Hosea 2:16

thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali The terms Ishi, -my husband", and Baali, -my lord", are properly speaking synonymous, so that, but for the association of Baal with a false religion, Jehovah as the Bridegroom of Israel might quite innocently be addressed as Baali. The occurrence of Baal in the proper names of families of patriots like Saul, David, Jonathan, Joash (the father of Jerubbaal), and indeed merely such a name as Bealiah, -Jehovah is Baal" (1 Chronicles 12:5), shew that Jehovah was actually so addressed in the earlier period of Israelitish history. The danger however to the religious purity of Israel was, as we have seen (on Hosea 2:13), very great, and Hosea naturally refused to recognize in Jehovah-Baal the spiritual deity to whom his own allegiance was sworn. Our prophet was therefore the continuator of the work of Elijah. The Phœnicized Baal-cultus of Ahab was doubtless more corrupt than that which Hosea had to deal with, but the spiritual perceptions of Hosea were sharpened by a fuller training than that which the older prophet had enjoyed. It is remarkable, as an instance of the freedom with which a later prophet could allowably treat an earlier one (a freedom which reminds us of the treatment of the Law of Moses by our Lord), that Jeremiah actually uses the verb bâ-al,-to be a lord or husband", of Jehovah (Jeremiah 31:22).