HOSEA AT-A-GLANCE W FD 0.T. BOOK #28 AUTHOR: THE PROPHET HOSEA WRITTEN: 750-710 BC Prophecies Come True in this Time Period: 750 BC-6 BC Old Testament: 39 Books 28 New Testament: 27 Books CLAIMS TO FAME: God told Hosea to marry a woman who would never be faithful, because the marriage is like God and Israel. FAMOUS STORIES INCLUDED: MOST FAMOUS VERSES: • Hosea is told to marry a woman who would not be faithful to represent Israel and its behavior toward God. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." Hosea 11:1 My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children." Hosea 4:6 Important points about the Book: Hosea directed his early prophecies to Jeroboam II, the 13th king of the Northern Kingdom around 750 BC. Israel was full of idolatry. God planned to allow Assyria to invade if people didn't repent. They didn't. He prophesied at the same time as Isaiah and about 10 years after Jonah was swallowed by the great fish and told to prophesy to Nineveh. Hosea obeyed God and married a woman who would not be faithful to him. He thus was able to prophesy with great passion about how God felt about all Israel's unfaithfulness. The book contains warnings of the coming Assyrian invasion on the Northern Kingdom and the Babylonian invasion of the Southern Kingdom. The northern invasion was right around the corner, occurring in 722 BC. The invasion of the Southern Kingdom by the Babylonians, would happen 150 years later. Nobody listened to Hosea. This book contains the famous prophecy about Jesus living for a while in Egypt as a child (see Hosea 11:1 above). His parents took him there when Joseph was told in a dream that King Herod was trying to kill the young Messiah. They returned from Egypt upon Herod's death, as noted in Matthew 2:15.