Hosea 1:1-11 (LXX) and The Message of Hosea

Here is my rendering of the LXX of Hos. 1:1-11 from Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum (vol. XIII, Joseph Ziegler, ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) followed by my outline of Hos. 1:1-11 (LXX; 1:1-2:2, MT) and my summary of Hosea's message in the context of the book. The LXX here seems to be quite close the the Vorlage of the MT.

Translation

¹ The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

² The beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea: And the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a promiscuous woman and children of promiscuity, for the land will commit flagrant whoredom from following the Lord.”

³ And so he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore to him a son.

⁴ And the Lord said to him, “Call his name 'Jezreel,' for yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and turn away the kingdom of the house of Israel.”

⁵ And it shall be in that day, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

⁶ And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And she said to him, “Call her name ‘No Mercy,’ for I will by no means continue to have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will surely oppose them.

⁷ But I will have mercy on the sons of Judah and deliver them by the Lord their God, and I will not deliver them by bow or sword, nor by war or chariots, nor by horses or horsemen.

⁸ And she weaned No Mercy and conceived again and bore a son.

⁹ And he said, “Call his name ‘Not My People,’ for you are not my people, and I am not your ‘I AM.’”

¹⁰ And the number of the sons of Israel was as the sand of the sea, which shall not be measured or numbered. And yet it will be in the place where it was said to them “You are not my people,” they shall also be called—“sons of the living God!”

¹¹ And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together at the same place, and they shall appoint for themselves one ruler, and will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Outline
I. Superscription (1:1)
II. The Beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea (1:2-9)
 A. Hosea ordered to take to himself a whore and children of whoredom (1:2-3)
 B. First child: Call his name “Jezreel” (1:4-5)

 C. Second child: Call her name “No Mercy” (1:6-7)
 D. Third child: Call his name “Not My People” (1:8-9)
III. “Not My People”: “Sons of the Living God” who appoint one ruler (1:10-11)

Summary 

The book of Hosea introduces the Book of the Twelve. Hosea “seems particularly well suited to its introductory role,” says Sweeney, for it “begins by raising the question of the disrupted relationship between YHWH and Israel by comparing it to the disrupted marriage of the prophet to his wife Gomer.”[1] The other bookend of the Twelve, Malachi, forms an inclusio with Hosea[2] and calls Israel to return to the Lord and observe the covenant. These two themes—a ruptured covenant relationship between the Lord and his people and the restoration of that relationship—summarize well the Twelve as well as Hosea as a whole.[3]

More specifically, “the analogy between Hosea’s marriage and Yahweh’s relationship with Israel is the subject of Hosea 1-3, and then Hosea 4-14 addresses the behavior that has been figuratively depicted as adultery in the first three chapters.”[4] Hosea was called to the prophetic office during the reign of Jeroboam II, that is, some time prior to 745 BC, when Assyria was the regional superpower. This period for Israel and Judah was marked by economic boon and political stability—and Baalism that threatened the exclusive worship of YHWH (Hos 2:8, 13, 16-17; 4:13-15, 18; 9:1; 13:1-2, NETS).[5] His ministry likely lasted until just before the fall of Samaria in 721 BC; the heart of Hosea’s oracles denounces Israel’s idolatry in the provocative terms of spiritual whoredom.[6]

But the message was not limited to what Hosea proclaimed verbally. Hosea’s life and marriage were a dramatization of YHWH’s marriage to his adulterous covenant people. Hosea was called not only to proclaim a message, but also shockingly and jarringly to be the message. This painful divine word, vividly portrayed, spoke the Lord’s judgment on Israel’s spiritual harlotry—exile under the foreign powers with whom Israel had played the whore (Hos 1:11; 2:14-15; 3:4-5; 7:11; 8:8-10; 12:1; 14:3, NETS). Yet already in the first eleven verses of the book, judgment and exile are not the final word. Despite Israel’s disgusting infidelity, a beautiful restoration hope is held forth (1:10-11).

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[1] Marvin Sweeney, “Sequence and Interpretation in the Book of the Twelve,” in Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve (eds. James Nogalski and Marvin Sweeney; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 49-64.

[2] The covenant infidelity depicted and indicted in Hosea is described multiple times with the form μοιχαλίς (“adulteress”). This noun, as Jobes points out, is used a number of times in the LXX, but only in Hos 3:1, Mal 3:5, and Ezek 23:45 does it describe God’s people violating the covenant. The Mal 3:5 LXX usage translates a masculine plural participle (מנאפים, “adulterers”) with a feminine plural accusative (μοιχαλίδας, “adulteresses”). Observing this, Jobes states that the Greek translator has clearly interpreted Mal 3:5 through Hosea’s usage of the adulteress imagery, forming an inclusio, since Hosea is always first and Malachi always last in the Twelve. Karen Jobes, “The Minor Prophets in James, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude”in Minor Prophets in the New Testament (eds. Maarten J. J. Menken and Steve Moyise; New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 135-153.

[3] Jeremias has argued that Hosea and Amos are also related and probably never circulated independently. Jörg Jeremias, “The Interrelationship Between Amos and Hosea,” in Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts (eds. James W. Watts and Paul R. House; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 171-186. In the LXX, Amos follows Hosea in all the extant manuscripts. Both prophets ministered in the eighth century BC. Both spoke into the northern kingdom a message of impending judgment. And yet their messages—to the same target audience—were different, at least in emphasis. So how are they related? They are related as root and fruit. Hosea strikes primarily at the corrupt root in Israel, namely, idolatry. The people had played the whore with foreign deities and nations. And Amos primarily strikes at the corrupt fruit of social injustice and oppression. Hosea, like Amos, also addresses social injustice, but he more explicitly roots this in a lack of faithfulness, steadfast love, and the knowledge of God.

[4] James M. Hamilton Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 235.

[5] N. E. Lennart Bostrom, “Hosea,” NDBT: 236-239.

[6] Ibid., 237.