Who was Hosea?
Hosea was a Hebrew prophet and writer of the Bible book of Hosea; identified merely as the son of Beeri. Hosea served as Jehovah God’s prophet during the reigns of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah as well as Jeroboam II (son of Joash) of Israel, in the late ninth century and well into the eighth century B.C.E. (Ho 1:1) Prophets of the same general period included Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. See Amos 1:1; Isa 1:1; Mic 1:1. Hosea may be identified as a prophet (and probably a subject) of the ten-tribe northern kingdom of Israel. That kingdom was the principal object of the declarations in the book of Hosea. Whereas Judah was named therein only 15 times, and its capital city, Jerusalem, not even once, the book contains 44 references to Israel, 37 to Ephraim (Israel’s dominant tribe), and 6 to Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. Most of the other locations mentioned in the book either were a part of the northern kingdom or were on its borders. See Hosea 1:4, 5; 5:1,
