Hosea setting & dates

Geographic Context

Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel, often called Ephraim after its leading tribe, with its capital at Samaria. The book’s landscape is the hill country and valleys of the north — Samaria, Bethel (which Hosea mockingly calls “Beth-aven,” “house of wickedness,” for its calf idol), Gilgal, Gilead, and the fateful Valley of Jezreel, where much royal blood had been shed. It is a land outwardly prosperous under Jeroboam II but riddled with the shrines of Baal and the “high places” of false worship.

Beyond Israel, the book looks anxiously to the great powers on either side, between which Israel foolishly maneuvered: Egypt to the southwest, to which the nation kept appealing, and Assyria to the northeast, to which it paid tribute and by which it would finally be destroyed and deported. The tragic movement of the book is from the land God gave His people back toward “Egypt” and into “Assyria” — exile as the reversal of the exodus.

Timeline

• c. 750 BC - Hosea begins his ministry during the reign of Jeroboam II.
• c. 750-740 BC - The marriage to Gomer and the early oracles.
• c. 740-732 BC - Israel’s political chaos and appeals to Assyria and Egypt.
• 722 BC - Samaria falls to Assyria, and the northern kingdom is exiled — the judgment Hosea foretold.
• Throughout - The recurring call to “return to the LORD” and the promise of healing and free love.