Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argumentum
Hosea, just as by his oracles, deeds, and character, so also by his name prefigures, indeed represents Christ, as St. Jerome and Leo Castrius note here. For Hosea is the same as Joshua and Jesus, that is, "savior": hence Joshua was formerly called Hosea, as is clear from Numbers 13:17. Just as therefore Joshua in the leadership and governance of the people, and Isaiah in prophecy and deeds, so likewise Hosea by his voice and life represented Christ: and accordingly these three bore the same name, namely Jesus. For from the same root יטע iascha, that is, "he saved," is derived the name Joshua, or Jesus, that is, "savior," and the name Isaiah, that is, "salvation of God": and the name Hosea, that is, "he who saves the people," namely by the holiness of his teaching, as well as by the example of his prayers, character, and life. Note here that Hosea properly in Hebrew means "save": for the Hebrew הוטע hoschea is the hiphil imperative from the root iascha, meaning "save." Fittingly so, for Hosea prays and beseeches the Lord, saying: Save us, O Lord, from the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and especially from sin and death through the Messiah whom You are about to send. To this prayer God responded by sending Jesus, that is, the Savior who was requested.
He was therefore, according to his name, Hosea, that is, "savior," because he procured the salvation of his people partly by praying, partly by preaching, partly by giving examples of a holy life, just as Joshua did by fighting: of whom Sirach 46:1 says: "Who was great according to his name for the salvation of the elect." And accordingly both were types of Jesus Christ. Hence our prophet here was the son of Beeri, that is, "of my well"; because from God as from a well he drew the waters of heavenly doctrine, which he poured out upon the Jews, as upon dry fields, according to that saying of Isaiah 12: "You shall draw waters with joy from the fountains of the Savior." So St. Jerome here, and in Epistle 131 to Rufinus.
Moreover, Hosea prophesies both to Judah and to Israel, that is, the ten tribes: hence he prefixes the kings of both in his title. Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah, says St. Jerome, indeed the first of the Prophets before Isaiah, as is clear from chapter 1, verse 2; Hosea therefore began to prophesy at the beginning of the reign of Uzziah or Azariah, before the Olympiads, and before
the founding of Rome, when Procas Silvius, the grandfather of Romulus, was reigning at Alba. And so Hosea foretells that Israel, that is, the ten tribes, will be destroyed by the Assyrians, because they followed their first king Jeroboam and his successors in the idolatry of the golden calves: but that Judah will be kept safe from this Assyrian disaster, because, heeding the voices of the Prophets, it repented, and following its king Hezekiah cast off idols and purified the temple, although afterward it returned to them; and therefore under Zedekiah was devastated by the Chaldeans. Wherefore he promises Christ as Savior and Consoler to them and to other faithful who are wretched and afflicted, who are true Israelites in spirit, if not in flesh. First, therefore, he predicts the destruction and rejection of carnal Israelites, and the calling and election of spiritual Israelites, especially the Gentiles; and he represents this in reality when, by God's command, he takes a harlot as his wife, and begets children from her, to whom he gives the names: first, "Jezreel"; second, "Without Mercy"; third, "Not My People": "because," he says, "you are not My people, and in the place where it shall be said to them: You are not My people, it shall be said to them: Sons of the living God." Second, in continuous discourse he sharply attacks the idolatry and other sins of the people, threatening them with God's plagues and destruction to such a degree that they "shall say to the mountains: Cover us; and to the hills: Fall upon us." Third, he promises God's clemency, grace, and glory to the penitent. Hence he says in chapter 13:14: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your bite, O hell." And chapter 14:6: "I will be as the dew; Israel shall blossom as the lily," etc.
Alcazar holds, on Apocalypse 5:2, that the strong angel who is introduced there is literally the prophet Hosea. For about this angel we read there as follows: "And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals?" By these words John alludes to Hosea 14:10: "Who is wise, and shall understand these things? Prudent, and shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them." For that sealed book, Apocalypse 5, contains the ways both of the pious, who are blessed by following the law of the Lord, and of the wicked, who are condemned by scorning it. And rightly is Hosea called a strong angel, both because of the strength of mind with which, as the first to preach, he broke through the ice of the hard-heartedness of the Jews, and routed the idols and golden calves; and because Epiphanius in his Life writes that by the force of his words he split a great oak into twelve parts, to prove that the Lord would come from heaven to earth, and that this would be the sign of His coming: "If the oak," he said, "in Shiloh should split of itself into twice-six portions, and the same number of oaks should come from it. And it happened so." These things are fittingly said, and are true not in a literal sense, but in a mystical one. For literally that angel in Apocalypse 5 was not a man, but a true and properly so-called angel, as I showed in that place.
Moreover, Hosea is pathetic, and therefore aphoristic, as St. Jerome says, that is, concise. For he plays the role of God, who as a Bridegroom passionately loves His bride the Synagogue, and catching her in adultery, stirs up the most intense emotions, on one side of indignation and threats, on the other of love and zeal. Hence he is equally obscure, both because he does not fully express his feelings, but through aposiopesis breaks off on account of strong emotion; and because the Poet's saying is true: "I labor to be brief, I become obscure"; and because he is profound. "The prophet Hosea, the more profoundly he speaks, the more laboriously he is penetrated," says St. Augustine, City of God XVIII, 28.
Finally, Hosea, illustrious for his obedience and holiness of life, was enrolled by the Church in the catalog of saints on July 4th. See Epiphanius, Dorotheus, and Isidore, in the Life of Hosea.