Hosea 3:2

‘So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley,'

This may signify the bridal price. Or it may indicate that she was a bondslave and therefore had to be redeemed. Hosea's treatment of her would suggest the latter. No father would have given his daughter on those terms, even if she had a bad reputation. Either way there is perhaps an indication here of Hosea's relative poverty. He could only afford fifteen pieces of silver, and had to supplement it with quantities of barley. (The price of a female slave was thirty shekels - Exodus 21:32; compare Leviticus 27:4). In this there is a reminder of the cost to YHWH of redeeming His people. It was not an easy price to pay, and in the end a price beyond telling.