Chapter 3

God tells Hosea to take a wife who is married to another, but is an adulteress.  Or...something like that.  That description doesn't really seem to work.  Ahh...per MSB Gomer had "separated" from Hosea, as might have been expected, and God is here telling him to go and buy her back.  She has fallen on hard times and is being auctioned off as a slave.  The picture is of God's love for Israel, despite how unfaithful she has been.  Hosea buys her back for a price, and tells her that she must be faithful to him for a time, as he will be to her.

2022 - This verse:

"For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods." [Hos 3:4 ESV]

No king, no priests, no temple.  That's what this verse says.  It has been so since 70 AD.  They had a priest between 586 BC and 70 AD, they had sacrifices.  After 70 AD until this day, they have been without.  Then this:

"Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days." [Hos 3:5 ESV]

This is the whole "returning to the land" idea that we see so very often.  This is proof that the 10 lost tribes are not lost at all, but God still preserves them and knows exactly where they are and intends to call them home, when Jesus is their King on earth.  When?  IN THE LATTER DAYS!