40 Fun Facts About Book of Hosea

Hosea 11:1 says that when Israel was a child, God loved him and called his son out of where?

Egypt here points back to the Exodus, yet the New Testament reapplies the line to the infant Jesus, whose family fled abroad to escape King Herod.

Hosea 8:7 gave English a proverb about consequences: those who sow the wind shall reap what?

The whirlwind stands for the ruin that Israel's idols and hired allies would bring back on the nation, and the phrase now titles several works of fiction.

In the Book of Hosea, what is the name of the unfaithful woman God tells the prophet to marry?

Gomer daughter of Diblaim has three children with symbolic names, and the prophet later buys her back, acting out God's refusal to give up on Israel.

According to Hosea 4:6, God's people are destroyed for lack of what, which their priests have rejected?

Knowledge here means knowing God and his law, and the verse turns the charge on the priests: because they threw it away, God says he will reject them in turn.

According to Hosea 6:6, a verse Jesus quotes to his critics, God desires what rather than sacrifice?

Mercy outranks ritual in this verse, and Jesus quotes it twice in the Gospels, once when he is criticised for sharing a table with tax collectors.

Hosea 13:14 taunts which enemy, asking where its plagues are, in words Paul reuses in 1 Corinthians?

Death is addressed alongside Sheol, the Hebrew underworld, and Paul turns the taunt into a victory cry in his chapter on resurrection.

Hosea 12 recalls which patriarch grasping his brother's heel in the womb and later wrestling with an angel?

Jacob was renamed Israel after that wrestling match, so the prophet holds up the ancestor's scheming and striving as a mirror for the nation that carries his name.

In Hosea 13:8, God says he will attack forgetful Israel like which animal robbed of her cubs?

A bear robbed of her cubs joins a run of predators in the passage: God also pictures himself pouncing like a lion and lurking by the path like a leopard.

Which Canaanite storm god does the Book of Hosea accuse Israel of chasing in place of the LORD?

Baal also meant 'master' in Hebrew, so in Hosea 2:16 God says Israel will stop calling him by that title and say 'my husband' instead.

Which empire, courted by Israel's kings in the Book of Hosea, destroyed the northern kingdom around 722 BC?

Assyria is the 'great king' Israel runs to for a cure in Hosea 5:13; the prophet answers that this doctor cannot heal the wound and will end up as master.

Hosea 8 says a craftsman made which idol of Samaria, which is no god and will be smashed to pieces?

A calf of gold had stood at the northern shrines since the kingdom's first ruler set two up as rivals to Jerusalem, and Hosea 13 mocks the worshippers who kiss them.

In Hosea 3, the prophet buys back his wife for fifteen shekels of silver and a measure of which grain?

Barley and silver together buy her back, after which he tells her to live with him faithfully for many days, a picture of Israel's long years without a king.

Hosea 3:5 says the Israelites will one day return to seek the LORD and which long-gone king of all Israel?

David was long gone by the prophet's time, so readers take the line as a promise of a future ruler from his family rather than the man himself.

In Hosea 6:2, the people expect God to revive them and raise them up on which day?

The third day is probably an idiom for 'after a short while': the people expect to be back on their feet almost at once, and God replies that their loyalty fades like morning mist.

Hosea 7:11 likens Israel, flitting between two rival empires for help, to which silly, senseless bird?

A dove is easy prey, and in the next verse God says he will throw his net over the flock as it flutters from one foreign court to the other.

Hosea 10:1 pictures Israel as which luxuriant plant, building more altars the more fruit it produced?

A vine that thrives is the problem here: the richer the harvest, the more Israel lavished on altars and sacred pillars, which God vows to break down.

Hosea 12:13 says the LORD brought Israel out of slavery 'by a prophet', meaning which unnamed leader?

Moses goes unnamed so the weight falls on the word prophet: the nation was freed and kept safe by one, yet in the prophet's own day it scorns such messengers.

Hosea 14 praises the fragrance and the wine of which neighbouring land?

Lebanon is named three times in three verses, as the closing promise heaps up pictures of a restored Israel rooted like its great trees and blooming like a lily.

The Book of Hosea stands first in which collection of twelve books, a label traced to Augustine of Hippo?

The Minor Prophets are minor only in length: Augustine's label set these twelve short books apart from longer ones such as Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Which Francine Rivers novel, filmed in 2022, retells the Book of Hosea in Gold Rush California?

Redeeming Love makes the link plain: its hero is a farmer named Michael Hosea, told by God to marry Angel, a prostitute who keeps running away from him.

In Hosea 11:3, God recalls taking the young nation Israel in his arms and teaching it to do what?

Walk belongs to a chapter that has been called one of the high points of the Old Testament: God as a parent, stooping to feed a child who never knew who had healed it.

Hosea 3:1 says the Israelites turn to other gods and love which sweet food offered to idols?

Raisin cakes were pressed from dried grapes and used in idol worship; the King James Version reads the Hebrew differently and has 'flagons of wine' here.

God tells Hosea to name his first son after which valley, where the house of Jehu had shed blood?

Jezreel means 'God sows', so the name carries a threat and a promise at once: judgment on the royal house first, then a nation sown back into its land.

Which name, meaning 'not my people', does God give the youngest child of the prophet in Hosea 1?

Lo-ammi is the harshest of the children's names, yet the chapter ends by reversing it: those so labelled will be renamed children of the living God.

Hosea 1:1 dates the prophet to the reign of which prosperous king of Israel, the son of Jehoash?

Jeroboam II ruled for forty-one years, the longest and richest reign the northern kingdom knew, yet Hosea 7 already pictures its rulers falling one after another.

Which New Testament book applies Hosea 11:1, about a son called home from a foreign land, to the infant Jesus?

Matthew quotes the verse as the holy family flees from Herod, although the prophet was looking back at Israel's early history rather than ahead.

The Book of Hosea often calls the whole northern kingdom of Israel by the name of which leading tribe?

Ephraim was the dominant northern tribe and the home of the kingdom's first ruler, so its name came to stand for the whole realm, as Judah's did in the south.

In Hosea 10:8, what do the people beg to cover them and fall on them, words Jesus repeats in Luke?

Mountains and hills are begged to bury a nation whose shrines lie in ruins, and Jesus quotes the cry to the women mourning him on the road to the cross.

In Hosea 14:5, God promises to be like what to Israel, so that the nation blossoms like a lily?

Dew reverses an earlier image: in chapter 6 it stood for Israel's loyalty, gone by mid-morning, and here it is God's steady gift that makes the land bloom.

In Jewish, Catholic and Protestant Bibles, which book, by the son of Pethuel, comes directly after Hosea?

Joel carries no date in its text, and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, which follow the old Greek order, move it down to fourth place among the twelve.

Hosea 6:7 says Israel broke the covenant 'like' which figure, a name some translators read as a town?

Adam may be the first man, breaking the one command he was given, or a town on the Jordan, since the verse goes on to say that 'there' they were unfaithful.

In Hosea 11:8, God refuses to treat Israel like Admah and Zeboiim, towns destroyed alongside which city?

Sodom and its neighbours were wiped off the map, and it is at the thought of doing the same to Israel that God says his heart turns over within him.

Which town, home to a shrine built by Israel's first northern king, does Hosea mock as Beth-aven?

Bethel means 'house of God' and Beth-aven means 'house of wickedness', so the pun turns the name of the kingdom's proudest sanctuary into an insult.

In Hosea 2:15, which valley, whose name means 'trouble', does God promise to turn into a gateway of hope?

Achor got its name when Achan was executed there for stealing plunder that was meant to be destroyed, which is why making it a doorway to hope is such a reversal.

Hosea 1:1 introduces the prophet as the son of which man, counted as a prophet in Jewish tradition?

Beeri is said in Jewish tradition to have uttered only a few words of prophecy, too few for a scroll of their own, so they were tucked into the Book of Isaiah.

Hosea 5:10 likens the princes of Judah to people who move what, an act the Book of Proverbs twice forbids?

Boundary stones had been set by earlier generations to mark each family's land, so moving one was theft by stealth; God says his fury will pour over these princes like water.

Hosea twice says Israel is as corrupt as in 'the days of' which town, scene of an outrage in Judges?

Gibeah was where the abuse of a Levite's concubine set off a war that almost wiped out the tribe of Benjamin, and Hosea treats that crime as the level Israel has sunk back to.

In Hosea 5:12, God says he is like which insect to Israel and like decay to the house of Judah?

A moth ruins cloth slowly and out of sight, and two verses later the picture jumps to a lion that tears its prey and carries it off, as quiet judgment turns violent.

Hosea 14's call to return is read in synagogues on the Sabbath just before which solemn holy day?

Yom Kippur follows Shabbat Shuvah, the 'Sabbath of Return', which takes its name from the first Hebrew word of the reading: Hosea's plea to come back to God.

Hosea 7:9 says foreigners sap Israel's strength while which sign of ageing creeps up unnoticed?

Gray hair is the sign: the nation is growing old without realising it, a jibe that follows the verse calling Israel a loaf nobody remembered to turn over.