Hosea 1:1

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET HOSEA

Chronological Notes relative to the commencement of Hosea's

prophesying, upon the supposition that this event took place

in the last year of the reign of Jeroboam II., king of Israel

-Year of the world, according to the Usherian account, 3219.

-Year of the Julian period, 3929.

-Year since the Flood, 1563.

-Year from the vocation of Abram, 1136.

-Year from the foundation of Solomon's temple, 227.

-Year before the First Olympiad, 9.

-Year before the building of Rome, 32.

-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 785.

-Cycle of the Sun, 9.

-Cycle of the Moon, 15.

-Second year of Coenus, the second king of Macedon; which was the thirtieth from the foundation of the monarchy.

-Thirteenth year of Agamestor, perpetual archon of the Athenians.

-Thirteenth year of Ardysus, king of Lydia.

-Twelfth year of Amulius Sylvius, king of the Albans.

-Twenty-fifth year of Charilaus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

-Forty-first year of Jeroboam II., king of Israel.

-Twenty-sixth year of Uzziah, king of Judah.

CHAPTER I

Under the figure of a wife proving false to her marriage vows,

and bearing children that would follow her example, the prophet

represents the shameful idolatry of the ten tribes, which

provoked God to cast them off. The whole passage is information

by action instead of words. This names of the children are all

emblematical. The first is intended to put Israel in mind of

their unrepented guilt, and the acts of cruelty committed in

their palace of Jezreel, (1 Kings 21:1.)

The second and third, signifying not finding mercy, and not my

people, denote that, in consequence of their guilt, they were

to be rejected of God, 1-9.

God promises, however, to repair the loss to his Church by

calling in the Gentiles, 10;

and by uniting all the children of God under one head, the

Messiah, in the latter days, 11.

NOTES ON CHAP. I

Verse Hosea 1:1. Hosea, the son of Beeri] See the preceding account of this prophet.

In the days of Uzziah, c.] If we suppose, says Bp. Newcome, that Hosea prophesied during the course of sixty-six years, and place him from the year 790 before Christ to the year 724, he will have exercised his office eight years in the reign of Jeroboam the second, thirty-three years in the reign of Uzziah, the whole reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and three years in the reign of Hezekiah but will not have survived the taking of Samaria. But see the preceding account of this prophet.

I think the first verse to be a title to this book added by the compiler of his prophecies, and that it relates more to facts which took place in those reigns, and had been predicted by Hosea, who would only be said to have prophesied under an those kings, by his predictions, which were consecutively fulfilled under them. By those, though dead, he continued to speak. The prophet's work properly begins at Hosea 1:2; hence called, "The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea."