results of its struggle for independence, the struggle itself was from a secular point of view not merely excusable but inevitable. Nor can we doubt that, if we knew more at first hand respecting the north-Israelitish kingdom, we should find much to sympathize with even morally, and many germs of good which might have developed into lovely 'plants of Jehovah.' Elijah is hardly a full representative of Israel's moral capacities. His character could not help being affected by his origin. He was a Gileadite1, a fellow-tribesman perhaps of those Gadites of David 'whose faces were like the faces of lions', and who were 'as swift as the roes upon the mountains' (1 Chron. xii. 8), and of those 'fifty men of the Gileadites' who captured and slew Pekahiah in his royal fortress (2 Kings xv. 25). Very different is Hosea, and the difference is reflected in his character, which again is partly accounted for by his origin. That one of so typically Israelitish a nature, and so full of love for his northern home, should have taken such a hopeless view of the prospects of the state, seems proof enough of the deadly corruption which prevailed. As Stanley has said2, he was the Jeremiah of Israel; no wonder therefore that he met Jeremiah's fate of opposition and contempt3 (ix. 7, 8, comp. Jer. xxix. 26, 27).

Hosea, then, was the prophet of the decline and fall of Israel; so much indeed is clear from a glance at his book. But did he prophesy during the whole of this sad period? It is not by any means inconceivable, according to our chronological table, but we are bound to test the view by internal evidence. First of all, there is the heading (i. 1), which states that Hosea received divine revelations 'in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.' The natural inference would be that these two historical periods synchronized. But if anything is certain in Biblical history, it is that Jeroboam II. of Israel died before his contemporary Uzziah or Azariah of 1 'Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbeh in Gilead', 1 Kings xvii. 1 (Ewald and Thenius, following the Septuagint and Josephus). 2 Lectures on the Jewish Church, ii. 369.

It was the fate of Amos, too, in Hosea's own country (Am. vii. 10-13).

Judah. We need not however accuse the author of the heading of an error in calculation; the heading is probably a thoughtless combination of two distinct traditions or views which do not refer to the same amount of prophetic writing. That the first three chapters, which form a whole in themselves, were written in the reign of Jeroboam II., is sufficiently clear from internal evidence. The ruin of the house of Jehu is still future in chap. i. (see ver. 4), and the picture of the prosperous condition of Israel given in chap. ii. agrees with no admissible period but that of Jeroboam II. Hence the first part of the heading may reasonably be presumed to have been originally prefixed to the small prophetic roll containing chaps. i.—iii.

As for the second part, it was doubtless intended to refer to the complete book of Hosea; the author of it however is not to be taken quite at his word. The fact that the book of Isaiah (or shall we say, Isa. i.—xxxix. ?) is preceded by a heading which mentions the same four kings of Judah, suggests that one and the same editor wrote the heading of Isaiah and the latter part of that of Hosea. Now it may be assumed as practically certain that the former heading (or at any rate the chronological part of it) was the work of a scribe during the Exile, so that this late editor probably only knew in a vague way that Isaiah and Hosea were more or less contemporary. Micah he thought (for we can hardly doubt that he also wrote Mic. i. 1) was a little junior to those two, and so he left out 'Uzziah' in the heading of Micah's book. In the case of Micah we have seen already that internal evidence does not bear out a strict interpretation of the heading, and it will be easy to prove the same in the case of Hosea. It is true that 'Shalman' is referred to in x. 14, and that Dr Pusey and Mr Bosanquet have identified this name with Shalmaneser, but we shall see later on how groundless this view is; true, further, that King Hoshea formed political relations with Egypt such as are referred to in vii. II, xii. 1, but a party friendly to Egypt must from the nature of the case have existed before Hoshea's reign; true, lastly, that x. 5, 6, xiii. 16 contain detailed predictions of an Assyrian conquest which have been supposed1 to

1 Prebendary Huxtable, Speaker's Commentary, Vol. VI. p. 405.

indicate that the events foretold were on the point of taking place, but the expressions could just as well have been used under Pekah or Menahem as under Hoshea, and xiv. 3 shows that when the latter chapters were written the Jews had not finally broken with Assyria. The reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah seem therefore to be out of the question as periods for any part of Hosea. There remains, as a possible date for chaps. iv.— xiv., the reign of Jotham, who was contemporary with Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, and Pekahiah, and perhaps for two or three years with Pekah. Many have thought that the difficult passage viii. 10 refers to the tribute which Menahem paid to Tiglath-Pileser1 (2 Kings xv. 19 mentions him by his private name Pul), but the Hebrew text probably needs correction.

It is at any rate certain that the picture described in chaps. iv.—xiv. is one of alarming national decline both in the moral and in the political sphere. In chap. ii. the prophet had severely reprimanded the Israelites for confounding Jehovah with the Canaanitish Baalim (see on ii. 16, 17), but he says nothing of that fearful moral corruption which in the later chapters he sees to be eating away the life of the nation. Why this is the case, is uncertain: it would be hazardous to assume that the corruption did not in some degree exist. If Hosea did not at once depict it in its true colours, we may conjecturally ascribe this either to the hopefulness of youth, or to the circumstance that the people of the district from which he sprang were comparatively pure in their morals, owing perhaps to their remoteness from the great centres of a debasing worship. Can we support this latter theory by external evidence? It seems that we can with at least a reasonable degree of certitude. We need not dogmatize here as to the composition of that exquisite love-poem the Song of Songs, but we may at any rate be allowed to hold that the most characteristic portions of it are monuments of the reign of Jeroboam II. If so, it is evident that the rustic beauties of N. Israel not only had external attractions, but also the 'gentlest and

1 Tiglath-Pileser mentions Rașunnu (Rezin) of Damascus and Minikhimmi (Menahem) of Samaria among his tributaries in the eighth year of his reign, B.C. 738 (Schrader).

noblest' womanly virtues1. The generally admitted fact that the Book of Hosea contains reminiscences of the Song of Songs suggests that a change had passed over Israel since that poem (or some portion of it) was written, otherwise the prophet would clearly stand self-convicted of exaggeration. We may perhaps ascribe this change in part to the removal of the vigorous statesman upon the throne, who must surely have recognized the political importance of preserving intact the moral foundations of the state-it is of Jeroboam's upstart successors that the prophet complains that they took pleasure in wickedness, and shared in the licentiousness of their people (vii. 3, 4). And no wonder that they did so, when, as in the decline of the Roman state, rough 'pretorians' seized and gave away the crown2. Could it be otherwise, when the tone of society was set by the coarsest and most lawless natures? Such was not a period in which many women like the Shulamite or men like the prophet Hosea could be expected to arise. Add to this, that the priests found it their interest to encourage vice and sensuality (iv. 6—8), and what further need have we of witnesses to the inner necessity of the speedy downfall of a self-betrayed state?

The concluding years of the reign of Jotham saw the formation of an alliance between Rezin king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel, based on the importance of opposing a firm front to the aggressions of Assyria. They needed the support of Judah, but Jotham, perhaps from religious motives, held back. Hosea makes no allusion to the Syro-Israelitish inroads which led up to the great invasion described in Isa. vii. The inroads he might have passed over in silence, but scarcely the invasion. A reunion of north and south was a part of his most cherished ideal (i. 11), but such a reunion as was now threatened he could not but denounce as prematurely involving Judah in the fate of her apostate sister. From his not mentioning it, it is plain that he was no longer prophesying, and it is for a similar reason plain that no part of his book was written as late as the inva

1 Delitzsch, Canticles and Ecclesiastes, E. T., p. 5.

2 See Heilprin, Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, ii. 118.

sion of Gilead1 and Naphtali by Tiglath-Pileser. It is a satisfaction to believe that such a devoted patriot (if the word be allowable) had closed his eyes before this 'beginning of pangs'this first fulfilment of his reluctant threatenings.

CHAPTER II.

Hosea's domestic history.-Parable or fact?-Chap. ii. alone an allegory.

AT the opening of this essay, a regret was expressed that we had no such illustrative details respecting Hosea as in the case of Amos. We have in fact no information as to his outward circumstances, or as to his intercourse with the different classes in the state. But we do know a series of domestic events which Hosea himself viewed as interpretative of God's purposes for him, and as conveying to him a clearly defined mission. The prophet has himself lifted the veil from his home life, and the sad story is briefly this. In the reign of Jeroboam II., when the nation was already on the down-hill road to moral ruin, Hosea married a wife named Gomer. He hoped the best of her, there is no reason to think otherwise; but she proved unworthy of his trust. Whether her profligacy showed itself in simple adultery, or in her following the licentious rites of the consort of the Canaanitish Baal (Ashérah)2, we know not. But such was

1 In fact, Gilead is repeatedly referred to as a part of N. Israel (see V. I, vi. 8, xii. 11).

2 As Dean Plumptre well remarks (Lazarus and other Poems, p. 209), 'The two sins of idolatry and sensual licence were closely intertwined.... It would be hardly too much to say that every harlot in Israel was probably a votary of the goddess' (see on iv. 13, 14). Ashérah (transformed by Auth. Vers. into 'grove') was, as most think, the name of a Canaanitish goddess, though some scholars prefer to regard the word as a noun meaning 'pole', the sacred tree being represented by a pole on or near the altar. In any case the goddess had such an artificial tree or symbol of a tree erected near her altars. Those who take Ashérah to be the name of a goddess refer to the Assyrian asir, fem. âsirat 'favourable', whence also probably the name Asher (a divine