Hosea 1:10

"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass that, in the place where it was said of them, Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God."

This is a definite promise and prophecy of the coming of the Gentiles into the favor of God, as indicated by Paul's quotation of this very passage in Romans 9:25, where he declared:

"And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people,

Then shall they be called sons of the living God."

No possible fulfillment of this may be sought for in the subsequent history of the Jews after captivity, for the clear reference to the call of the Gentiles is undeniable.

"As the sand of the sea ..." The significance of this appears in the fact of its repetition of the Father's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:5; 17:22 where exactly this same terminology is used. Although the covenant with Abraham's fleshly descendants was broken and abrogated, the promise to Abraham was not so terminated; but, as this verse shows, it will be fulfilled by the bringing in of Gentiles, without in any sense excluding any of the fleshly posterity of Abraham who might desire to be included, provided only that they would abide by the terms of the promise. That spiritual posterity of Abraham will indeed be innumerable (Revelation 7:9). The appeal to this promise also shows that God's prior covenant with Abraham regarding the "seed singular" in whom all the nations were to be blessed was superior in every way to that of the law of Moses which was merely "added because of transgressions" until the seed, which is Christ, should come. Such quotations from the New Testament as those cited above, and there are many others, must be understood as indicating "the divine authority and authenticity of Hosea."[31] We believe that scholars like Dummelow who think that, "Hosea cannot bear to dwell upon God's punishments without going beyond them to contemplate a restored people fulfilling the promise of earthly greatness to Abraham, etc."[32] are mistaken. It was not earthly greatness of which God spoke, but spiritual greatness. There are no Biblical promises of the restoration of physical Israel.