The Prophetic Wisdom Of HoseaSýnishorn

Later Family Experiences: Hosea 3:1-5

After recording how judgment and hope were revealed in his earlier family experiences and in God’s first lawsuit, Hosea turned to an account of his later family experiences in chapter 3:1-5.

Hosea 3 begins with an autobiographical family narrative in verses 1 through 3. Gomer, we learn, had returned to worship prostitution. But God commanded Hosea in verse 1 to “Go again to Gomer, love a woman who is … an adulteress.” Hosea obeyed, but in verse 3, he told Gomer that she was to be without a man “for many days.” Still, Hosea was careful to balance these words of judgment with a second set of divinely inspired hopeful prophetic reflections. 

In chapter 3 verses 4 and 5 we read this:

For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel … shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness.

As this passage indicates, Gomer’s time without a man symbolized that Israel would have to endure a long period of devastation, “without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.” But once again, Hosea stressed the hopeful outlook that after this judgment ended, Israel would receive God’s “goodness” or blessings.