Hosea - Chapter 1 Series

Hosea 1:1 [NLT]

March 6, 2013

Oak Park Baptist Church – Wed Bible Study Series

Hosea Bible Study

Hosea – Chapter One:

A Study of the Minor Prophet-Hosea (760-720 BC)

HOSEA to Israel (Northern Kingdom)

Hebrew word for “Salvation”

BACKGROUND

1The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

Author: Hosea

Time Frame: King Uzziah thru Hezekiah (in Judah); King Jeroboam II (Israel)

King Uzziah began his reign 783 thru 742 BC

King Jotham began his reign 742 thru 735 BC

King Ahaz began his reign 735 – 715 BC

King Hezekiah began his reign 716 thru 697 BC

King Jeroboam II began his reign 786 BC – 746 BC after King Jeroboam II there were many kings and assassinations… probably why the writer did not include these!

We believe that Hosea served prophet from around 760 BC thru about 720 BC which is a period of about 40yrs. 40 yrs of prophecy about Israel’s sinful rebellion and the impending DOOM of judgment!

Hosea prophesied in the Northern Kingdom or in the nation of Israel. After King Solomon died (approx 928BC), his son Rehoboam was even harder on the people than Solomon had come to be by the end of his reign SO… there was a revolt in the kingdom.

The kingdom split into two kingdoms – the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah)… this split led to conflict between the 2 kingdoms for the entire time they existed…

In the time of Jesus this ‘northern kingdom’ was known as Samaria… the Samaritans were a mish-mash of foreigners who had been inported into the region and the Jews who had returned from exile… they had intermarried so much by the time of Jesus, the two tribes of the Southern Kingdom had written these people off as infidels and foreigners… they were considered lower than a dog…

They were NOT foreign to God. They actually worshiped God on Mt Gerazim and had the rituals of the OT sacrifice system in place, however, idol worship was prevalent and quite normal within the lives of the Samaritans.

The Northern Kingdom (Israel) under the reign of King Jeroboam I (the man whom they called as King when they rejected Rehaboam as their King) departed from a strict worship of God alone and began to incorporate other religions and rituals.

Israel (Northern Kingdom) strayed from a true worship of God. They DID continue the rituals and ceremony, but they also mixed in their own desires and idol worship.

From this point forward in Israel all the Kings are recorded as doing evil in the sight of the Lord and it is said that they committed the sins of Jeroboam… Some Kings would do some good, but they NEVER did return to a true worship of God!

Now how does this apply to us today? Well when we look at the sin of Jeraboam I and his leadership of the nation away from God… we can see how that sin affected the nation in his day, but we can also see the effects it carried forward for hundreds of years!

With that in mind, how can we believe that our sin does NOT have consequences beyond our life or our family? Sin has an effect on everyone in contact with it… Any sin in our lives has an effect on the people around us and the people who follow us in life!

We do NOT live in a vacuum and our sin WILL affect others! This sin can sometimes affect our families or our churches for GENERATIONS to come!

So here we find the prophet Hosea is called BY God to prophesy against the people and nation of Israel for their willing rebellion and idol worship! They had abandoned God and failed to submit to Him as God and for their pagan and idolatrous worship practices.

Basically what we find throughout this book is that Hosea is called by God to point out 3 glaring sins against the nation of Israel:

She had prostituted herself with foreign gods… she had left the God who had chosen her (2:12-13)

Her people were without knowledge of God… the religious leaders were NOT teaching the people about God (4:6; 5:4)

Her people were ignorant about the Laws of God and God Himself (8:12)

The key to understanding the overall message of Hosea is the illustration put forth in 1:2-3

2When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him: Go and marry a promiscuous wife and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord. 3So he went and married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.