Others began to treat the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as if the true God were also a kind of Baal a false god who could be manipulated by religious ritual and special bribes to give them what they wanted. Rather than living their lives serving the one true God, the people tried magically to make the phony god of their selfishly sick imaginations serve them and give them what they wanted. It was into this situation that Hosea came. In the first three chapters of Book of Hosea it is clear that the man Hosea experienced a lot of heartache, disappointment and probably anger because of his wife and children. But God used Hosea s pain to help him better understand God and God s relationship with Israel.
Scholars disagree about what actually happened in Hosea s life.
And while the poetry Hosea wrote reflects what he learned through his experiences, it does not say clearly exactly what happened. But here is my best guess. My guess is that Hosea was probably a priest who, as a young man, fell in love with a young woman who was very beautiful. She was the delight in his life. However, for her, her sexual pleasures were more important than her marriage vows.