John Mark Hicks

This is how God loves Israel: Go, love one who has other lovers. God calls Hosea to imitate Yahweh who loves Israel despite their covenant-breaking, despite their betrayals. This is the unrelenting love of God who pursues us. This is the God who loved us even while we were yet enemies. Nothing can separate us […]

Israel’s spiritual adulteries and lack of faithfulness to Yahweh as their God has led to their destruction. Through an abundance of metaphors (stripped and humiliated before the nations, killed by thirst in the wilderness, devoured by wild beasts, etc.), Israel’s future is shaped by their disloyalty to Yahweh and their religious syncretism. They loved the […]

The book opens with a narrative, especially chapters one and three, which provides an account of the prophet Hosea’s marriage and children. The point, of course, is not a Wikipedia article that covers all the details. Rather, that narrative supplies the framework in which the oracles of Hosea are heard. Hosea’s message is one of […]