I. Times

Hosea preached during the last two or three decades of the Northern Kingdom (c. 750–724 bce), in an eventful period. The beginnings, which cannot be precisely determined (according to 1:1 and 1:4 still under Jeroboam II, 787–747), fell in the cultural heyday between the Aramean wars and the beginning of Assyrian dominion, and the texts that presumably belong to this period (2:4–15; 4:4–5:7*) reflect an undisturbed wealth with a flourishing…