Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can't be measured nor numbered; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.'
Now, there are some who say this is all just an allegory, that he really didn't marry and this is just a whole story. I cannot accept that. I think that it's just that God told him to take this woman that God knew would be unfaithful in order that God might draw the similitude between this unfaithful wife of Hosea and the nation Israel who had been unfaithful unto God. For God had taken the nation Israel as His bride, had blessed her, heaped His love upon her, and yet she turned from God. And thus, the picture is given here.