Hosea obeyed the Lord and married a woman named Gomer. Today we learn about their children and the names the Lord gave the children. We will back up to verse 3 again and start from there.
"So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to Hosea, 'Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. In that day I will break Israel's bow in the Valley of Jezreel.'" (Hosea 1:3-5)
"Jezreel" means something like "the Lord sows" or "the Lord scatters", which is what's going to happen to the people when the nation falls to Assyria. They will be scattered among the nations the way seed is scattered in a field. Jezreel was also a location in Israel where Jehu (who assassinated King Joram, the son of King Ahab, and took the throne from the dynasty of Ahab) slaughtered seventy male descendants of Ahab. The Jehu Dynasty has been ruling ever since, with Jeroboam II on the throne during the days of Hosea, but the dynasty will soon come to an end with Jeroboam's son, Zechariah. Zechariah will only reign for six months before being assassinated by an unrelated man named Shallum who will take over his throne.
Hosea and Gomer have another child. "Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, 'Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means "not loved"), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them---not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.'" (Hosea 1:6-7)
The Lord is going to give the northern kingdom no more reprieves; He will allow Assyria to conquer it. But He will not allow Assyria to conquer Judah. You will recall from our study of the kings that during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah the Assyrian army was threatening the kingdom of Judah as well, but the Lord miraculously defeated the enemy by striking 185,000 Assyrian soldiers dead in the middle of the night. King Sennacherib of Assyria survived but hastily broke camp and returned to his capital city of Nineveh, likely intending to regroup and go back to Judah at a later date, but two of his sons assassinated him while he was worshiping in the temple of one of his pagan gods. The Lord spared Judah from falling to Assyria because it took Judah approximately 130 years longer to descend as far into the abyss of idolatry as Israel had already fallen. Judah's reprieve is not permanent, for it will be conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire once idolatry in the southern kingdom has reached a tipping point, but the Lord will protect Judah from Assyria just as He promised here in the book of Hosea.
Hosea and Gomer have a third child. "After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the Lord said, 'Call him Lo-Ammi" (which means "not my people"), for you are not My people, and I am not your God.'" (Hosea 1:8-9) With the first child, Jezreel, the Scriptures say that Gomer bore Hosea a son. But when it comes to Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi, the Scriptures only say that Gomer had a child. This has caused many scholars to conclude that the second and third babies were not Hosea's. We were told that Gomer was a promiscuous woman and it may be that Jezreel was the only of these three children who were fathered by her husband. Perhaps she was faithful to Hosea in the beginning of their marriage (during the "honeymoon phase") but went back to her sexually wayward ways not long after the birth of their first child. There are scholars who disagree that the second and third children were another man's and instead think that only the third child, Lo-Ammi, was the result of an adulterous liaison since the Lord commands Hosea to name him a name that means "not my people"---in other words, "not my son".
We could argue that Gomer's daughter also did not belong to Hosea since her name means "not loved". Hosea may have known he didn't father this child and may have found the knowledge difficult to accept, leading to him having difficulty feeling happy at her birth as he would have felt at the birth of his own child, but there is no reason for us to suspect he mistreated the child or that he did not care about her. I believe he lived with Gomer and these three children according to the laws of the Lord, as a good husband and a good father. I believe he provided for them, showed them respect and affection, and tried to instill godly values in them.
Hosea's troubled domestic life is a symbol of the Lord's troubled relationship with Israel. Hosea has been faithful to Gomer; the Lord has been faithful to Israel. Gomer has not been faithful to Hosea; Israel has not been faithful to the Lord. The Lord gave names to the children of Hosea's household that reflect His troubled relationship with Israel and that foretell the judgment to come upon Israel. Just as a man whose wife has been unfaithful to him has the right to "put her away" (divorce her), the Lord has the right to put Israel away (to allow the nation to be conquered and its people scattered). But as we move on throughout the book we will find the Lord talking about a day in the future when His relationship with the nation will be repaired. To symbolize this, the Lord will command Hosea to take back his unfaithful wife after she leaves him for another man.
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