Bible Students

Content of Message

Hosea

At this time, Israel had been unfaithful to God with other gods and reliance on other nations rather than Him. He called Hosea into prophethood and to marry Gomer, a prostitute, to act as a symbol of God and Israel. God and Hosea were innocent partners in their marriages, but Israel and Gomer prostituted themselves apart from their faithful husbands. Hosea had children with Gomer, and their names meant “Scattered”, “Not Loved”, and “Not my People” (Willmington The Outline Bible). God would punish Israel if they refused to repent for their adultery and unfaithfulness. Because of her unfaithfulness, Israel would suffer great famine, national embarrassment, and ultimately destruction. 

Israel would be left without a king for a long time, left to other people (specifically, in captivity). However, when Israel would eventually return, she would be blessed, multiplied, and healed by God Himself. God would take her back after her captivity and repentance and she would enjoy abundant life. In time, a great king would rule over her. After these promises, Hosea reminds Israel of her sins against God. 

Israel was not only an adulterous nation with other idols, but was also tainted with innumerable sins. She was a liar, a thief, and a drunkard. Her religious and material leaders were godless and led the people to break their covenant with God. Because of these sins, her children would die and she would be taken into captivity. If they would repent, they would be taken back by the Lord. All they would need to do is accept the reality of their sins and return to Him, and they would partake in great blessing. 

Haggai

Haggai and his contemporary Zechariah began prophecying in 520 BC as an encouragement to the returning exiles and as a call to follow God. While Zechariah prophecied the glory of Jerusalem and the coming Messiah, Haggai called the people to continue rebuilding the temple. During this time the Jews returning from exile had become spiritually dull. Immediately following the exodus from Babylon under Cyrus, the Jews began rebuilding the temple. However, when they faced opposition, the work was quickly stopped. In less than 20 years the work on the temple had virtually ceased and the Jews who had returned had been burnt out. Haggai was given a mission to encourage the Jews to continue building the temple. While the Jews were burnt out, God encouraged them through promises and loving rebuke.

Haggai begins his message with a call for the people to begin rebuilding the temple. God exposed the people’s hypocrisy for living luxuriously while the temple lay in ruins and called them to focus on Him rather than themselves. When the people did begin building the temple, they were discouraged by the size. It was far smaller than Solomon’s temple. However, God encouraged the people that their service to Him was more pleasing and more important than the size of the temple. The people are all promised a future temple, built by God, which will put to shame all other temples before it. Lastly, the people are called out for their sinful ways and are called to repent. Because they did repent, they would be blessed abundantly. 

Comparison

Hosea and Haggai share many of the same themes. Both audiences were lazy in their relationship with God. While God had been faithful to them and their fathers, the pre-exilic audience was indifferent to God and pursued other deities, and the post-exilic audience was indifferent to God and did not pursue His work. God promised both audiences the glory of a future Israel if they should turn to Him and obey His commands. Regardless of their past sins, God desired them to return to Him for blessings and His love. 

Need of Message

Hosea

The Jews of pre-exilic Judah were prostituting themselves with the idols and allegiances of other nations. Israel, as the nation God had chosen, was supposed to rely on Him for physical and spiritual protection. However, they went away from God and desired foreign nations and unknown gods. They followed idols that could not hear or speak and nations who had not known their Husband. Just as Hosea’s wife Gomer had been treated well by Hosea, so was Israel treated well by God. In the same manner as Gomer, Israel sold herself on the market. Because Israel stirred God to wrath against her, He would send her into exile. However, He also promised that she would return to her land in prosperity if only she would turn back to Him. 

Haggai

The people of Haggai’s time, though, seemed to be in desperate need of God’s Word. Though they were spiritually stagnant, they obeyed as soon as God spoke to them. When Haggai began prophesying, the spiritual and material rulers (chiefly Joshua and Zerubbabel) immediately led the people into repentance and obedience. They did not delay but obeyed every word Haggai spoke. Their need was dire, so God in His wisdom filled that need for His glory. 

When the Jewish people returned from exile, they began rebuilding the temple. However, after national opposition, the Jews ceased work on the temple. This reflected the need in their hearts for revival and passion for God. The people had become stagnant. There was an obvious need in the land for God’s Word because as soon as God’s Word was given, the people sprung into action. The action of the people clearly showed a need for God’s assurances and peace. Even today, often it only takes a sermon to spur a person from discouragement into a passion for God. It is easy for a person to lose sight of their God and turn to doubt and stagnant faith. 

The Jews of this time showed a clear need for God’s intervention, and intervene He did. God fulfilled the need of the people and sent both prophets and spiritual leaders, as was documented throughout the post-exilic books. These books would ultimately show the character of God and promise the future glory that would be revealed, and all the people would have to do is obey His commands.

Comparison

Like all prophets, Hosea and Haggai spoke to their audiences because the nation defied God. Both Hosea and Haggai prophecied to a stagnant nation that had turned their back on God, their physical and spiritual protector. Without Him, they would be left to be plundered by foreign enemies and remain lost for eternity along with their idols. Both post- and pre-exilic Israel had become indifferent to God. Hosea’s audience, pre-exilic Israel, had seen the faithfulness of God through their protection from foreign nations. Instead of remaining faithful to their protector, they were drawn away by their spiritual lusts. They would be taken to exile for their betrayal. However, God also promised to bring them back from exile. When the Jews returned, they were opposed by other nations in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and God’s temple. Instead of having faith in the God who preserved them in Babylon, they became stagnant and indifferent to Him. This caused their spiritual separation from God and their need for revival. In both cases, God’s people had strayed away due to foreign influence. Their faith in God had wavered due to their spiritual dissatisfaction with God, the one who satisfies all spiritual needs. 

Nature and Tone

Hosea

In Hosea, God is shown as being wrathful and loving. He rebukes and chastises Israel in wrath for their great adulteries, but even though this He calls Israel to repentance and returns to Him. He loves His bride even though He has been betrayed. An image of this in Hosea is the purchase of Gomer. Hosea’s wife Gomer committed adultery against him and prostituted herself on the market. Out of love for his wife, Hosea bought Gomer from the market. He could have divorced Gomer, delivered her over to stoning, or left her to be taken by another man. Hosea did none of those things. Out of pure love for his wife he bought her and held her close. God did this same thing for Israel. If Israel desired to leave Him, He would not stop them. However, He purchased Israel at the cost of His Son. He loved her enough to continue sending prophets and spiritual leaders until He eventually sent His Son. God’s wrath is also present in this message, but through His promise of Israel’s return out of exile, He shows His unending love. 

Haggai

In Haggai, God is shown as being both patient and loving. Though He rebukes His people, He clearly shows love for them. He is especially patient in this book. In Haggai, God shows His patience and lovingkindness through the rebuke, chastisement, and encouragement of the Jewish people. God called them out of their laziness into productivity. When the people were indifferent to the rebuilding of God’s house, He showed them the path of righteousness and obedience. This message from God was received well, as the national leaders Zerubbabel and Joshua sprang into action with the people following after. God knows how to make His people move. He moves them in love and rebuke, the same way He moves Christians today. There is a false dichotomy between this love and rebuke, as one is the same as the other. God’s love is a rebuke. He does not allow His people to dwell stagnantly in their sin and indifference towards Him, but shows them their sin and sturs their hearts towards Him. God has remained the same for eternity, and He continues to lovingly rebuke Christians through His Word and His Spirit even to this day. Though the Jewish people had become stagnant, God encouraged them with the promise of a future glorious Israel. 

Comparison

In both Hosea and Haggai, God shows his unending love for His people. Throughout Hosea, He is shown as being betrayed by His bride. He had done nothing wrong to them, but still, she had prostituted herself to other nations. Rather than destroy her completely, He loved her unendingly. Rather than have Babylon and Assyria entirely crush her, He preserved a remnant to return. When they did return from exile, the Jews still were won over by foreign powers. They had just returned from the husband they chose, who abused her, and still, they desired to be ruled over by other nations rather than return to their first love. Even though this, God showed His love for His people. Rather than throw her out of His house, He nurtured and cared for her. Through His loving chastisement, He brought her out of the mud, clothed her in nice clothes, and brought her home as His own.

Personal Lives

Hosea

Hosea was a prophet called by God to prophesy to the northern tribe of Israel. His name, also rendered as Joshua and Jesus in Scripture, means God is salvation. He prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel when the people had prostituted themselves to idols. Hosea’s personal life was mostly made up of symbols from God to the people of Israel. His wife, Gomer, was a prostitute who betrayed him. He had three children, whose names were all messages from God to Israel. Hosea’s whole life was centered around the prophetic calling God had placed on his life. 

Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah and Micah, prophets sent by God to the southern tribe of Judah. While they had messages about the coming Babylonian exile, Hosea warned of the exile to Assyria that would come if Israel did not repent. Similar to most prophets, not much is given about Hosea’s life, other than what is important to their prophetic ministries. 

Haggai

Not much is given about the life of Haggai. Due to the book’s brief message, it would make little sense to take up valuable space with the personal life of Haggai. However, some details can be pieced together about Haggai’s life. Haggai is the only person in the Old Testament with this name. Haggai is also mentioned in Ezra as a prophet who is ministering to post-exilic Judah. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther all take place in relatively the same period, so each book gives historical context to the greater period Judah was in. Though not much is given about who Haggai was, enough information is presented to have an understandable prophecy.

 Comparison

Few minor prophets have many details about their home lives. Because of the nature of their short prophesies, we should not expect the author to go to great lengths to give details about the individual’s life. These books are far less about the historical figure than they are about the historical God they speak of. Far more important than the prophet is the God behind them, and so that is what these small books of the Bible focus on. These books present so many attributes of God (His love and patience, His wrath and rebuke), and do so in a way that future Israel, and future followers of God, can look back at the faithfulness of God Almighty. He never changes and remains the same throughout history, always showing His love and mercy. The God of Haggai and Hosea will never be forgotten by this earth, and the memory of His mighty works will live on forever in Scripture. 

Bibliography

Bill T. Arnold, Encountering the Old Testament: A Christian Survey (Grand Rapid, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1999).

Harold L. Wilmington, The Outline Bible (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold L. Wilmington, 1999).

William Macdonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1993).