st child, ver. 4. Nor is
it legitimate to say, as _Rueckert_ does, that the three children are a
designation of the "conditions" in which the Israelites would be placed
in consequence of their apostasy from the Lord. For, how could mercy be
shown to _conditions_? The right view rather is, that the wife and
children are both the people of Israel, viewed only in different
relations. In the first designation, they are viewed as a unity; in the
latter, as a plurality proceeding from, and depending upon, this unity.
The circumstance that the prophet mentions the birth of children at
all, and the birth of three only, is accounted for by their names. The
children exist only that they may receive a name. The three names must,
therefore, not be considered separately, but must be viewed together.
In that case they present a corresponding picture of the fate impending
upon Israel. The circumstance that the mother and sons are
distinguished in Hosea, rests upon the Song of Solomon. (Compare the
more copious remarks in my commentary on the Song of Sol. iii. 4: "By
the mother, the people is designated according to its historical
continuity,--by the daughter or sons, according to its existence at any
moment.")

Ver. 4. "_And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a
little_ (while), _and I visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of
Jehu, and cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel._"

The name "Jezreel" is, by most expositors, explained in this passage as
meaning: "God disperses." This they maintain to be its real
signification, according to the etymology, and that all the rest is
only an allusion. But this exposition is erroneous, as _Manger_ has
correctly perceived. For, 1. No instance occurs where the verb [Hebrew:
zre] has this signification. When applied to men, it is always used
only in a good sense: compare ii. 25, Ezek. xxxvi. 9, and the
subsequent remarks on Zech. x. 9. The idea of _scattering_ is not at
all the fundamental one; so that the signification, to _disperse_, is
much further from the fundamental [Pg 203] signification than might, at
first sight, appear. 2. The subsequent words must be considered as an
explanation of the name Jezreel, as is obvious from the corresponding
explanations of the names Lo-Ruhamah in ver. 6, and Lo-Ammi in ver. 9,
which are intimately connected with these names. But in this
explanation, not even a single word is said on the subject of the
dispersion of the peop