01: Minor Prophets - Introduction to Hosea

[Dunkle] Welcome, everyone! Glad to have our normal students, and we have the recording class. So, if you’re joining us online, whenever you’re joining us, we’re glad to have you here for the Minor Prophets class at Ambassador Bible College. I’m privileged to get to teach this, and we’re going to go through the twelve Minor Prophets. We’ll talk about that in a bit, but I want to start off with all of you.

Well, actually, before I start off with all of that, I should mention I handed out a syllabus for all of you. Looks a lot like the one I gave you this morning for Bible orientation. The one thing I’ll mention is I plan to do two tests for this class—one about midway through and one near the end—and I’ll produce a study guide to give you sometime fairly soon that’ll help you prepare along the way. And if you have any questions other than that, please feel free to check with me.

But now I want to get back to that question that I was going to at the start, and that is, because this is a class studying twelve of the Minor Prophets, I want to do an introduction and talk about prophecy itself. And we can ask the question, what is prophecy? What is it? We often think of what? The future. Foretelling the future. Would you agree that’s what you think of? Okay, I know we don’t want to do too many questions because you don’t have microphones here and our home audience might miss it.

But I want to define it as something a little bit different. Okay, it might include foretelling the future, but the definition of prophecy I’d like to think of is—and this is going to seem pretty elementary—prophecy is the oral or written message of a prophet. So if a prophet gives you the message, it’s prophecy. That begs another question, am I right? What is a prophet?

Of course. I want to mention, though, some prophets had written messages. We see messages in the Bible. We’re going to start covering Hosea pretty soon. We know Isaiah and Jeremiah. We sometimes use the term literary prophets because they wrote out a work of literature. But there are some prophets mentioned in the Bible who were not literary prophets. Now, I’m not saying they were illiterate. They could probably read and write, but we don’t have a book by them, such as—anybody have an idea? Who would be one? Okay, I can’t hear you either, Junie.

Okay, what about—there’s a prophet named Gad who came to David, you know, when he had some problems. Elijah, a very well-known prophet. We don’t have a book of Elijah. So there are a number of prophets who didn’t leave us a message. But we’re going to focus on the ones who did. But we still have that question, well, what’s a prophet? How do you get to be a prophet? You know, the Bible mentions schools of the prophets, but that’s not what we consider this to be.

Okay, let me give you the definition I want to use. A prophet is a man that God— a man or a woman, we would call her a prophetess—someone who God uses to communicate a message. So God might appear in a vision to Elijah and say, tell My people this. Okay, is that a normal thing? Well, not normal in our day and age, but for getting a message from God, it is.

I’d like you to join me in Deuteronomy chapter 18 to show when this first sort of comes up as God explaining, this is how I’m going to do things. Okay, and this is—Deuteronomy is Moses recounting some of Israel’s history, reminding the current generation what had happened to their fathers and grandfathers. And he reminds them of the time when God spoke from Mount Sinai.

So I won’t read the account of God on Mount Sinai and the mountain shaking and there’s thunder and lightning. And the people were scared. They were scared to death. They were shaken in their shoes. And when it was over, they came to Moses.

Let’s pick up in Deuteronomy 18, verse 16. It says, “According to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die’” (Deuteronomy 18:16).

They came to Moses and said, don’t have God talk to us anymore. It’s going to kill us. It doesn’t say it here, but in Exodus, it said, Moses, you go talk to Him. It’s like, it’s okay if God kills you. I don’t think that’s what they had in mind.

So they had this. And let’s see the answer in verse 17. “And the Lord said to me, ‘What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him’” (Deuteronomy 18:17–18).

Okay, that’s what a prophet is—someone that God gives a message to give to whatever people He wants to have that message. Moses was a prophet in that way. And God is pretty much saying, this is how I’m going to communicate with the people from this time forward. I’m not going to come down on a mountain and cover it with thick cloud and make the earth shake and have people see thunder and lightning and be scared to death. I’ll appear to someone and give them a message.

Now, having said this, I would be negligent if I didn’t mention another scripture. In Acts 3:22, it cites this particular scripture in Deuteronomy to note that Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of this message. So Jesus Christ could be counted as a prophet. So there’s like a dual fulfillment of this prophecy, if you want to call it that.

In the long run, through the ages, God would give His message to a man or a woman to deliver. But He’s also saying there’s going to be the ultimate Prophet, the Messiah, whom I’ll give that message. Okay, so that’s what a prophet is—someone that God’s given a message to communicate. And so the message that they communicate is prophecy.

Another thing I’ll mention sort of to go along with this, Malachi 2:7, mentions that the priests were meant to be messengers of God. So they have the word; they’re supposed to be teachers of the law. And in Malachi, God is a little bit upset that the priests weren’t doing their job properly. As we go through looking at the prophets, we’ll see that it wouldn’t be uncommon for a prophet to be from the priestly family. Jeremiah was a priest and a prophet, as was Ezekiel, and some others that we’ll note.

You don’t need to turn there, but I’ll note from the Minor Prophets also, Amos 3, verse 7. In Amos 3:7 it says, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). So God says, I’m going to give warning ahead of time. When we get to the book of Amos, we’ll talk more about that. But God is planning to use these prophets. But it turns out some people would claim to have a message from God when they did not.

If you’re still open, you have your Bible open to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Look down to verse 20. It says, “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, well, how do we know? How shall we know what the word is that the Lord has not spoken?” (Deuteronomy 18:20-21)

How do you know if a prophet is a true prophet or not? Okay, you’re not children of Israel about to cross the Jordan to have that question, but the question is vital to us because we might ask, how do I know a minister is a true minister of Jesus Christ? How do I know if I should pay attention to their message? The criteria will be pretty much the same. Well, some of the criteria will be the same. He’ll give a message—a criterion here that doesn’t apply to us so much.

In verse 22, it says, “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, which the Lord has not spoken, that prophet spoke presumptuously.” (Deuteronomy 18:22)

Don't be afraid of him. Could say, don't pay attention to him. So, prophecy sometimes is about predicting the future, telling what's going to happen. That sometimes is God's message. And if a prophet says, this is going to happen, and it doesn't happen, false prophet. That’s not so useful for us today. So let’s turn back to chapter 13 of Deuteronomy to see another criterion that is important to us.

Okay, Deuteronomy chapter 13, right at the start of the chapter. “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder” (Deuteronomy 13:1). What’s a sign or a wonder? Probably a miracle. This guy shows up and he does miracles.

Verse 2, “and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them’” (Deuteronomy 13:2). Wow! The guy works a miracle, and then he says, let’s go over and offer a sacrifice to Chemosh, or Baal, or Dagon.

Well, verse 3 says, “you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 13:3).

So one thing we could say is that working a miracle is not the test of whether a prophet is a true prophet. And I’ll say today, in our age, working a miracle is no indication of someone being a true minister, because if they work a miracle but then say, let’s go worship another god, they’re wrong. It could be a test. God might allow it to see if our heart is right. I want to add to this scripture that I love to quote. It’s Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah 8, beginning in verse 19.

“And when they say to you, ‘Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19).

Well, that’s a rhetorical question. Of course people should seek God. Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? No, they shouldn’t.

And then verse 20: “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).

I promise you, this is the first day of ABC classes. By the time we get to May, you’ll get tired of hearing me say, “to the law and the testimony.” Or like me, you’ll think it’s kind of fun. But to the law and the testimony—to God’s Word—if someone doesn’t speak according to this Word, they are not a true prophet, not a true minister. And I’ll say, if someone stands up behind this desk and would start to teach something that doesn’t match this Word, the same applies.

So that’s something I’d say when I was younger, when Mr. Armstrong was still alive—something I heard him commonly say is, don’t believe me, believe your Bible. And I’ll follow on what he said. Don’t believe me. Don’t believe me because I say something. Believe your Bible. And that’s what we study here at ABC. We’re studying the Bible. We’re looking to what it says. That’s the mark of a true prophet. And remember, a prophet is someone bringing a message from God.

I promise I’m going to get to Hosea eventually. Jesus Christ added another criterion that’s worth us considering. I’m not going to turn there, but in Matthew 7 He talks about knowing a tree by its fruits. So in Matthew 7, verse 20, He says, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20).

Like if I see a tree and I’m not sure what it is, but in the fall it has apples on it, it’s probably an apple tree. You can know a person by their fruits. And that includes a prophet or a teacher. So we’ve got those three criteria. A prophet—if he prophesies something and it turns out to be true, that’s a good indication. He’s got to be teaching according to God’s Word. And we can also judge something by that minister’s fruit.

Okay, I’ll mention that in the Hebrew, various Hebrew words were translated “prophet.” And some of them could have been translated into English as “seer,” like someone who sees—a seer. And you see that come up in 1 Samuel, where there’s the story of Saul, before he’s king, looking for his donkeys. And he says, let’s go up to the seer. And he wants to pay a little money to Samuel. And Samuel doesn’t need the money. He tells him they’ve already found the donkeys.

Okay, so that’s a word that comes up. There’s another one. The Hebrew word means announcer, which I like. The Hebrew is nabi, N-A-B-I. We’re familiar with the Greek term, which is where we get the English. The Greek term is prophetes. However you pronounce that—it’s Greek to me. But it means one who speaks with inspiration. So although we’re not getting into New Testament prophecy, sometimes in the New Testament you’ll see prophesying referred to, and it doesn’t have to mean God spoke to them. It could mean someone is inspired by God, and including inspired by God’s Word.

I just wanted to bring that up because, of course, the Old and New Testaments go together, but we’re sticking in the Old for this. So a prophet is a person who is proclaiming or announcing God’s message, giving people what God has on His mind. It might well be foretelling the future. A lot of prophecy is foretelling the future. A lot of prophecy that we’ll study, though, is also indicting people for their sins. We could summarize a lot of the prophetic message in the Bible as saying, you’re sinning. Stop sinning, or I’ll have to punish you. And then God often adds what I call a “yet I” clause—yet I will still bring you back, and I’ll do good things for you. One of the things I love about prophecy in the Bible is that there’s almost always a happy ending. I love happy endings. Okay, so we don’t want to lose sight of that.

Okay, God often will tell something about the future. He’ll reveal what’s going to happen—not always when. And that’s challenging for us. When is it going to happen? The most famous prophecy that we know is going to happen, but we wonder when. I wonder if you’re thinking the same one I am. The return of Jesus Christ. He’s coming when? He’s not going to tell us. Matter of fact, He told us you’re not going to know. So there’s a lot of other prophecies that are like that. We know they’ll happen. We don’t know when. I will note that some prophecies could be what we call conditional prophecies. If this happens, if you do this, this is going to be the result. But many times God will say, if you repent, that bad thing won’t have to happen.

Matter of fact, there’s a nice little rhyme that I like to use. If man will repent, God will relent. So you repent? I’ll relent, and I won’t give you the punishment. Have you ever had your parents do that? You know, maybe not, but some of us have had that.

The best example I can think of in the Bible is when Jonah went to Nineveh, and he says, yet forty days and the city will be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh repented. They changed their ways. They put on sackcloth and ashes, and God relented. He didn’t destroy Nineveh. Not at that time. And as we know, Jonah got a little bit upset about that. We’ll deal with that later.

There’s another type of prophecy that I like to call cause and effect. Cause and effect. And this is my own term, so if it doesn’t match what you find in commentaries, that’s okay. But I think of Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28. We commonly call those chapters the blessing and cursing chapters. And God says, if you do what I tell you to, if you obey Me, you’re going to have this blessing and this blessing and this blessing. The blessings will run you down from behind and take you over.

But if you don’t do what I say, if you disobey, you’re going to have curses. You’ll be cursed here. You’ll be cursed there. So that’s why I say cause and effect. You’re going to get the result. You could also say, what you reap, you will surely sow. You know, what goes up must come down. Well, the Bible doesn’t say that, but it’s in there. Okay, we good on that?

All right, before we jump to Hosea, a couple of things I want to talk about still in the realm of prophecy. Why do we study prophecy? I’ve got a list of some reasons I think are worth studying prophecy. Anybody want to just throw one out? I’ll have to repeat what you say so people watching the video can get it. But this is riveting action if you’re watching on screen. So maybe I’ll just go through, because I’ve got some, I think, some good ones.

Let’s see. Number one, I like to say, to build faith. Okay.

Isaiah 45 verses 4 and 6 tells us this prophecy of what’s going to happen. And then God says, “that you may know that I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me” (Isaiah 45:6).

So it helps build our faith. And it shows that God’s Word is true. I’m going to let you know how I do things and what I’m going to do so that you’ll know. God is trustworthy. He works things out a certain way. Speaking of God being trustworthy, number two on my list is one a lot of people don’t think of, but it’s become my favorite reason to study prophecy. And that’s—well, I’m going to put it this way for my list—to reveal God’s character.

One of the things that I learned, especially the first time I came to teach this class, and I really studied in depth and came to say, I’ve got to explain this, we’ve got to get at it—you get to know God. You get to know that God has feelings. There are times when He’s describing something that Israel did, and He’s really upset. There is a place—I’m trying to remember if it’s Ezekiel or one of the minor prophets—where He says His heart churned within Him. Imagine God having butterflies in His stomach, but He was upset.

And there’s one point where He’s talking about Israel’s infidelity, and God says He was crushed. God was crushed. God has feelings. He made us in His image and likeness, made us to have feelings. And when you spend a lot of time in the prophets seeing what God says, you get to know Him much more than you might in some other places. So I think that’s a powerful reason to study prophecy.

Another one, though, is to reveal God’s plan. Okay, we don’t do two twice. Reveal God’s plan. We could say plan and purpose. But God has a plan for mankind, and He’s got a timetable that He’s going through. I’ll mention two places in Scripture that lay it out step by step more than the others, and that’s the book of Daniel and then the book of Revelation. They give us a chronological order much more than the others. But we get a lot of detail throughout prophecy showing God’s got a plan He’s working out.

Okay, number four. Prophecy can encourage us. Prophecy can be very encouraging because you know what happens in the very end? We win. Good things happen. There is a happy ending.

In my notes, I wrote down Revelation chapter 21, verses 3 and 4, where it says, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3–4).

That’s encouraging. That’s why you always want to note the happy ending and not dwell on the bad stuff beforehand, because there are some scary, unpleasant things in prophecy.

Okay, number five.

Prophecy is there to remind us to obey. We’ve got the law to tell us what to do, but prophecy reminds us we’ve got a good reason to do it. Think again of those blessings and cursings. Okay, if you obey, this is the good thing you get. If you don’t—if you break My law—it’s going to go bad for you. So don’t lose track of that. Remember, obey.

There’s this place in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, where Moses says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

You’ve got both choices, but this is the choice you want to take. It’s like, you ever see something—here’s your choices—keep pushing this choice out. That’s the one I want you to take. Prophecy will do that.

And number six, to keep us expectant. Okay, we want to be watching, looking forward to things. And I noted Matthew 24, starting in verse 42. Christ is talking about—He’s using parables for the end time and His return—and Christ over and over again told His disciples to watch.

“Watch therefore, for you don’t know the hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).

So He wants us to be expectant. He wants us to be watching. And prophecy gives us some idea of what to watch for and why we should be watching, right? So it’s worth studying prophecy. Pretty good reasons, I think. Not necessarily exhaustive. Feel free to add to your list as you think of other reasons.

But before we move on—oh yeah—the next thing I’ve got is talking about the minor prophets. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 19. Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16. It looks like 16, if I can read my handwriting, because I want to focus on a reason that is not a reason to study prophecy.

Okay? Prophecy is good to study. And I teach prophecy classes here, so I study it. I want you to study it. I want you to take it seriously. But we want to keep a clear view of what it’s doing for us and what it’s not. And this story, I think, helps.

Matthew 19:16. Jesus is traveling, doing His ministry. “Behold, one came and said to Him, ‘Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?’ Jesus said, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.’” So He covers that, and He says—but if you want to enter life—

“Keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17).

Which one? He read some of the Ten Commandments. My point is, prophecy is not what gets us in God’s Kingdom. Okay? Knowing and understanding every little bit of prophecy doesn’t deliver us salvation. Now, it might help us, because if we’re building faith and knowing God’s character and all that, it will lead us to do and be what God wants.

But just knowing and understanding prophecy alone does not equal salvation. So don’t study it for that reason. By no means am I telling you to ignore prophecy. We just want to keep it in its proper place. We want to have our priorities. We want to get to know God. We want to understand His plan and purpose. We want to be part of that plan and purpose. But knowledge alone doesn’t do that for us. You know, if I could work out a calculation and say, this is the day Christ will return, that might not do me much good.

But if when Christ returns I’m living His way and His Spirit is in me and I’m becoming like Him, it won’t matter if I was expecting Him or not. And I think you guys get that. So I don’t want to dwell on it much more. I just think that goes with the list of why we do study it—and a big reason not to. All right. Let’s talk a little bit about the minor prophets.

By the way, what I just covered, I also sometimes cover at the beginning of major prophets class. I might not with you guys because we just did it. And my major prophets will be here before we know it. Okay, what are the minor prophets? Well, they’re the twelve last books in the Old Testament in our English version. They are called minor because they’re shorter. They are not minor in importance. Matter of fact, they’re super important. And you could study just the minor prophets and get the same themes and the same lessons and direction that show up in the major prophets. But they’re just shorter.

Okay. These prophets—we’ve got twelve different ones of them. Most of them bear the name of what we think was the writer of the prophecy. They lived in a timeframe spanning from about 800 B.C.—let’s see, I go this way—to about 400 B.C. That’s a long stretch of time. There’s not always at every moment one of the minor prophets getting a message from God and writing, but they overlap. Most of them are doing their job during the time of what we’d call the Assyrian period or the Babylonian period. And of course, the Assyrian Empire is the one that conquered Israel, the northern kingdom.

And then later it fell, and the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah, the southern kingdom. And it’s during the periods when those things are happening that most of these prophets are getting their message from God and writing. Okay, and they overlap the major prophets. So it’s not all one came and then all of the other. They would be intermixed at the time that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel write—and Daniel as well, for that matter.

Joel and Amos are often thought to be the earliest, but we’re not certain. They don’t always give us dates. There’s some speculation. Some scholars think Jonah might be the oldest. Others, Obadiah. I haven’t entered the lottery pool to see which one I think is oldest, because when I meet these men, I’ll ask them who is the oldest. But we know Malachi was the last. Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament. It’s the last book of the Old Testament.

Okay, there are many themes that run through these books. One is Israel’s punishment for sin. I told you the common theme is, Israel, you’re sinning—stop sinning. If you don’t stop sinning, here’s punishment. But restoration is almost always included. I will bring you back. I yet love you. That’s very important. Another important theme is who and what is God. God is the Creator. He’s all-powerful. He is sovereign. Another way we could say that is God rules.

Okay, another important theme that doesn’t appear as often but is very important is the coming of the Messiah. The coming of the Messiah. By the way, in Hebrew it’s Mashiach, however you pronounce it, but it means Anointed One. Hebrew Messiah means the same exact thing as Christos or Christ in Greek. So both mean the Anointed One. The One—sometimes you see the phrase—the Coming One. The One that’s coming from God who will save His people. So there are several prophecies, and I’ll try to point them out as we go because they’re very important.

As we’re going through these minor prophets, the writing—there are a lot of different styles. There is some beautiful poetry, and we’ll talk a little bit about Hebrew poetry. You know, it’s very symbolic. It’s meant to evoke emotion and give you feelings, like English poetry, I suppose. But it’s worth noting Hebrew poetry is different in one important way: it’s not meant to rhyme sounds. You know how in English poetry—roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.

You guys know that one, right? Okay, the sound and the rhythm are important in English poetry. In Hebrew, you rhyme ideas. Or they have what they call parallelism. So you might say an idea, and then you say almost the same idea in different words and stack it up. Or you have—this is one of my favorites to say—antithetical parallelism, where I say something and then there’s something the other direction, so it’s a sharp whiplash-type turn.

What I’m saying is when you translate it to English, it might not look like poetry to us. So experts in Hebrew recognize the poetry and bring some of that out. And that’s sometimes the reason it’ll say something to us when translating and you go, huh? Why is he saying that?

An example that’s not from the prophets, but from the Song of Solomon—“your hair is like a flock of goats.” That’s very poetic in Hebrew. And so Isaiah and Hosea and Amos will give us some very poetic things that we might be saying, well, where’s the “sugar is sweet and so are you” part? Okay, so there is some powerful prose. Prose is writing that’s not poetry—sometimes just telling us a story or narrative.

There are some powerful allegories. An allegory slash metaphor where God is presenting something to help us get an idea of this other something that’s bigger and more important. We’ll see some confusing visions, especially in Zechariah. So it’s good it’ll come near the end of the semester, where it’s like, whoa, what was going on with Zechariah? That was one crazy night. He had eight visions in one night.

Okay, so before we leave this, I’ll say, how did we get the books all together? You know, in the Hebrew version, they appeared on one scroll in many cases. It’s speculated, but many people think that Ezra the scribe is the one that put them together and said, okay, these are part of the Bible, and there might be some others that didn’t make the cut. The Bible doesn’t tell us that, so we don’t know it was Ezra, but it’s commonly thought.

And Ezra is becoming more and more one of my heroes. So I like Ezra. I think he’s really cool, but we won’t talk about him much again in this class because he wasn’t a major prophet or a minor prophet. Boy, that was a fast version getting through introduction, and I’m going to move from that introduction to another introduction.

I’m ready to start talking about Hosea, but if someone has a question that I’ve raised something—although we might hold some questions till later so we don’t have to cut them out of the video. Okay, catch your breath. We’re going to turn to Hosea. Now, for each book, we want to do an introduction, and I’ve found that to try to make sure I’ve covered all my bases, I borrowed something from my English comp course that I took way back in high school and then college. You guys remember the five W’s? The who, what, why, where, when?

So I want to cover the five W’s for each book, and some of it will be pretty brief, but that’ll give us a consistent way of addressing each one of these books. So we’ll do the five W’s for the book of Hosea, starting with who. Who wrote the book? Not the book of love. Thank you for chuckling. You guys—anybody—you know the song? Oh, I wonder, wonder. Okay, yeah. Who wrote the book of Hosea? Probably some dude named Hosea. We believe it was Hosea who wrote it, and that’s widely accepted. That’s fine. But the problem is, what do we know about Hosea? The answer to that is, not much. We don’t know much about Hosea. It says at the beginning of the book he was the son of Beeri. Well, we don’t know anything about Beeri either. So there’s some speculation that he might have been from one tribe or another.

What we do know is what his name means. Hosea is a shortened form of the name Joshua or Yeshua, which you might realize Joshua means Yahweh is salvation. Or if you wanted the traditional, the Eternal is salvation, or salvation is of the Eternal. That’s what Joshua’s name means. Jesus is the Greekified version of that. So this is a short version of the same name as Joshua of the Old Testament, of Jesus of the New Testament, and it has that important meaning: salvation is of the Eternal God.

That’d be a cool name if you’re having a kid you might consider. Anyways, I’m not going to get onto naming your children, so let’s move on to when, since we don’t know a lot more about the who. Hosea was written, it tells us, if you open it up, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Okay, so these kings—well, that’s not helping us a whole lot—but if we want to put it on a timeline, many people think that Hosea started around 795 B.C. and was working until around 720 B.C.

Notice I’m saying around, because dates in ancient times are really tough to adhere to, especially when you get this far back. That’s a period of around seventy years. Even fourteen chapters isn’t much to cover seventy years, so we don’t know if he was writing on and off during all this time or here and there. But it’s during that period. It also mentions King Jeroboam of Israel. So he mentions several kings of Judah, the southern kingdom, and Jeroboam. And I should mention this would be what we would call Jeroboam II.

So there was a Jeroboam I who was one of the ones that split—you know, he was at the time of Rehoboam, who was the son of Solomon—and then Jeroboam led the northern kingdom. Well, this is hundreds of years later, Jeroboam II. And I want to emphasize that because Jeroboam’s reign in Israel was a time of prosperity. The kingdom was doing great. Everybody had jobs. People were buying second cars and condos down in Florida. Well, no, they didn’t know where Florida was, but I mean it was a time of prosperity and relative peace.

And when that happens, you know what people do? They tend to forget about God. They tend to trust themselves. So part of what Hosea is doing is telling people, hey, you should remember God. And I don’t mean that golden calf that the first Jeroboam started. I mean the real God. Okay, so it’s during this period, and it’s the time when the Assyrian Empire is on the rise. And it won’t be all that long after the time of Hosea that the Assyrians do come in, and they will conquer Israel, because Israel doesn’t repent the way God calls on them to do.

Let’s move on to where. Okay, Hosea’s prophecy, as I’ve been saying, is primarily written to the northern kingdom. And I keep saying northern and southern. Maybe I should whip out one of our handy-dandy maps. Okay, I mentioned Jeroboam and Rehoboam split. So down here in purple is the southern kingdom, Judah. The northern kingdom is green. Now, on the map, if you went back in time and visited Israel, it would look like normal land. Thank you. At least Melody smiled.

But okay, so this prophecy is mostly to these folks. We understand that. We don’t know if Hosea was living there or not, because he mentions the southern kingdom. So that’s one of the things I want to know. Hosea—did he have an office somewhere and he sends these letters? Is he traveling around? Well, that’s something we’ll have to ask him when we get the chance.

So let’s move on to why. And I will mention in all the prophets, the why and the what sometimes are difficult to distinguish, but they're the most important things. Okay, so why the book was written, it's largely an indictment of Israel's unfaithfulness to God. Okay, basically saying you're unfaithful. Another way of saying that would be you're worshiping other gods that are indeed not really gods at all. You're worshiping idols, and you're going to be punished for it if you don't stop.

Okay, Israel was having that problem. So there's an indictment of their sin and a promise of punishment. And Hosea, will God go out of his way at least once or twice to say, but Judah is not having that problem. Judah is not going to suffer this punishment not yet. That'll come later, but that's not Hosea's business at this point.

Now, Hosea calls out Israel's sin, mentions the punishment, but he emphasizes something alongside it that many people would say the main theme of Hosea, and I really like this, the main theme is God's unfailing love. Despite Israel's sin, God still loves Israel. Now, some of the other prophets don't mention that as much. By contrast, when we get to Amos, Amos emphasizes repentance. You need to repent. You need to change. Now, Hosea doesn't ignore that, but Hosea's emphasis is that God loves you anyways. Why does that matter so much to us? Why is it so encouraging?

Because I sin. Not on purpose, not willingly, but I have sinned. I occasionally sin. God loves me anyways. I know that because of the way he demonstrates his love to Israel. And it's not just me. It's you. Every single one of you, God loves you. Not because you don't sin. He loves you in spite of your sin. He still loves you. He is willing to forgive you.

And the first part of the book of Hosea, in the first three chapters, God lays out an allegory that's extremely powerful at demonstrating how deep and abiding his love is. That no matter how badly you sin, he doesn't stop loving you. His love is unfailing. I wish I could take credit for that line, but I copied it from some scholar somewhere. Okay, with that in mind, let's say a little bit more about what. Okay, what is Hosea? Well, we talked about his prophecy, but it's the second longest of the minor prophets. And I go out of my way to say that because I used to say it was the longest, and then I counted the pages. Zechariah has 15 pages and Hosea has 14. They're both 14 chapters, but Hosea is a little, little bit shorter. But it's still long compared to some of the prophets that are just one chapter or three chapters. And I think that's par...

Say that in English. One of the reasons it comes first on the list. It's relatively early and it's long, so it comes early. What do we know about Hosea? Scholars who understand the Hebrew say his writing is kind of abrupt. It's not overly polished. He got a C- in English comp or maybe Hebrew comp. I made that part up. But scholars who understand the Hebrew say he changes grammatic... grammatical styles. He changes voice and gender, sometimes erratically. Now, voice and gender are... especially gender doesn't come through in our English, but if you've studied a romance language and you understand gendered pronouns and nouns, well, that's in Hebrew. And Hosea seems to just jump back and forth. Like I said, maybe he got a C- in grammar school. That doesn't make the writing any less powerful or effective. It's just that Hosea is not the Shakespeare of the Bible. We call Isaiah that because his writing was really, really good. Hosea, not so much. Okay, some more about the what. Chapters 1 and 3 are written in prose, meaning it's just normal writing. Something happened. All the rest is poetry. So chapters 1 and 3 will focus on a little bit differently. And that's where the allegory comes out, which is... will start pretty soon. Some scholars have called Hosea a tragic love story, but with a happy ending.

I've looked at it and said, well, how happy is the ending? I'm not certain for Hosea, but in what it represents for us, certainly a happy ending. Okay, so it begins with this allegory. That's chapters 1 through 3. Then there's several chapters. Chapters 4 through 13 spend time talking about Israel's sin and punishment. That's a lot of chapters on sin and punishment. I'm happy they're short chapters. And in chapter 14, he turns to focusing on the restoration to come. It's going to get better. Things will pick up. It's great. Okay. I should have talked a little slower. We'd get to the bell. But that's okay. We've got a moment or two to cover the first verse. Okay, so are you open to Hosea chapter 1? It's a lot of what we've covered.

“The Word of the Eternal came to Hosea.” Reminds me earlier, I said the Bible says it's God speaking. He's a prophet because the Word came to Hosea, the son of Beery. “In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, and the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.” (Hosea 1:1)

So at some point, God calls Hosea. Bring, bring picks up his phone. I got a message for you. Well, we don't know how it happened. You know, there are times when God, the prophet will say, I saw a dream and an angel came and spoke to me, or I saw a vision of God on his throne. We get different descriptions, or sometimes it's just the Word came to me. How did the Word come?

Well, we don't know, but it did, and we're going to get into it because one of the most, the first things in verse two, “when the Lord began to speak by Hosea,” so they've established a relationship. You know, Hosea, you're a prophet. I got a job for you. I got something I want you to do. Go marry a prostitute. As it says in verse two, “go take yourself a wife of harlotry.” (Hosea 1:2)

There are many euphemisms in the English language for someone who's a prostitute, a whore, a harlot. I would open it up, but that probably wouldn't be the best. Can you imagine what Hosea was thinking? What? You want me to go, you want me to marry a prostitute? Is this really God? You know, I thought we weren't supposed to do that kind of thing.

Okay, keep that in mind how shocking that might have been, and I wonder what was it like for the woman that he marries? Because she has this guy who maybe he's known as a prophet. Everybody knows Hosea is a prophet. Good guy. When you were in high school, did you have people who knew you went to church and you're religious? And so you've got that reputation. They don't cuss in front of you. They don't talk about certain things. And if you started hanging out with a harlot, people would say, what's going on here? Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe I'm reaching. That's way out of line. We wouldn't do that. Okay, but God is going to have Hosea do this for a very particular reason.

Actually, before we wrap up, we'll see. He tells him the reason. “Take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry.” For that could sometimes be translated to say, “because the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.”(Hosea 1:2)

Okay, the reason I'm having you do this, Hosea, is you're representing my relationship with Israel. And Israel is committing adultery. We'll see this as a common theme in the prophets. Adultery as a symbol of idolatry. It happens so often. I got curious. Do those words sound as much alike in Hebrew? And no, they don't. They don't sound anything alike. But in English, adultery, idolatry are similar. So it makes it in some ways easier to remember. God's relationship with Israel was symbolized as a marriage. And in Pentateuch class, we cover that when God brought Israel to Mount Sinai, he has Moses take a proposal. I want to be your God and you'll be my people. It's like saying, will you marry me? And what did Israel say? Yes, I will marry you. And they had a ceremony and now their husband and wife. And Israel cheated on the marriage. Tell you what, let's stop there. We'll pick this up in the next class and talk more about what happens when Hosea marries a prostitute and what God has him do because we're going to learn more about God's relationship with Israel. So we'll stop there. We'll pick that up next time.