Hosea’s Marriage as an Object Lesson
3006.—W. F.—Hosea 1:2 is considered by eminent scholars and expositors to be simply a figurative description of what Hosea himself saw in vision; that in that degree he went through an experience which he tells to Israel who had proved false to God, in a way to win them to Him. There are others who think that the prophet married a woman who was a pure woman when he married her, but she afterward became corrupt even as Israel left the Lord. Upon the prophet was placed a great burden, and a striking lesson for the children of Israel. If the lesson was a natural object-lesson, it would show what God’s prophets themselves had to suffer in order that they might the more forcibly bring the truth to His children. As to whether it was literal, or a parable revealed to Hosea in vision which he told the people as a reality, we have no certain means of knowing. We may be sure of this, that the prophet was told to do nothing that was in any wise wrong. The course that he pursued was under the explicit direction of the Lord. Certain it is, too, that the relationship which he reveals as existing between himself and his wife was a picture of the relationship which existed between God and the children of Israel. As she is represented as proving false to Hosea, so were the children of Israel proving false to God. The whole thing was given with a view of bringing them back to obedience to the commandments of the Lord. There is no evidence in the record in either way to show that Hosea transgressed the seventh commandment.