Hosea 1:4

And the Lord said, Call his name Jezreel This name, compounded of the nouns זרע seed, and אל, God, signifies the seed of God. The names, it must be observed, imposed upon the woman's children by God's direction, sufficiently declare what particular parts of the Jewish nation were severally represented by them. The persons signified by this the prophet's proper son, says Bishop Horsley, “were all those true servants of God, scattered among all the twelve tribes of Israel, who, in the times of the nation's greatest depravity, worshipped the everlasting God in the hope of the Redeemer to come. These were a holy seed, the genuine sons of God, begotten of him to a lively hope, and the early seed of that church which shall at last embrace all the families of the earth. These are Jezreel, typified by the prophet's own son, and rightful heir, as the children of God, and heirs of the promises. For yet a little while And yet this little was a long while, through God's gracious forbearance. As bad as this people were, they should not perish without warning. Φιλει ο Θεος προσημαινειν, God loves to premonish, or forewarn, says the heathen historian, Herodotus. I will avenge the blood Hebrew, bloods of Jezreel: that is, says Bishop Horsley, “the blood of the holy seed, the faithful servants of God, shed by the idolatrous princes of Jehu's family in persecution, and the blood of the children shed in their horrible rites upon the altars of their idols.” It must be observed further here, that this mystical name of the prophet's son, Jezreel, was the name of a city in the tribe of Issachar, and of a valley, or plain, in which the city stood: the city famous for its vineyard, which cost its rightful owner Naboth his life; and, by the righteous judgment of God, gave occasion to the downfall of the royal house of Ahab: the plain, one of the finest parts of the whole land of Canaan. As it was here that Jehu shed the blood of Ahab's family with unsparing hand, many modern expositors, “forgetting the prophet's son, have thought of nothing in this passage but the place, the city or the plain.” And by the blood of Jezreel, which God here threatens to avenge upon the house of Jehu, they have understood the blood of Ahab's posterity; because though, in shedding that blood, Jehu executed the judgment which God had denounced by Elijah against the house of Ahab, for the cruel murder of Naboth; yet, in doing that, he acted from a principle of ambition and cruelty, without any regard to God's glory, whose worship he forsook, maintaining in the country the idolatry which Jeroboam had first set up. Upon this exposition, Bishop Horsley remarks as follows: “It is true, that when the purposes of God are accomplished by the hand of man, the very same act may be just and good as it proceeds from God, and makes a part of the scheme of providence, and criminal in the highest degree as it is performed by the man, who is the immediate agent. The man may act from sinful motives of his own, without any consideration, or knowledge, of the end to which God directs the action. In many cases the man may be incited, by enmity to God and the true religion, to the very act in which he accomplishes God's secret, or even revealed purpose. The man, therefore, may justly incur wrath and punishment for those very deeds in which, with much evil intention of his own, he is the instrument of God's good providence. But these distinctions will not apply to the case of Jehu, in such manner as to solve the difficulty arising from this interpretation of the text. Jehu was specially commissioned by a prophet to smite the house of Ahab his master, to avenge the blood of the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, at the hand of Jezebel, 2 Kings 9:7. And however the general corruption of human nature, and the recorded imperfections of Jehu's character, might give room to suspect, that in the excision of Ahab's family, and of the whole faction of Baal's worshippers, he might be instigated by motives of private ambition, and by a cruel, sanguinary disposition, the fact appears from the history to have been otherwise; that he acted, through the whole business, with a conscientious regard to God's commands, and a zeal for his service, insomuch that, when the work was completed, he received the express approbation of God; and the continuance of the sceptre of Israel in his family, to the fourth generation, was promised as the reward of this good and accepted service: see 2 Kings 10:30. And it cannot be conceived, that the very same deed, which was commanded, approved, and rewarded in Jehu, who performed it, should be punished as a crime in Jehu's posterity, who had no share in the transaction. For these reasons, I am persuaded that Jezreel is to be taken in this passage in its mystical meaning; and is to be understood of the persons typified by the prophet's son the holy seed the true servants and worshippers of God. It is threatened that their blood is to be visited upon the house of Jehu, by which it had been shed. The princes descended from Jehu were all idolaters; and idolaters have always been persecutors of the true religion. In all ages, and in all countries, they have persecuted the Jezreel unto death, whenever they have had the power of doing it. The blood of Jezreel, therefore, which was to be visited on the house of Jehu, was the blood of God's servants, shed in persecution, and of infants shed upon the altars of their idols, by the idolatrous princes of the line of Jehu. And so the expression was understood by St. Jerome and by Luther.” This threatening, denounced against the house of Jehu, was executed in the days of his great-grandson, the son of Jeroboam II., during whose reign Hosea received this prophecy from the Lord. For Zechariah, as we find 2 Kings 15:10, was killed by a conspiracy of Shallum, who made himself king in his stead; and, no doubt, many of his kindred, who were of the house of Jehu, were slain with him. And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel In the family of Jehu. Or rather, this is a prophecy of the destruction of the whole kingdom of Israel, which was in a declining condition from the death of Jeroboam, and the history of which, from the usurpation of Shallum, is little else than an account of conspiracies, murders, and usurpations, till it was entirely subverted by the Assyrians; and the people were carried captives into Assyria, and were dispersed through the various provinces of that empire.