for His people, reveals His bitterness because of their betrayal. Although He loves His bride, yet He does not accept her betrayal, and would never truce her. He seeks her hand, sanctifying her from spiritual adultery. By this, He takes away from sinners any probability of taking the sin lightly. Neither would the firmness of God close the door before hope, nor would His love lead us to slothfulness. 8. Man’s betrayal to His God cannot be separated from his betrayal to his fellow man (Hosea 4: 1-4). Betrayal is a nature that, if one falls in it, he would practice it, even in his relationship with himself! Hence, the repentance of man, and his return to God, does not imply a mere change in his outer behavior, but also an inner change that touches the inner nature of man. He says, “Sow for yourselves in justice, and you will reap what loyalty deserves” (Hosea 10: 12). I pray that the Lord Christ Himself would sow the true righteousness, so that we would reap His goodness in us, and would bear His features working inside us. THE BOOK OF HOSEA AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: 8 This book spoke often about the knowledge of God who brought the following charge against His people: “no knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4: 1). He considered the sin of harlotry that prevailed among them, as connected to, and caused by their lack of knowledge of God; saying: “For a wanton spirit is in them, and they care nothing for the Lord” (Hosea 5: 4). To the priests, He concentrated on the same charge, saying, “My people destroyed for lack of knowledge. You have rejected knowledge and I will reject you from serving me as priest.” (Hosea 4: 6) Because of their lack of knowledge, God did not receive their sacrifices or offerings: God desires “not wholeofferings but the knowledge of God” (Hosea 6: 6). This is regarding the negative aspect. Regarding the positive aspect, this book, being a book of the spiritual matrimonial unity between God and His people, proclaims the goal of this unity: “I will betroth you to myself forever, betroth you in lawful wedlock with unfailing devotion and love; … you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2: 20). The church acquires this knowledge through its enjoyment of the resurrection together with its Savior, according to His words “On the third day he will restore us, that in his presence we may live. Let us humble ourselves, let us strive to know the Lord” (Hosea 6: 2, 3). We would hopefully acquire the knowledge of God in us, to hear Him say: “But I have been the Lord your God since your days in Egypt” (Hosea 13: 4). So, what does it mean, “To know God”? This knowledge presented by God to His bride, raised up from the dead, who is the ultimate goal of His unity with her. The unity without which, He would reject the priests and would not receive the offerings of the people. Our study of this book will give us a clear answer to this question. What is to be confirmed here is that the knowledge of God does not mean a mere recognition of Him. It is neither through a bare dogmatic mental study, nor through a realization of His divine secrets by human logic. On the contrary, it is recognizing Him through uniting with Him in Jesus Christ. It is realizing the secrets of His love and care, which work in our life. Knowing Him is sharing His exalted divine features and entering into His hidden glories… Or, in short – according to St. Erinaos it is: “Lifting man up to the life of God1”. According to St. Clement of Alexandria it is entering into: “The perfection of Christ2”. If God is dwelling in an unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6: 16), and no one is able to see His face (The book of prophet Ezekiel 33: 20), then we cannot recognize His nature, as it is beyond our comprehension. However, according to the saying of St. Erinaos, God makes Himself known to us, proclaiming Himself through His condescension, granting this great gift to His elect, according to the richness of His exalted grace. “Although no man can behold God, yet, wishing for men to behold Him, He lets Himself be seen by the elect, when and in the way He chooses3”. If we cannot lift ourselves up to comprehend His high secrets, He, in His love, gets down, proclaiming Himself inside us and setting His kingdom within us to let us comprehend the incomprehensible and the unutterable things. St. Clement of Alexandria said: “The pious, knowledgeable Christian Gnostic can realize what others could not, because he believes that there is nothing unrealizable for the Son of God and nothing that could not 1 Adv. Haer. 5: 9: 1. 2 Strom. 4: 21. 3 Adv. Haer.4: 20: 5. 9 be learned. So, He who suffered for the sake of loving us, would not keep from us any knowledge necessary for our edification1”. He also says, “Whoever believes in the Word, would know the truth of things, as the Word is the Truth2”. St. Oghris says, “Know that the Holy Spirit would not make Himself known through watching the carnal beings, nor through contemplating in the spiritual ones. On the contrary, it is through the condescension of grace in the soul, to provide that knowledge… While the creation came to being from naught, the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is essential and incomprehensible3”. Moses desired to see God face to face, and said to Him: “Show me thy glory” (Exodus 33: 18). God responded: “My face you cannot see, for no mortal man may see me and live” (Exodus 33: 20). However, that does not mean the deprivation of man of encountering God and seeing His glory, for God has found a solution to that. He said to Moses: “Here is a place beside me”. It is as though He says to him, ‘The door is open for you to realize your heart’s desire! I have prepared for you a place where you can see me and get to know me’ … What was that place by God? “Take your stand on the rock and when my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33: 20-23) Our teacher the apostle Paul said that the rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10: 4). The Lord Christ is the place for the prophet Moses or for humanity, through which the Father can be seen. It is said about the Christ: “God’s only Son, he who is nearest to the Father’s heart, he has made him known” (John 1: 18). The Lord Himself says, “No one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son may choose to reveal him” (Matthew 11: 27). So, we can recognize the Father in the Lord Christ, the Son. Therefore, let us enter together with the prophet Moses into the cleft of the Rock, namely, into the inside of Christ, the Rock of ages, through His pierced side, in order to get in touch with the heart of His fire flaring love, to realize the work of His exalted grace and to comprehend His secrets toward us. Let us recognize the Father and behold Him in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through the holy inner insight, namely, by the pure heart, according to the promise of the Lord: “How blest are those whose hearts are pure; they shall see God” (Matthew 5: 8). We can recognize and behold God by the true holiness, whereas by sin, our insight would be blind and we would not be able to recognize Him. By sin we would be counted unworthy to be known by Him. That is how knowledge is connected to the holy life, both in worship and behavior. Father Oghris says about that: “If you are a Theologian (namely a Gnostic), you would be truly praying; and if you truly pray, you would be a Theologian4”. Besides, as said by St. Anthony: “Whoever knows God, would be good. And in case someone is not good, that would mean that he does not know God, and is not known by God, as goodness is the only way to know God5”. St. Mark the Hermit says: “If you love knowledge, you should love work as well, because knowledge without work 1 Strom. 6: 8. 2 Strom 2: 4. 3 Ep. 29. 4 Treat. On Prqyer 60. 170 نصًا عن حیاة القداسة. ، 5 الفیلوكالیا (ترجمة الفمص تادرس یعقوب)، طبعة 196 10 puffs man up1”. He also says, “If you wish to be saved and to reach the knowledge of the Truth, admonish yourself to exalt above the sensed things and hold fast, hoping for God alone2”. Moreover, St. Clement of Alexandria says, “By the Son, we would enjoy love and recognize the Father, who is Love; as the like is known by the like3”. By that, we may know God – By uniting with Him in Jesus Christ who sanctifies us by His Holy Spirit, granting us the enlightened spiritual insight, to recognize the exalted secrets. That would be a life we live with God, and with which we get practically in touch. THE BOOK OF HOSEA AND THE NEW TESTAMENT: The New Testament quoted much from this book. For instance: 1. In the epistle to the Romans, it came: “As it says in the Book of Hosea: ‘Those who were not my people I will call My People, and the unloved nation I will call My Beloved” (Romans 9: 25; Hosea 9: 10). 2. In the gospel of Matthew it came: “And there he stayed till Herod’s death. This was to fulfill what the Lord had declared through the prophet: ‘I called my son out of Egypt’” (Matthew 2: 15; Hosea 11: 1). 3. The Lord says, “I require mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9: 13; 12: 7; Hosea 6: 6). 4. In a talk by the apostle Paul concerning the resurrection of the Lord Christ, working in us, he says, “Oh Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15: 55; Hosea 13: 14). 5. In the book of Revelation, it came: “They called out to the mountains and the crags, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne’” (Revelation 6: 16; Hosea 10: 8). THE BOOK OF HOSEA AND THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL: Both prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were influenced by the prophet Hosea and quoted from his writings. The prophet Jeremiah was influenced by what the prophet Hosea revealed about the relationship of God with His people as being like that between a groom and His bride. Hosea also showed that sin destroys this matrimonial unity and, thus, abolishes the voice of joy and turns the land into desolation. So, it came in Jeremiah’s book: “From the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem I will banish all sounds of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride; for the land shall become desert” (Jeremiah 7: 34), (See also Jeremiah 16: 9; 25: 10). Ezekiel as well quoted the same thought, saying: “I will silence the clamor of your songs, and the sound of your harps shall be heard no more” (Ezekiel 26: 13). While Hosea says, “I will put a stop to her merrymaking, her pilgrimages and new moons, her sab-baths and festivals… I will woo her, I will go with her into the wilderness and comfort her… I will betroth you to myself forever.” (Hosea 2: 11, 14, 19) In the book of Ezekiel, God admonishes His people who took from His hands gifts and blessings, and used them to the account of evil: “You took the splendid . 1 المرجع السابق، ص 135 . 2 المرجع السابق، ص 142 3 Strom 5: 13. 11 ornaments of gold and silver which I had given you, and made for yourself male images with which you committed fornication. You covered them with your robes of brocade and offered up my oil and my incense before them. You took the food I had given you, the flour, the oil, and the honey, with which I had fed you, and set it before the as an offering of soothing odor.” (Ezekiel 16: 17, 19). Those were the same words, which God used to admonish His people in the book of Hosea. (2: 8, 9) In Ezekiel, God also talks about the east wind that dried the fruitage of the land, that is it corrupted Israel, it dried and broke its strong branches and consumed it by fire (Ezekiel 19: 12). Hosea spoke about the same east wind: “Though he flourishes among the reeds, and east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord, rising over the desert; Ephraim’s spring will fail and his fountain run dry. It will carry away as spoil his whole store of costly treasures.” (Hosea 13: 15) Ezekiel also quoted Hosea’s description of Israel as a dry land deprived of the rain that waters the soul, meaning that it is deprived of the work of the Holy Spirit: “Now it is replanted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land” (Ezekiel 19: 13). In Hosea it came: “I will make her bare as the wilderness, parched as the desert” (Hosea 2: 3). Jeremiah talked to us about the salvation granted to Israel through David, their king, that is through “the Son of David – the Savior Messiah” (Jeremiah 30: 9). This was confirmed by Ezekiel after him (Ezekiel 34: 23), and preceded by Hosea in (3: 5). THE BOOK OF HOSEA FROM A LITERATURE STANDPOINT: 1. This book came poetic in most of its parts, with short and concentrated sentences and expressions like serious, quick, and strong warnings, against an eminent danger. 2. This book is packed with analogies like: fire (8: 14), light (6: 5), water (5: 10), rain (6: 2), morning cloud and early dew (6: 4; 13: 3), moth (5: 12), rottenness (5: 12), lion and young lion (5: 14), lion, leopard, and bear (13: 7, 8), wild donkey (8: 9), birds of the air (7: 12, 9: 11), silly dove (7: 11), eagle 8: 11), sparrow (11: 11), wind and whirlwind (8: 7), cloud, dew, and smoke (13: 3; 14: 4), loved for reward (9: 1), a woman in childbirth (13: 13), a snare and a net (5: 1; 7: 12), an oven (7: 4-7), bow (7: 16), a miscarrying womb and dry breasts (9: 14), Lily (14: 5), an olive tree (14: 6), grain, vine, and wine (14: 7), the green forests of Lebanon (14: 5):thorns (9: 6), ... DIVISIONS OF THE BOOK: 1. The situation in Israel 1 : 3 2. The Lord brings charges against His people 4 : 10 3. Chastisement with the shining of salvation 11 : 13 4. The fruits of repentance 14