Please note that the italicized words below are English transliterations of the Hebrew words; the bold hot-link numbers in parenthesis are links to endnotes (click on the number to jump to the endnote page); green numbers in parentheses refer to the page number in the reference work cited; and the numbers in red brackets refer to the page number of the article.  The latter will help for citation purposes.

    In order to persuade listeners of the gravity of one's message, the first task of a prophet is to arrest the imagination of one's audience. To convince Israel of her urgent need to repent of her covenant unfaithfulness, the eighth century prophet Hosea made use of a myriad of poetic images to capture in various ways the nature of YHWH's affection for and claims upon Israel and to portray the depth of Israel's estrangement from YHWH (1). Of the fourteen or more images that he used to [88] characterize Israel and YHWH's relationship, however, no other one in the Hoseanic corpus has attracted a greater amount of attention from scholars than Hosea's comparison of the covenantal bond between YHWH and faithless Israel to that of his marital relation with the 'eshet zenunum Gomer. Given the fact that the marital-harlotry motif dominates the prologue to the book (chaps. 1-3) and its theme is alluded to throughout the remaining eleven chapters of the book, it is probably safe to say that the image loomed large as well in the mind of the prophet (or that of his editors).
   In the past, scholars have been preoccupied with the historical questions that such an alleged marriage proposes (e.g. the laws regarding marriage and divorce (2), the nature of Canaanite fertility cults and their penetration into Hebrew religious practices (3), the fascinating account of Hosea and Gomer's alleged stormy marriage (4)). Only recently have scholars begun to take note of the peculiarly literary nature and function of the first three chapters of Hosea (5).  Thanks to the pioneering efforts of critics like L. Alonso-Schokel (1960, 1975, 1983), James Muilenburg (1969) and others, in recent years more and more scholars are beginning to acknowledge that (1) meaning cannot be abstracted from form, (2) the meaning of a text is as much, if not more so, a function of its form and structure as it is its content, and (3) in fact, one must be careful about the kinds of historical questions one poses to the texts (and especially the historical conclusions that are drawn as a result) given the chiefly literary makeup of the texts. These maxims apply particularly to poetry, which characterizes the bulk of prophetic material. A fundamental feature of poetry is its metaphorical nature; and the fact that it is metaphorical, in many instances, mitigates against one's ability to adduce precise historical data. This is certainly true of Hosea where, given the highly emotional level of the speeches, the language tends not to be always coherent and logical, but more often evocative and ambiguous. As J. Cheryl Exum (333) has pointed out, poetry is by its nature ambiguous or "plurisignificant," meaning that "its power derives from its ability to [89] be suggestive of multiple meanings." This is not to argue that poetry has no basis in reality. For as difficult as it may be for the modern reader to imagine YHWH commanding someone to do so, there is no reason to doubt that a marriage took place between the prophet Hosea and the zona Gomer. Further, assuming there ever was such a marriage, neither do we have reason to doubt that the details of Hosea's marriage to Gomer conformed to the laws governing and the reality of eighth century Hebrew marriages. In other words (and this is important to stress), attention to form and structure is not to discount or ignore a priori diachronic interests in the text, where questions about the history that the text attests to predominate. Instead, the premise of this study is, laying aside questions as to whether or not a marriage even took place and the details of Hebrew marriage customs or foreign fertility rites, there are important insights to be gained by respecting first the prophet's message as it has been transmitted to us as a literary work (6).
    Moreover, not only have scholars neglected the peculiarly literary character of the material in Hosea, they have also failed to consider in any substantial way the significance of Hosea's (7) use of sexual imagery and gynomorphic language to describe the volatile character of the divine-human relationship (8). To be sure, the most useful function of this kind of language is its highly emotive impact. For what was the case in ancient Israel remains the case in modern times: talk about sex and sexuality tends to provoke, rouse, humiliate, and captivate people. Such language certainly arrests the imagination (9).
    Nonetheless, having concluded that the strength of this kind of imagery is its emotive effects and that at the center of the motif is the effort to convey the notion that YHWH and Israel's relationship is like that of a marital union between a man and woman, the contention here is that biblical theologians must go a step further and consider the [90] consequences of such biblical imagery (l0).  The present study, therefore, which concerns itself with Hosea's use of the marriage metaphor to describe Israel's relationship to YHWH, argues two things. First, as a literary device the metaphor provides particular insight into the nature of YHWH and Israel's relationship in ways that other Hoseanic metaphors cannot.  Second, even though the marriage metaphor serves as an effective literary device, to the extent that it depends on the image of the sexual abuse of a woman to develop and defend its point, as a dominant theological model the marriage metaphor is limited, if not risky.
    In the first chapter of Hosea we find YHWH's command to the prophet Hosea to marry the "unfaithful woman" (11) Gomer. Oddly, the prophet obeys this unparalleled command without question. We learn also in chap. 1 of the children born from that union, Jezreel, Not-Pitied, and Not-My-People, whose names are symbolic of Israel's estrangement from YHWH.  In chap. 3, having forgiven his wife her indiscretions and unfaithfulness, Hosea now takes the necessary measures to restore his marriage, his actions signifying YHWH's own amazing pardoning love toward a recalcitrant people (v. 1).  Here again we observe the obedient prophet acting without protest on behalf of the deity. These two chapters, however, fail to provide the reader with any clue as to what the prophet felt about what he was commanded to do, or how he felt about the woman Gomer. Moreover, one gets the impression that the woman Gomer quietly acquiesced to Hosea's overtures. Whereas the first and third chapters open and close with the image of Hosea's faithful obedience (YHWH's steadfast love, by analogy), in chap. 2, fortunately, the reader gets a glance into what was in fact the stormy nature of the prophet and his wife's relationship. Chap. 2, therefore, serves as a dramatic poetic centerpiece in the prologue of chaps. 1-3. Here the poetry moves with varying intensity back and forth [91] throughout, bouncing back and forth between husband, wife and YHWH, dramatizing the bitter exchange between a husband and wife, and by analogy, YHWH and Israel. Here the details of the metaphor unfold. Here, also, one discovers the metaphor's versatility.
 

STROPHE I
2:4 "Reason with your mother, Reason [with her]
            for is she not my wife
            and am I not her husband?
       Let her remove her signs of unfaithfulness
            from her face
            and her evidence of adultery
            from between her breasts.
2:5   Lest I strip her naked,
            and make her as the day she was born,
            and make her like the wilderness,
            and change her into an arid land,
            and kill her with thirst.
2:6    Her children, I will not pity-
            because children born out of her
            unfaithfulness are they.
2:7    For their mother was (sexually) unfaithful,
            and gave birth in shame,
        When she said, 'Let me go after my lovers,
           those who provide me my bread, my water,
            my wool, my flax, my oil and my liquor.'

STROPHE II
2:8    Therefore I will block her way with thorns;
            and hem her in with a wall,
            such that she will not be able to find her way.
         If she pursues after her lovers,
            she will not overtake them.
        If she seeks them out, she will not find [them].
        [Then] will she say,
             'Let me return to my first husband,
             for it was better for me then than now.

STROPHE III
2:10    She herself did not know that it was I who gave her
               the grain, the wine, and the oil,
               and lavished upon her silver and gold which they
[92]
                used for Baal.
2:11     Therefore, I will take back my grain in due time,
                and my wine at the appointed time,
                and will remove my wool and flax
                which covers her nakedness.
2:12     Now I will expose her private parts
                before her lovers' eyes.
           And no one will be able to rescue her from my hands.
2:13     And I will put an end to all her festivities, her feasts,
                her celebrations of the new moon,
                and all her appointed celebrations.
2:14     And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees
                which she said,
                'These are the gifts my lovers gave to me.'
 
2:15     And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals
                wherein she burned incense to them
                and adorned herself with her ring and her her jewelry
                and went after her lovers
                but me she forgot,"
                says the Lord.

STROPHE IV
2:16     "Then, behold, I will seduce her
                and bring her into the wilderness
                and speak romantically to her heart.
2:17     And there I will give to her her vineyards;
                and the Valley of Achor will become a door of hope.
            And there she will answer as in the days of her youth,
                as in the days when she came up
                from the land of Egypt.
2:18     So will it be on that day;"
                says the Lord.
                "You will call me, 'My Husband'
                and no longer will you call me, 'My Baal.'
2:19     I will remove the names of the Baals
                from her mouth,
                and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

[93]

STROPHE V
2:20     And I will make a covenant with them on that day,
                with the living things of the fields,
                with the fish of the sea,
                and the crawling things of the earth.
           Bow, sword, and weapons of war,
                I will wipe out of the land.
                And I will make them lie down in confidence.
2:21     And I will betroth you to me eternally.
                I will betroth you to me in righteousness,
                justice, faithfulness, and in compassion.
1:22    I will betroth you to me in truth,
                and you will know YHWH.
2:23    And on that day, I will respond," says YHWH.
                "I will respond to the heavens,
                and they will respond to the earth.
2:24    And the land will respond to the grain and must and oil;
                And they will answer Jezreel.
2:25    And I will sow it for myself in the land,
                and will show compassion
                upon the one who is not pitied.
        And I will say to 'Not-My-People',
                'My People, you are'.
        And he will say, 'My God."' (12)
 

    No other book in the Old Testament, except perhaps Jeremiah with whom Hosea curiously shares many features, resists easy literary analysis (i.e. isolating discrete units, perceiving principles of organization, identifying speakers) as does the book of Hosea. The common scholarly criteria for marking the beginning and end of a poem is, among other things, the presence of an imperative, the change of address or theme, the introduction of the oracular formula ("Thus says YHWH . . .") or a shift from poetry to prose. In a book such as Hosea where pronouns can change from one verse to another, themes are erratic, and, compared to other prophetic books, the oracular formula is rarely found, there is considerable diversity among scholars about how to divide up the poems (l3).  This study concurs with those who isolate 2:4-25 [94] as a discrete poem. The contention is that the imperative in 2:4 marks an important shift in both tone and address from the preceding verses, a shift from a third person narrative to a first person speech. The speech opens with the husband's appeal to his children, presumably Jezreel, Not-Pitied, and Not-My-People (1:3-8), to join him in his efforts to "reason" with their mother. This first person address
concludes with v. 25 where the envisioned reconciliation between husband and wife brings with it harmony within the broader (ecological) family as denoted and echoed in the wordplay on the children's names, v. 24 yizre'el, v. 25 lo'ruhama(h) and lo'ammi.
    Regarding the poem's organization, one clue is the use of quotations (l4).  In chaps. 1 and 3, the prophet takes great pain to quote YHWH (1:1,2,4,6,8; 3:1). In 2:4-25 the prophet takes great pain to quote his wife: 2:7 ki 'omra(h), 2:9 we'omra(h) and 2:14 'asher 'omra(h). The wife/Israel's claims (2:7,9,14) are summarized within the husband/YHWH's counterclaims and threats (2:8,10,15). In particular, at the center of their envisioned reconciliation is what the wife will correctly declare, "you will call me 'my husband,' " (2:18) (15).  No longer will she incorrectly refer to him as 'my Baal.' In fact, all of the cosmos will join with the husband and wife in an exchange of vows where each will respond to the other in a litany of love (2:20-25). This use of quotations for both human (2:7,9,14) and divine speech (2:15,18) (16) and the emphasis upon correct responses and declarations give strophic structure and unity to 2:4-25. The emphasis upon what has been said and what will be said gives the reader the impression that she or he is listening in on 1) a dialogue that is taking place between an irate husband and his stubborn wife (2:4-15), where the wife's erroneous claims (signifying Israel) are summarized in the husband's threatening counterclaims (signifying YHWH); and 2) a courtship scene between a man and a woman (2:16-25) where the former heaps lavish cosmic promises upon the latter in an effort to win her love and devotion.
    This otherwise sentimental love drama would be touching were it not laced with threats of violence: The role that sexual violence plays in 2:4-25 and other biblical passages deserves far more attention than it [95] is possible to give it here (17).  It is interesting to note that threats of violence also function to structure and shape this poem.
    The poem opens in 2:4 with Hosea demanding that the children intervene and reason with their mother. His tone is as much a plea as it is a command. After demanding that their children take up his case against his wife, the husband then lays out his formal complaint (vv. 4-7), laced throughout with his first set of threats (vv. 5-7). He charges that their marriage vows have been broken not only because of his wife's illicit sexual behavior, but also because she has wrongly and ignorantly ascribed to her lovers what rightfully belonged to her husband: the distinction of being the one to provide and care for her needs (vv. 7,10). In so doing, Gomer has made her lovers out to be her husband and gives to them what should have been her husband's alone, i.e., her loyalty and sexual intimacy. As a result, Hosea is very explicit about the punitive measures he is going to take. He threatens to strip her naked and kill her with thirst (v. 5). His second set of threats open with v. 8 where he threatens to barricade her with thorns and a wall, presumably, in her own home. And although she may submit for a while (v. 9), he tells himself, he knows that it will not be out of loyalty to him. Instead, it will be because she cannot get to her lovers. So, for her relentlessly stubborn refusal to recognize her husband's claims upon her (v. 10), Gomer must be punished (vv. 11-15). After enumerating all that he has provided for Gomer, Hosea then threatens to take it all back from her, leaving her naked and empty.
    In the third and last set of threats (vv. 11-15), the husband and the deity have virtually become one. This time it will not be the wife who has the last word (vv. 7,9,14) but the deity/husband (vv. 15,18,19). There is still an echo of Hosea's own voice when he threatens to humiliate her by taking back (hissaltf) the fabric that he has provided, and thereby exposing not only her private parts but her foolishness before her lovers (l8). Precisely here in this threat do the [96] metaphor and the historical situation of eighth century Israel ingeniously come together and climax. It resounds with Hosea's personal indictment against his wife who is guilty of both brazenly adorning herself with jewelry that professes her loyalty to others and ascribing to her lovers what he alone has provided her. And it resounds with YHWH's judgment against Israel who is guilty of openly, shamelessly taking part in foreign religious cults (vv. 13-15) and ascribing to other gods what YHWH alone has done for Israel. Not only will she be exposed, but her merriment brought to an end (vv. 14-15). Despite the harsh tone of judgment that pervades throughout, YHWH/Hosea end their accusations with climactic self pity, i.e., "But me she forgot" (v. 15).
    Thus, we discover upon closer examination of the second chapter of Hosea that Hosea and Gomer's marriage was not as harmonious as chaps. 1 and 3 would lead us to believe. In fact, the threats and accusations of 2:4-15 show us the violent, highly erratic side of the otherwise obedient prophet of the other two chapters. Of course, we also discover the stubborn recalcitrant side of the woman Gomer.
    The poem concludes, however, on a note of reconciliation (vv. 16-25). In the fourth and fifth strophes, where the speakers switch back and forth between YHWH and Hosea without easy distinction, the mood of the poem has changed drastically. The same amount of pathos that went into threatening Gomer is now spent in seducing her. Hosea's only desire is to win his wife back. Having been convinced through moral suasion, reasoning, physical punishment, and finally seduction of her husband's claim upon her (19), Gomer, Hosea imagines, will renounce her former lovers and return to him and never again utter her lovers' names from her lips (v. 19). Convinced of their eventual reconciliation, he envisions the time when she will recognize him for and call him who he truly is:'ishi.  At that time not only will she no longer confuse her husband with other men, neither will she speak the names of her former lovers. Thus, inasmuch as it is her words that help condemn her (vv. 7,9,14), it will be her words that will reconcile her to her husband (vv. 18, 19,25).
    From beginning to end, therefore, Hosea is obsessed with persuading Gomer to abandon her lovers and convincing her to acknowledge him as [97] the provider he is. To be sure, he does not want to kill his wife, though, according to Deuteronomy 22:22 it is his prerogative as a wronged husband to do so. Nor does he wish to humiliate her, but he will if he must. He will do what he must in order to convince her of the folly of her ways. We observe his pain, anguish, uncertainty, anger, and determination to win back his wife. But it appears that Hosea's success in winning Gomer back, however, depends not on the strength of his argument, but the strength of his might.
    Hence, sexual violence functions in three ways in this poem.
    First, the measures that Hosea takes are expected to demonstrate the extent to which Hosea the betrayed husband will go to preserve his marriage. For example, in v. 8 there is the scene of his futilely trying to block her way with thorns and hem her in with a wall in order to keep her from her lovers and presumably unto himself. She is not a prostitute such that men seek her out, but a wife who pursues men on her own. Therefore, he takes every measure to barricade her in. Moreover, although he has been betrayed he does not take advantage of the two options that were legally his: divorce (20) her or stone her to death (21). Instead he devises a way to show up her lovers for the frauds they are. Stripping her naked before her lovers will not only expose her body and the foolishness of her ways, it will also prove, contrary to her claims, how feeble and impotent are her lovers to protect-and provide for her (v.12). In a sense, therefore, Gomer becomes a pawn in a match between Hosea (YHWH) and her lovers (other gods),--where the aim is to win the loyalty and reverence of the sexually victimized woman. Hosea, the one who has been betrayed, is willing to go to great extremes, even if it means humiliating his wife, in order to win his wife from her lovers (22).
    Sexual violence in 2:4-25 functions secondly to underscore the point that punishment precedes reconciliation. In fact, there is a sense in this poem in which punishment is understood as unavoidable, that punishment [98] must be meted out before there can be any possibility of reconciliation. Punishment was within the options of the covenant (Exod 34:6-7; Lev 26; Deut 28), as certainly as death was the fate for an adulterous wife (Deut 22:22). But repeatedly we find YHWH agonizing (2:4; 6:4; 11:8; 13:4) over what is in fact inevitable, non-negotiable, imperative: divine retribution. If punishment were not understood as necessary, there would be no basis for the unrelenting tone of anguish on YHWH's part that pervades the book-nor would there be reason for Hosea's pleading tone with Gomer. To be sure, YHWH's anguish has to do with YHWH's profound disappointment in Israel; but YHWH is also ambivalent about what should be done with Israel. Though it is within YHWH's right to punish Israel, YHWH's love for Israel makes it a difficult task to execute (23).
    Third, and most significant, sexual violence functions as a poetic device to relate the punishment to the crime (24). It is worth noting that the first formal complaint Hosea registers against Gomer centers around her physical appearance (v. 4). He claims that she brazenly adorns herself with vulgar ornaments that flaunt her infidelity and wantonness. What exactly were zenuneyha and na'apupeyha things evidently worn about the face and between the breasts, respectively, remains unclear to the modern reader; they were undoubtedly familiar to Hosea's audience. Whatever they were, Hosea alludes to them and comments on other indecent jewelry in the final complaint in v. 15 where he refers to Gomer decking herself with ring and jewelry before going after her lovers.
    Having brought up the image of her illicit apparel early in the poem (v. 4), Hosea immediately proceeds to threaten to strip her, not just of the telltale signs of her unfaithfulness, but strip her "as the day she was born" (v. 5). In v. 11 he refers to the fabric (wool and flax) that he has provided that drapes and covers his wife's body. He threatens to take them back (vv. 11-12). Again the image is of stripping off her garments, exposing her body-not just uncovering her face or her breasts-but undressing her until she is stark naked. One cannot help but wonder if the implication is that had Gomer only taken off the brazen apparel as Hosea had first ordered, she could have been spared public stripping and humiliation. In other words, the punishment (public stripping) fits the crime (vulgar apparel).
[99] Attention to the details of the marriage metaphor in Hos 2:4-25, therefore, shows the versatility of the metaphor as a model (25) for shedding light on the capriciousness of the divine-human relationship. One important advantage of this metaphor is its ability to capture the vicissitudes of that relationship. It points out its movement from covenant (marriage) to apostasy (adultery) to punishment/judgment (sexual violence) to covenant renewal (reconciliation). To do that it makes particular use of a range of female sexual experiences such as marriage and adultery, female anatomy and procreation, sexual violence and seduction to call attention to YHWH's faithfulness and Israel's unfaithfulness. Thus, the metaphor provides a wide range of insight into YHWH and Israel's relationship in ways other metaphors cannot. Unlike metaphors which use animal (e.g., heifer, lion, vulture) or inanimate (e.g., morning dew, moth, grapes) images to illustrate such things as YHWH's judgment against Israel or Israel's dependence upon YHWH, the marriage metaphor enables the reader to recognize the more passionate and compassionate side of YHWH. By using the marriage metaphor, Hosea advocated for a relationship between YHWH and people built not simply on absolute obedience and loyalty, but intimacy (26) and (mutual) love. (This was a bold innovation in Ancient Near Eastern religions.) The only other Hoseanic metaphor that begins to match the pathos of the marriage metaphor is the parent-son metaphor found in 11:1f. Despite the intense emotional feelings that pervade 11:1f., the parent-son metaphor was conceived with quasi-political overtones. According to Dennis McCarthy (145), this latter metaphor is concerned with "a love which is seen in reverential fear, in loyalty, and in obedience-a love which can be commanded (27)." The same covenantal notions of reverence and fear, loyalty and obedience undeniably apply in the marriage metaphor (28). Although marriage in [100] ancient Israel was more of an economic and social contract than we are accustomed to imagining, judging by the mood of the poem in this study, reverence and mutual love, obedience and intimacy were not viewed as mutually exclusive elements to be sought in marriage.
    Notwithstanding its poetic versatility, nonetheless, elevating the marriage metaphor, or any other metaphor for that matter, to the level of "super model" presents serious problems for biblical and systematic theology. In spite of the fact that it functions as a literary device that draws poetic connections between the nature of Israel's crime and YHWH's punishment, and in spite of its versatility in providing important insights into divine-human relations, how are we as biblical theologians to come to grips with the prophet's association of God with sexual violence? In his sagacious attempt to portray the passionate and compassionate side of YHWH, has the prophet/poet risked those insights when the basic premise of his message evolves around the untenable image of violence against a woman? Does the fact that the marriage metaphor is "only a metaphor" and the motif of sexual violence "only a theme of the metaphor" insulate them from serious theological scrutiny? While these kinds of questions are beyond the scope of this study, they are not tangential to the exegetical task nor insignificant to biblical scholarship. For in order for the metaphor to make sense, to be exegetically meaningful, the exegete must discern some thread of similarity between the metaphor and the thing signified. Argues Sallie McFague in her fine discussion on this topic in Metaphorical Theology, "thinking metaphorically means spotting a thread of similarity between two dissimilar objects, events, or whatever, one of which is better known than the other, and using the better known one as a way of speaking about the lesser known" (15). The problem arises when the metaphor "succeeds," meaning that the reader becomes so engrossed in the pathos and the details of the metaphor that the dissimilarities between the two are disregarded. When that happens, McFague points out, God is no longer like a husband, God is a husband; namely the thing signified becomes the signification itself. In this case, a risky metaphor gives rise to a risky deduction: here, to the extent that God's covenant with Israel is like a marriage between a man and a woman, then a husband's physical punishment against his wife is as warranted as God's punishment of Israel. It is the risk of oversimplification and rigid correspondence. It is a risk that we ought always be on guard against. In fact, while the strength of the marriage metaphor is its ability to tell us about YHWH's love, anguish, jealousy, and forgiving nature, it is not capable of shedding any light on the question of divine retribution (29). [101] Analogies have their strengths and their limits. In other words, to the extent that in our modern culture there are no circumstances under which physical punishment is acceptable in marriage, the violent measures Hosea takes to chastise Gomer (should) pose a problem for the modern hearer.
    To be sure, these kinds of questions are not novel. They touch upon a larger discussion about religious language and those biblical models that tend to alienate as many people and cultures as they incorporate. For people who know what it is to lose their homeland and be resettled against their will to distant places, the image of God as Commanding Warrior like that found in the conquest narratives (the book of Joshua) may be unacceptable. For societies whose recent history has been marked by the egregious reign of a despot, the image of God as King may be unpalatable. For women who have been the victims of domestic and sexual violence, the image of God as ravaging husband maybe intolerable. One thing remains clear: some metaphors-and the marriage metaphor may be one-tend to create more problems than they solve. Therefore, not only is it important, as McFague has urged, to maintain a diversity of biblical images and metaphors in order to do justice to "the complexity and richness of the divine-human relationship" (127). We also must maintain this diversity of metaphors in order to do justice to the richness of human experience.
    Finally, to the extent that religious language and metaphors are not bankrupt as some tend to suppose, that at least in some settings they continue to inspire, mobilize, convict, instruct, challenge, and transform, then the question of the insights and limitations of biblical metaphors should be a priority for all theological enterprises devoted to liberation, especially those who propose to speak for the alienated. Biblical metaphors are not simply examples of grandiloquence, not just instances of literary embellishment where the prophet rather naively or in a moment of inspiration expressed somewhat overdramatically what could have been stated more directly. Instead, they are explicitly what all human language is implicitly, analogical, and therefore limited. Although already doomed to failure, religious language represents human beings' desperate attempts to comprehend and articulate what is in fact beyond comprehension and articulation, the Divine and our experience of it. Biblical metaphors simply heighten our defeat. Biblical metaphors such as one which depends on sexual violence to make its point simply highlight our defeat.

[102] *The writer wishes to thank Dr. Judith Sanderson and her OT60 of Princeton Seminary class whose invitation to lecture on the topic of female sexuality language in the book of Jeremiah provided her with her earliest opportunity to think soberly on the topic.

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1932    'The Fertility Cult in Hosea." AJSL 48:73-98.

Mays, James
1969     Hosea. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Miller, Patrick D.
1982     Sin and Judgment in the Prophets. SBL MS 27. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.

Moran, William
1963      "The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy." CBQ 25:77-87.

Muilenberg, James
1969  "Form Criticism and Beyond." JBL 88:1-18.
 
Muntingh, L.M.
1964-5     "Married Life in Israel According to the Book of Hosea." OTWSA 7/8:77-84.
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Ochshorn, Judith
1981     The Female Experience and the Nature of the Divine. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Rowley, H.H.
1963     'The Marriage of Hosea." Pp. 66-99 in Men of God: Studies in Old Testament History and Prophecy.
              London: Thomas Nelson.
 
Rudolph, Wilhelm
1966       Hosea. KAT 13/1. Gutersloh: Gerd Mohn.

Setel, T. Drorah
1985     "Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea." Pp. 86-95 in Feminist Interpretation
             of the Bible. Ed. Letty Russell. Philadelphia: Westminster.
 
Trible, Phyllis
1984     Texts of Terror. Philadelphia: Fortress.
 
Vogels, W.
1981     "Osee-Gomer' car et comme'Yahweh-Israel' Os 1-3." NRTh 103:711-727.

Weinfeld, Moshe
1972     Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Willis, John T.
1985    "Dialogue Between Prophet and Audience as a Rhetorical Device in the Book of Jeremiah."
            JSOT 33:63-82.

Wolff, Hans W.
1974     Hosea. Hermeneia. Trans. Gary Stansell. Philadelphia: Fortress.