Buy Her Back for Fifteen Pieces of Silver

The command in chapter 3 does not name Gomer. It says 'a woman who is loved by a man yet is an adulteress' — and the analogy is made explicit in the same breath: just as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins. The cakes of raisins are the offerings made at Canaanite feasts; their inclusion is specific and slightly absurd, as the prophet intends it to be. The purchase price — fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley — is exact and unromantic. This is what the reunion costs. The prophet records it as a transaction because the point is that it costs the one who was wronged.

The condition Hosea places on the reunion — many days without going out, many days without any man — is interpreted in verses 4–5 as a figure for Israel's coming period without king, without prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. This is a stripping of all that Israel used to organize its political and religious life, both the legitimate (sacrifice) and the illegitimate (pillar, household gods). In the latter days, the text says, Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness. The reference to David from a northern prophet — one whose audience had rejected the Davidic dynasty for two centuries — is among the most notable theological moves in the chapter. The return is not merely to the pre-exilic cult; it is to a restored political and religious unity the north had never chosen.