Hosea 1:4

Call his name Jezreel.

Judgment on the house of Ahab

Jezreel means, the child of guilt; therefore not Israel, but Jezreel (or more exactly, Izreel). The name is referred to for its historical associations. It points both backwards and forwards--backward to the massacre of Ahab’s family by Jehu (2 Kings 9:10), and forward to the punishment for that wild and cruel act. Hosea (in whom natural peculiarities have been purified and not extinguished by the spirit of prophecy) regards the conduct of Jehu in a different light from the writer of 2 Kings 10:30. The latter praises Jehu for having “done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in My mind”; he speaks on the assumption that Jehu had the interests of Jehovah’s worship at heart, and that he destroyed the house of Ahab as the only effectual means of advancing them. The former blames Jehu apparently on the high moral ground that Jehovah desires mercy (love) and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). He speaks as the Israelites of his time doubtless felt. They no more recognised Jehu as a champion of Jehovah than did the priests of Baal whom he basely entrapped. But Hosea doubtless felt in addition that the idolatry to which the house of Jehu was addicted rendered a permanent religious reform hopeless. Image-worship could not be suppressed by such half-hearted worshippers of Jehovah, and hence, Jehovah’s moral government of His people must have made it certain to Hosea that even on this ground alone the dynasty of Jehu could not escape an overthrow. (T. K. Cheyne, D. D.)

And I will avenge the blood of Jezreel--

God as the family God, or Avenger

We have no such associations with the word “avenge” as were familiar to ancient Eastern people, and are familiar in tribal life to-day. In the East the avenger is the vindicator of a family wrong by securing the adequate punishment of the wrong-doer. In a rude state of society, the nearest relative of a person slain was conceived as under obligation to put the slayer to death. He had to be the “avenger of blood.” Dr. S. Cox tells us that the main functions of the Goel were three, or rather that there were three tragic contingencies in which the legal redeemer and avenger was bound to interpose.

1. If any Hebrew had fallen into such penury as that he was compelled to part with his ancestral estate, the Goel was bound to purchase it, and, after certain conditions had been observed, to restore it to his impoverished kinsman.

2. If any Hebrew had been taken captive, or had sold himself for a slave, the Goel was bound to pay the price of his redemption, to unloose and set him free.

3. If any Hebrew had suffered grievous wrong, or had been slain, the Goel was bound to exact compensation for the wrong, or to avenge his murder. In the case introduced by the text, we are to understand that the slaughter of the house of Ahab had not yet been avenged, though three generations had passed. There seemed to be no one left of the house of Ahab to do the duty of the avenger. So God took it directly upon Himself. “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel.” This must be regarded as a striking instance of representing God as feeling, and then doing, as a man would feel and do under such circumstances. The case occasions difficulty to us, because no private and personal avengements of wrongs done are now permitted. All wrongs are judicially treated. But in revealing Himself and His will, God must always speak in the range of knowledge, sentiment, and association of those whom He addresses, or He could not be understood by them. To those who knew about avengers He could present Himself as the great Avenger. And if there are bad sides to the avenger’s work, we must not fail to see that there are also good sides, add that we may take the good sides to represent God. The idea that can be helpfully worked out for a modem congregation is, that God never neglects wrongs that are done to His people. He may seem to delay, He may even wait for generations; but His injured people are always vindicated at last. The wrong-doer may seem to escape punishment, he never really does. He may seem to prosper, but there is surely a worm whose work is spoiling his prosperity. The Lord is the Avenger of all His injured ones; and the woes that eventually come upon all wrong-doers vindicate His people and vindicate Him. God’s avenging is always only a part of His redeeming. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)

The blood of Jezreel

The name signifies the “scattered of the Lord.” Five reasons why the son of Hosea was to be called by this name.

1. That hereby God might show that He intended to avenge that blood which was shed in Jezreel.

2. To show that Israel had lost the honour of His name, and was no more Israel, but Jezreel. (Israel is one that prevails by the “strength of the Lord.” Jezreel is one that is “scattered by the Lord.”)

3. To show the way that God intended to bring judgment upon these ten tribes.

4. To note that the Lord would scatter them in that very place wherein they most gloried. (Jerome says the Israelite army was defeated in the valley of Jezreel before Samaria was taken.)

5. The Lord would hereby show that He would turn these conceits and apprehensions that they might have of themselves quite the contrary way.

I. What is this “blood of Jezreel” that God will avenge? (2 Kings 9:10). It was the blood of the house of Ahab.

II. Why will God “avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu”? Because--

1. Jehu looked to his own ends, rather than to God.

2. Because he did his work but by halves.

3. Because be proved Ahab’s successor in his idolatry.

A man may do that which God commands, and yet not really obey God. And God knows how to make use of men’s parts and abilities, and yet to punish them for their wickedness notwithstanding.

III. Why is it called “the house of Jehu”? The house of Jehu is his posterity, or family, who were to succeed. The posterity of the ungodly shall suffer for their father’s sin. Only the second commandment threatens the sin of the fathers upon the children.

IV. What is this “little while” God speaks of? It was a long time--three generations--before God came upon the house of Jehu, still He saith, yet but a little while, or, I will stay but a little longer, ere I avenge the blood of Jezreel.

1. God sometimes comes upon sinners for their sins. It is likely that these sins of Jehu were forgotten, ‘yet God comes now at last to avenge the sins of Jehu upon his house. Youthful sins may prove to be the terror of age.

2. A long time after the flourishing of a nation God may reckon with it in ways of judgment.

3. Seventy-six years are but a little while in God’s account.

4. The apprehension of a judgment just at hand is that which will stir the heart and work upon it most.

5. God suffers some sinners to continue long, others He cuts off speedily. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)

Scattered by God

1. Whatever present fruits men may seem to reap by sin, yet at last, being continued in, it will ripen to a height, and fit for strokes.

2. Notwithstanding that sinners in the Church do conceit of their privileges, God will plague them, and make their judgment conspicuous.

3. Men may not only be doing what God in His providence will permit to succeed, but even that which is in itself just, and yet be guilty before God, and justly punished for it, when either they do not the Lord’s work sincerely, but for their own base ends and interests, or when they do it not thoroughly, but only in so far as may serve their own turn. (George Hutcheson.)