The Tanakh Podcast

In this chapter Hosea berates the people for: v.1-8 - Their idolatry and reliance on foreign powers v.9-15 - The lack of interpersonal integrity, kindness and social cohesion Both sins are united by the metaphor of an "egel", a heifer, and by the consequence of national devastation and ruin.

Today's podcast is about the spiritual power of food, particluarly the produce of the land. Hosea warns the people that once the nation are exiled: "Their food will be only for their hunger, It shall not come into the House of GOD." What does he mean.

Today we discuss the mysterious phrase 8:12 - 'אכתוב לו רובי תורתי כמו זר נחשבו' Either: "Though I write for him the great things of My Torah, they are reckoned a strange thing" Or the Midrash (Tanchuma Ki Tissa 34): "I write the majority of the Torah [but leave the Mishnah unwritten] so that the [Oral Torah] remains undecipherable [strange] to the Nations of the World.

Hosea uses a parable of a bakery to rebuke the kings and aristocracy for their dereliction of leadership.

Chapter 6 finds the people expressing a desire to retunr to God. But God rejects their overtures as being ephemeral, temporary. Instead he encourages them to repair their religious and political culture and return to the Covenant of Israel.

In this podcast we offer the historical background to the accusations of Hosea: Political rivalry, in-fighting, political opportunism and factionalism bring the northern kingdom to a point of weakness and vulnerability from which it will simply collapse. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to the Tanakh Podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=51407457 Please sign up for weekly Parsha emails at www.alexisrael.org

In this chapter Hosea worships the nation, their priests and prophets for "zenut" - for promiscuity. Why is this phrase so central in Hosea? How was idolatry connected to degenerate sexual practices?

A short and enigmatic chapter. We will read it with the approach of the Abarbanel and Rav Kook.

Hoshea ch.2 contains several of the Bible's most sublime expressions of love. But how does Hoshea love a promiscuous wife? How does God love his wayward people, Israel?

Hosea is instructed to marry an unfaithful wife, and have children with them. What is the meaning of his marriage to a woman of this sort? What is the upshot of the names that he gives her children?