Hoseachapter 3
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Key verse
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.
It stands in Bought back for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley, verses 1 to 3.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Fourteen verses that carry the whole book. Hosea is sent back: 'Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress, even as Jehovah loveth the children of Israel, though they turn unto other gods.' He buys her for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley, then sets her under a long discipline of waiting. The interpretation follows exactly: Israel shall abide many days without king, without sacrifice, without pillar, without ephod: 'afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king… in the latter days' (3:5), the nation restored as a nation.
Context
Prophecy · Hosea · Hosea overview
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 3The history
The price is the sermon. Fifteen shekels of silver plus a homer and a half of barley comes to about thirty shekels of value, and thirty shekels of silver was the compensation the Law set for a slave gored by an ox. Hosea pays a slave's price for his own wife, and pays half of it in barley, the cheap grain the poor ate, because he apparently could not raise the full sum in silver.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
How Gomer came to need buying back is not spelled out. She may have been sold into debt slavery, or bound to a shrine, or living under another man's roof; the text says only that Hosea acquired her. Readers have argued for centuries over whether she was already a prostitute when he married her or became one afterwards, and the book does not settle it.
The list of things Israel will go without is a list of the whole apparatus of national life. King and prince is the government. Sacrifice and standing stone is the worship, legitimate and illegitimate together. Ephod and household idols were the two ways people asked about the future, the priestly garment used for enquiring of God, and the small figures kept in the house for the same purpose by less careful families.
The instruction to her is a period of enforced waiting: she is to live with him without the marriage resuming, for many days. Hearers would have heard that as a probation with an end date, not a divorce.
What it meant to them
An Israelite listening to this knew what was being said about the nation. There would be a long stretch with no king, no altar, and no way to enquire, a state of affairs that must have sounded impossible in a kingdom at its peak.
And the last line names what comes after: they will return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king. That was a stunning thing to say in the northern kingdom, which had rejected David's house two centuries earlier and built its whole identity on the split.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Hosea 3 falls in The marriage and the children (chapters 1–3). Hosea marries Gomer; their three children are named as sermons, Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, Lo-ammi. The marriage enacted is the marriage preached.
After it: The LORD's controversy with Israel, chapters 4–14.
The whole shape of Hosea→The structure of this chapter
People1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Bought back for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley
1. (v. 1)
Hosea 3:1
And the Lord said to me: Go still, love the beloved woman to a friend and an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the children of Israel, and they respect (look at) foreign gods, and they love "wine presses of grapes." (Vulgate "they look at") LXX: "And the Lord said to me: Go still and love the woman loving evil and an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the children of Israel, and they look (respect) to foreign gods, and they love baked goods with wine."
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 3:1patristic
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 3:1
“Go yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress - This woman is the same Gomer, whom the prophet had before been bidden to take, and whom, (it appears from this verse) had forsaken him, and was living in adultery with another man. The “friend” is the husband himself, the prophet.”
Hosea 3:1
“But I shall first run over the words, and then return to the subject Jehovah said to me, Go yet and love a woman. There is no doubt but that God describes here the favor he promises to the Israelites in a type or vision: for they are too gross in their notions, who think that the Prophet married a woman who had been a harlot.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Hosea 3:1
“Hosea is told, not as in Ho 1:2, "take a wife," but "love" her, that is, renew thy conjugal kindness to her. who look to other gods--that is, have done so heretofore, but henceforth (from the return from Babylon) shall do so no more (Ho 3:4). flagons of wine--rather, pressed cakes of dried grapes, such as were offered to idols (Jer 7:18) [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress: The command repeats the pattern of chapter 1, but now the parable is explained as it is given, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. Whether the woman here is Gomer recovered from a fall into servitude or another woman standing for the same lesson is a question the commentators divide on, most of the older bench reading her as Gomer restored, since a fresh woman would blur the very continuity the sign depends on. Flagons of wine is more precisely raisin cakes in the Hebrew, ashishah, food tied to festival and fertility-cult worship rather than drink, a detail several commentators note without changing the verse's evident sense, love turned toward idols instead of the Lord.
2. (v. 2)
Hosea 3:2
“Fifteen pieces of silver - If they were shekels, the price of this woman was about two pounds five shillings. A homer of barley - As the homer was about eight bushels, or something more, the homer and half was about twelve or thirteen bushels.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 3:2
“Fifteen pieces of silver - It was half the value of a slave, Exod. xxi, 32. An homer of barley - About fourteen bushels. Of barley - The meanest kind of provision; and suited to a low condition, all this is, to set forth Israel's indigence and ingratitude, and God's bounty to Israel.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver: The price paid, fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley, is read by the commentators as together equaling roughly thirty shekels, the price of a slave under Exodus 21:32, so that Hosea buys back a woman who has fallen to something like bond-service for her own debts. The half-price in silver made up with barley, a poor man's payment, pictures redemption bought at cost and not without difficulty, the prophet paying to recover what was legally already his by marriage. The commentators read the purchase as the clearest acted picture in the book of grace buying back what unfaithfulness had forfeited.
3. (v. 3)
Hosea 3:3
"You shall wait for many days for me: you shall not fornicate, and you shall not be a man's wife; but I will also wait for you." LXX: "You shall sit for many days with me, and you shall not fornicate, nor be with another man, and I to you." This means, you will not shamefully prostitute yourself to other lovers, nor will you join me, the man whom you are hired by, in legitimate marriage.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 3:3patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 3:3
“He would not immediately receive her to marriage privileges, but would test her repentance and discipline her by the long probation; still the marriage covenant would hold good, she was to be kept separated for but a time, not divorced (Isa 50:1); in God's good time she shall be restored.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Thou shalt abide for me many days: The terms set for the woman are a period of enforced fidelity and separation, thou shalt abide for me many days, thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man, matched by the prophet's own pledge, so will I also be for thee, a mutual bond rather than a one-sided sentence. The commentators read this waiting period as a picture of chastisement short of divorce, discipline meant to purify rather than to end a marriage the earlier chapters had already pictured as broken and then remade. The wife is neither restored to full standing at once nor cast off, held instead in a middle state the next two verses apply directly to the nation.
B. Many days without king or sacrifice, then a return
1. (v. 4)
Hosea 3:4
“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince,.... Without any form of civil government, either regal or without any civil magistrate, either superior or subordinate, of their own; being subject to the kings and princes of other nations, as the ten tribes were from their captivity by Shalmaneser, to the coming of Christ, which was about seven hundred years; and from that time the tribes of Judah and Benjamin have had no kings and princes among them, for the space of nineteen hundred years, which may very well be called "many days".”
4 more voices on this verse
Hosea 3:4
“Many days without a king - Hitherto this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. Since the destruction of the temple by the Romans they have neither had king nor prince, nor any civil government of their own, but have lived in different nations of the earth as mere exiles. They have neither priests nor sacrifices nor urim nor thummim; no prophet, no oracle, no communication of any kind from God.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 3:4
“The latter was one of the five things which the second temple lacked, and which the first had. It, as representing the divinely constituted priesthood, is opposed to the idolatrous "teraphim," as "sacrifice" (to Jehovah) is to "an (idolatrous) image." "Abide" answers to "thou shalt abide for me" (Ho 3:3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 3:4
“They shall have no sacrifice or altar (so the LXX.), and therefore no sacrifice because no altar. They shall have no ephod, nor teraphim, no legal priesthood, no means of knowing God's mind, no oracle to consult in doubtful cases, but shall be all in the dark. Note, The case of those is very melancholy that are deprived of all opportunities to worship God in public.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 3:4
“For - Now the parable is unfolded, it shall be with Israel as with such a woman, they and she were guilty of adultery, both punished long, both made slaves, kept hardly, and valued meanly, yet in mercy at last pardoned, and re-accepted tho' after a long time of probation.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the children of Israel shall abide many days: The sign is applied outright, the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim, legitimate worship and its instruments withdrawn alongside the idolatrous image and household gods in the same list. The commentators read the pairing as deliberate, a period stripped of both true worship and false worship alike, neither temple nor idol available, which the historical bench applies to the long centuries of Israel's dispersion without a functioning throne or altar. The list names loss on every side rather than judgment falling only on the idolatry the earlier chapters condemned.
2. (v. 5)
Hosea 3:5
“THE whole verse runs thus: "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days." A brief word may suffice upon the prophecy. I think no reader of Holy Scripture can doubt but that the seed of Abraham, however long they may be in blindness, will at the last obey the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of David, and in those days the goodness of God to them will be so extraordinary that they shall fear and wonder at it.”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 3:5
“Others by his goodness understand Christ, the same with David their King. But it is rather to be taken for that attribute of God which he showed as his glory, and by which he proclaimed his name. Note, It is not only the Lord and his greatness that we are to fear, but the Lord and his goodness, not only his majesty, but his mercy.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 3:5
“Afterward shall the children of Israel return - Elsewhere it is said more fully, “return to the Lord.” It expresses more than “turning” or even conversion to God. It is not conversion only, but reversion too, a turning “back from” the unbelief and sins, for which they had left God, and a return to Him whom they had forsaken.”
Hosea 3:5
“And David - The Messiah who is the son of David. And his goodness - God and his goodness; that is, the good and gracious God. God in Christ and with Christ shall be worshipped.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Afterward shall the children of Israel return: The waiting period ends in return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, the two objects of the seeking named together, which the older commentators read as pointing past the historical David to great David's greater Son, the king of David's line the prophets elsewhere promise will reign forever. The critical bench more often reads David their king as the historical dynasty restored, a position the notes name alongside the messianic reading without settling between them. The chapter closes on shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days, reverence and goodness held together rather than fear standing alone, the same note the whole book strikes between judgment announced and mercy that outlasts it.
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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