Hosea 1

Marriage, Children, and Signs of Judgment

5 passages

Overview

God commands Hosea to take an unfaithful wife as a living embodiment of Israel's betrayal of the covenant, and the three children born to them receive names — Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, and Lo-Ammi — that announce escalating divine judgment on the northern kingdom, while a closing oracle astonishingly reverses those same names into a promise of restoration and renewed covenant identity.

Passages

1The Word Breaks Into History 2–5The Marriage Command and the Birth of Jezreel 6–7The Birth of Lo-Ruhamah: Mercy Withdrawn from Israel, Granted to Judah 8–9The Birth of Lo-Ammi: Israel Disowned by God 10–11From "Not My People" to Sons of the Living God

Study Resources

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Hosea 1

¹Yahweh’s word that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

²When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

³So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.

⁴Yahweh said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. ⁵It will happen in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

⁶She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.

⁷But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Yahweh their God, and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.”

⁸Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

⁹He said, “Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I will not be yours. ¹⁰Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ¹¹The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Hosea 2