The following is the results of your search for Hosea, Prophecies of.
Hosea, Prophecies of: 1. This book stands first in order among the "Minor Prophets." "The
probable cause of the location of Hosea may be the thoroughly
national character of his oracles, their length, their earnest
tone, and vivid representations." This was the longest of the
prophetic books written before the Captivity. Hosea prophesied in a
dark and melancholy period of Israel's history, the period of
Israel's decline and fall. Their sins had brought upon them great
national disasters. "Their homicides and fornication, their perjury
and theft, their idolatry and impiety, are censured and satirized
with a faithful severity." He was a contemporary of Isaiah.
2. The book may be divided into two parts
a. The first containing chapters 1-3 and symbolically representing
the idolatry of Israel under imagery borrowed from the
matrimonial relation. The figures of marriage and adultery are
common in the Old Testament writings to represent the spiritual
relations between Jehovah and the people of Israel. Here we see
the apostasy of Israel and their punishment, with their future
repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.
b. The second part, containing 4-14 is a summary of Hosea's
discourses, filled with denunciations, threatenings,
exhortations, promises, and revelations of mercy.
4. As regards the style of this writer, it has been said that "each
verse forms a whole for itself, like one heavy toll in a funeral
knell."
a. "Inversions
(Hosea 7:8; 9:11,13; 12:8)
b. anacolutha
(Hosea 9:6; 12:8) etc.,
c. ellipses
(Hosea 9:4; 13:9) etc.,
d. paranomasias, and plays upon words, are very characteristic of
Hosea
(Hosea 8:7; 9:15; 10:5; 11:5; 12:11)
