Hosea 11.1
Hosea 1.1-11 is naturally delimited
both with regard to what precedes and to what follows, and v. 1 is the superscription
of this unit.
כי נער ישראל ואהבהו וממצרים קראתי לבני
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
And out of Egypt, I called my son
The metaphorical language in the chapter
is taken from the sphere of family life, of which the repeated theme in the chapter
is Yahweh’s fatherly love and mercy towards his sons, a kind of mercy that goes
far beyond human mercy (v. 9). It is quite likely that the chapter has been put
together by a redactor, but this is not a decisive issue for our purposes. In
any case, the chapter is a kerygmatic unit, and it is introduced by a title
that sums up its message. In this superscription the author refers back to the
tradition of the call out of Egypt. The immense importance of this tradition for
the Hosean tradition is seen not only in the passages where the event is mentioned
directly (11.1; 12.10a; 13.4a), but also by the fact that Israel’s apostasy—as is
also the case in other places in the Old Testament—can be described as the
voluntary return of the people to Egypt (7.11; 12.2). On the other hand, the
punishment of the people means that they will be sent back to Egypt
(8.13; 9.3; 11.5), and Egypt can act as Yahweh’s instrument of punishment
(7.16; 9.6). In 11.11 a renewed return from Egypt is promised. In agreement with
what we have observed concerning the Jacob traditions in Chapter 2, we do not
find in 11.1 a comprehensive presentation of the tradition to which reference
is being made. There is no mention made of great and marvellous deeds, of the
prophet who led the people (12.14), of the obedience of the people (2.17), or
of their disobedience. Mention is only made of a theme: Yahweh has called
Israel, his son, at the time of his youth in Egypt.
The depiction of Israel as a youth (נער)
is first found in the Old Testament in the book of Hosea; the image is employed
later by Jeremiah (2.2; 3.4). The word has a number of different layers of
meaning, but in this context it must be understood as an expression for a youthful
age, without the attribution of any special quality. The specific reference to
the time of the occurrence, כי נער, indicates that it was long ago that Yahweh
began to love Israel. There is no attempt to play upon Israel’s obedience in
its youthful period as was the case in 2.17. The two passages are quite different
in their use of metaphor. In 2.17 Israel is spoken of as Yahweh’s youthful
lover, while 11.1 remains within the realm of childhood: Israel became Yahweh’s
son, not his wife or betrothed. While 2.17 speaks of the time after the
election, 11.1 refers to the period preceding the call and to the call itself.
The structure of the verse indicates that נער and בני are parallel, and that election
and love are one and the same thing. For Hosea love is the interpretive key to election.
Hos. 11.1 would appear to be a purely ‘historical’
statement about the first election, free from any mythological motifs, but part
and parcel of the tradition of the knowledge, דעת אלהים, in accordance with
which Hosea demands that Israel must live. The statement stands forth as
something fundamental to this tradition of knowledge, for it provides the
framework of understanding for what follows. Without any sense of contradiction,
the call out of Egypt and the election in the wilderness are spoken of in the
same breath. (Else Kragelund Holt, Prophesying the Past: The Use of Israel’s
History in the Book of Hosea [Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Supplement Series 194; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995], 57-59)
