Overview of the Book of Hosea

Overview of Hosea as a Prophetic Book of Redeeming Love

The overview of the week for this Sunday is the book of Hosea, the book of Hosea. Hosea begins the section of the Old Testament known as the Minor Prophets and they're called that because, not because they're unimportant, but because of the length or the brevity of their prophecies.

Hosea wrote in the 8th century BC and the theme of his book is redeeming love, redeeming love. What was happening, basically the children of Israel had gone astray. God was pictured as their husband, Israel the wife.

Spiritual Adultery and Hosea’s Object Lesson

So the children of Israel had committed a type of spiritual adultery by worshiping false gods. So the Lord is going to use the prophet as kind of like an object lesson. Chapter 1 verse 2 says, when the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go and take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.

So Hosea is told by God, this is very unique, Hosea is told by God to marry a woman that he knows is going to be unfaithful to him. So this grief is meant to help the prophet and hopefully those he's writing to to understand the Lord's grief over their sin.

Mercy, Sacrifice, and God’s Refusal to Give Up on His People

In other words, Hosea's personal experience became a metaphor of God's experience with Israel. In chapter 6 verse 6, we read the statement quoted in the New Testament by Jesus where he says, God says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

In other words, what the Lord really wants from his people, he wants his people to love him the way he loves them. And really the great message of Hosea is the great message of the scripture as a whole, that God doesn't give up on his people.

While there are consequences, the Lord seeks to forgive, redeem, and restore. As the Lord says in the final chapter of the book, he says, I will heal their backslidings.