e section chap. i.-iii. is distinguished from the other prophecies by
this,--that, in it, the relation of the Lord to the [Pg 198] people of
Israel Is represented, _throughout_, under the figure and symbol of
marriage, whilst this same mode of representation is soon relinquished
wherever else it occurs in the book. By this closer limitation, the
objections of _Boeckel_ and _Stuck_ to the common division of the
collection into two parts, are set aside. This first portion may be
divided into three parts, which are, in one respect, closely connected,
as is shown by the _Fut._ with the _Vav Conv._ in iii. 1, and likewise
by the fact that this chapter requires to be supplemented from the two
preceding ones, while, in another respect, they may be considered as
wholes, complete in themselves. They do not, by any means, so
distribute the contents among themselves, as that the first describes
the apostasy; the second, the punishment; and the third, the return and
restoration; but each of them contains all these three features, and
yet in such a manner, that here the one feature, and there the other,
is more fully expanded; so that the whole description is complete, only
when all the three parts are taken together. In the portion now before
us, the covenant relation into which the Lord entered with Israel is
typified by a marriage which the prophet contracted at the command of
the Lord; the apostasy of the people, and especially of the ten tribes,
to whom the prophet was sent in the first instance, is typified by the
adultery of the wife, by the divine punishment, and the unpropitious
names which he gives to the children born by the adulterous wife. In
chap. ii. 1-3, there follows the announcement of salvation more
directly, and only with a simple allusion to the symbol.

* * * * *

Ver. 1. "_The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri,
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in
the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel._ Ver. 2. _At
the beginning when the Lord spake to Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: Go
take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms; for the
land is whoring away from the Lord._"

[Hebrew: dbr] is never a noun--not even in Jer. v. 13--but always the
3d pers. _Pret. Piel_. The _status constr._ [Hebrew: tHlt] is explained
by the fact, that the whole of the following sentence is treated as one
substantive idea: the