Hosea 1:2

"When Jehovah spoke at the first by Hosea, Jehovah said unto Hosea, Go take unto thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land doth commit great whoredom, departing from Jehovah."

There can be no doubt from this verse that God actually commanded Hosea to marry a "woman of whoredom"; but it is definitely not stated that he was commanded to marry a harlot, a widespread assumption which appears to be unjustified. As more thoroughly discussed in the introduction, our viewpoint is that Gomer was at first innocent. Her representation of Israel in the analogy would appear to demand this, for Israel "fell away" from God; they were not apostates already, a truth cited by Hosea himself in Hosea 9:10; 11:1; and Hosea 13:1. We believe, therefore, with Polkinghorne that, "At the time of the wedding, Gomer was a virgin but later proved unfaithful."[7] This, of course, does not remove what some are pleased to call the "moral problem" of God's commanding Hosea to marry a woman whom God certainly knew would prove to be faithless; but, actually, there is no problem at all. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Hosea's marrying a known harlot (if God had commanded it). Rahab the famous harlot of Jericho married a prince of Israel and stands with honor in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only the priests were commended not to marry a harlot, as pointed out by Butler.[8] See Leviticus 21:7. There is not a word in Hosea to sustain the notion that Hosea was a priest. He was a prophet of God.

We refuse, therefore, to allegorize the factual narrative given in these chapters or to engage in any other of the gymnastics calculated to remove this alleged "difficulty." Keil, for example, took the view that the children of whoredom, mentioned here, were Gomer's already at the time of the marriage; but, as their names were given to them in succession by Hosea, such a view seems to be untenable. If we accept the view that God by some specific commandment told Hosea to marry a woman of the pagan culture where he lived, that Hosea chose to marry Gomer, and that she quickly fell into the excesses of the environment in which she was reared, all of the requirements of this passage are fully met. God's knowing in advance what would happen is no more of an impediment than may be found in Jesus' choice of Judas to be numbered with the Twelve, which was done after an entire night of prayer. Despite our own preference for the view that considers Gomer a virgin at the time of her marriage, we find no difficulty at all in the possibility that God might have commanded him to marry one of the religious prostitutes associated with the worship of Baal. This is surely one of the great mysteries of God's Word; and almost any view of it that may be accepted is subject to question. Hosea's experience in these chapters is "a portrait in miniature of Israel's relationship to the Lord."[9] Thus, some light may be derived from what happened in Israel, the antitype, to illuminate some of the events in the type. It is principally upon this that we base the idea of Gomer's innocence at first.

Great as was Hosea's love and unwavering affection for unfaithful Gomer, in spite of her sins, even such great love as that is but a dim and feeble type of God's great love for his children. As Ironside expressed it: "His all-conquering love is but a faint picture of God's affection for Israel, his earthly bride, for the cross was where the purchase-price was paid for both the earthly and the heavenly people."[10]

"When Jehovah spake at the first ..." "This resists the attempt of some to place Hosea 3 before Hosea 1."[11] Clearly, the events narrated in this chapter stand first chronologically in Hosea's remarkable marriage.

"Wife of whoredom ... children of whoredom ... the land doth commit great whoredom, departing from Jehovah ..." The triple use of "whoredom" in this passage is instructive, because in the third instance it is defined as "departing from Jehovah." What it certainly means in the last instance, therefore, it may very well mean the same in the first two instances, strongly supporting the conclusion of Haley: "The word in the first part of this verse may mean, as it certainly does in the last part, simply spiritual whoredom, or idolatry."[12] This kind of "whoredom" is therefore very widespread even now. As Morgan put it:

"The harlotry of worldliness is in all the churches at this present moment. Thousands who name the name of Christ are taking possessions bestowed upon them by God and spending them in the pursuit of worldly ambitions and pleasures.[13]