Hosea 3 - Love That Redeems

Hosea buys back his unfaithful wife, mirroring God's redeeming love for Israel.

Hosea 3: Hosea Buys Back His Wife

After exposing Israel's unfaithfulness in Hosea 2, this short chapter has Hosea buy back his own wife for fifteen pieces of silver and a measure of barley.


And Jehovah said to me, Go again, love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress, even as Jehovah loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.

So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley.

And I said to her, Thou shall abide for me many days. Thou shall not play the harlot, and thou shall not be any man's wife. So I will also be toward thee.

For the sons of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without ruler, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim.

Afterward the sons of Israel shall return and seek Jehovah their God and David their king, and shall come with fear to Jehovah and to his goodness in the latter days.

The purchase pictures Israel living many days without king or sacrifice before finally seeking 'the LORD their God, and David their king,' a theme <a href="/bible/acv/hosea/chapter-4">Hosea 4</a> returns to from a different angle. That same later-day seeking appears in <a href="/bible/acv/jeremiah/chapter-50/4">Jeremiah 50:4-5</a>.