Hosea: More Than a Metaphor

Abstract

The book of Hosea uses the rich and unyielding metaphor of a broken marriage to demonstrate the extent to which Ephraim, Israel’s Northern region had been unfaithful to God, her eternally faithful husband. This paper seeks to offer the reader a creative way of approaching its message from a contemporary standpoint. Furthermore, it will centre on the contentious male/female imagery that carries Hosea’s prophecy. In so doing it will invite consideration, not of an often-assumed misogynistic deity but of a relational and wholly relevant God, tangled up with humanity in all its vulnerability and brokenness; God in our midst.