Hosea 3

Key takeaways

Hosea 3 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hosea 3 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hosea 3 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hosea 3 is the third, as well as shortest, chapter of the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book, a member of the Twelve Minor Prophets, contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Hosea, son of Beeri; chapter 3 refers autobiographically to Hosea's marriage to a woman who is an adulterer. His purchase of her from a paramour is treated in the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary as a symbol of "Israel's condition in their present dispersion, subsequent to their return from Babylon".

Text The original text was written in Hebrew. Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis (895), the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (916), Aleppo Codex (10th century), Codex Leningradensis (1008). Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including 4Q78 (4QXIIc; 75–50 BCE) with extant verses 2–4; and 4Q82 (4QXIIg; 25 BCE) with extant verses 1–5. There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B; G {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}} B; 4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (A; G {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}} A; 5th century) and Codex Marchalianus (Q; G {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}} Q; 6th century).

Contents and commentary

Verse 1 Then the Lord said to me, "Go, again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just as the Lord loves the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love raisin cakes." "A woman": presumed to be Gomer, who had left Hosea and was at that time living in adultery with another man, referred to as "a lover." Unlike in Hosea 1:2 ("take a wife"), here Hosea is told to "love" her; that is, to "renew his conjugal kindness to her." The statement in the last part of this verse reflects the words of two verses in the book of Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 7:8: "Because the Lord loved you" (see also Jeremiah 3:20). Deuteronomy 31:18: "They are turned to other gods." "Raisin cakes" (in the King James Version, "flagons of wine"): that is, "cakes of grapes" or "dried raisins"; these cakes were used in idolatry (Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:19).

Verse 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley "Bought": from the Hebrew root כָּרָה (karah; "to trade" or "get by trade"), the use here may be in the sense of "hiring" as rendered by the Septuagint and Arabic versions (see Acts 28:30 in the Christian Bible), as well as a term fitting for a harlot. The Latin Vulgate translates it as "I dug her," referring to the "digging" of a slave's ear who chose to stay with his master (Exodus 21:6). "Fifteen shekels of silver": half the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32) or may allude to the dowry for a bride (1 Samuel 18:25). A shekel was about 0.4 ounce or 11 grams. "A homer" of barley: was about 6 bushels or 220 liters or ten ephahs. "A lethech" of barley: was "half homer", about 3 bushels or 110 liters or five ephahs, so in total: "one and a half homer" would equal "fifteen ephahs".

Verse 3 Then I said to her, “You will remain with me many days. You will not play the whore, and you will not belong to another man. And also I will be with you." "You will remain with me many days": literally, "you will sit", not going after others, as before, but waiting only for him (Exodus 24:14; Jeremiah 3:2), for an undefined, long period, until he comes and takes her to himself. Hosea stipulates that she should wait for this long period before she can be restored to her conjugal rights, and he, likewise, will wait for her. In Deuteronomy 21:13, the law for taking a beautiful captive woman stipulated that she was to mourn for her family for "a full month" before she could be married.

Verse 4 For 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: "Ephod": generally refers to a linen garment worn by Israelite high priests according to Torah, and was equipped with Urim and Thummim; it was missing since the destruction of the second temple, so the people of Israel have been long without it and without the means of inquiry of God about future (cf. Ezra 2:63). Lacking the temple and the ephod, the whole Israelite priesthood now ceased in a proper sense, which the Septuagint renders with the phrase "without a priesthood".

Verse 5 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. "David their King": This cannot refer to David himself because he was long dead, so it must be referring to "the Son of David," of whom God says, "I will set up One Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David, and He shall be their Shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a Prince among them" (Ezekiel 34:23-24), who would be a "witness, leader, commander to the people (Isaiah 55:4); someone who was to be "raised up to David (Jeremiah 23:5-6), a righteous Branch", and who was to "be called the Lord our Righteousness; David's Lord" (Psalm 110:1), as well as "David's Son." The verse can be paraphrased as: "Afterward the children of Israel shall repent, or turn by repentance, and shall seek the service of the Lord their God, and shall obey Messiah the Son of David, their King".

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hosea 3

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hosea 3 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hosea 3 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hosea 3 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hosea 3

In research: Hosea 3 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hosea 3 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hosea 3 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Book of Hosea chapters, Shekel, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hosea 3 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Hosea 3 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hosea 3 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hosea 3 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hosea 3 in simple terms?

Hosea 3 is the third, as well as shortest, chapter of the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book, a member of the Twelve Minor Prophets, contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Hosea, son of Beeri; chapter 3 refers autobiographically to Hos…

Why does Hosea 3 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hosea 3?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hosea 3.