Hosea 3:1
Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
Hosea stands first among the Minor Prophets. Its name means salvation. Its writer was the last of the great prophets of the northern kingdom of Israel.
He lived about two hundred years before Daniel and was contemporary with Isaiah, prophesying in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam II in Israel. His prophecy was written about 750 B.C. The verse belongs to the account of his painful personal history, which symbolizes Jehovah's separation from Israel.
It lays bare the moral condition of the Israelites, standing within a warning of certain desolation in which people, priests, and princes are all guilty of gross iniquity. Its message warns against wicked alliances. It predicts the coming captivity of that kingdom with great definiteness.
Beyond those apostasies in Israel it looks forward to the time when the Lord shall restore His people, in a message full of hopeful remonstrance, tender expostulation, and earnest entreaty, with prophecy of the future. It shows God's design and conduct toward His own people, manifesting His unalterable love toward those who are always unbelieving and yet always loved, and laying bare both the wretchedness of the human heart and the heart of God. A believer sees himself in Israel in it and learns to distrust himself and to know himself and to know God as the One who sustains, chastises, and forgives.
The chapter shows that the children of Israel would be without a king during the days of their dispersion. It is a fine passage and a moral precept of great worth.