Hosea 2: Metaphor and Rhetoric in Historical Perspective.

• Author: Floyd, Michael H.

Hosea 2: Metaphor and Rhetoric in Historical Perspective. By BRAD E. KELLE. Academica Biblica, vol. 20. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2005. Pp. xiv + 355. $45.95 (paper).

Kelle attacks the thorny problems of reading Hosea 2 by focusing on its metaphorical language and rhetoric. After two preliminary chapters dealing with interpretive issues and methodology, part one (chapters 3--5) discusses the major metaphorical terms in light of their cultural and historical background: marriage and divorce, wife and mother, fornication and adultery, and lovers and Baal(s). Part two (chapters 6-8) presents a detailed rhetorical analysis of Hosea 2, leading up to a summary of conclusions in the final chapter. The end matter includes a bibliography and indices of ancient sources, authors cited, and scriptural references.

Systematic attention to metaphorical language often assumes a concept of rhetoric as the ornamentation of speech, treating metaphors as one among many figures of speech. Kelle, however, conceptualizes rhetoric as the art of persuasion and analyzes the main metaphors of Hosea 2 in terms of how they reinforce the speaker's attempt to be convincing. Rhetorical criticism is often assumed to be at odds with historical criticism, but for Kelle the text reflects a rhetorical situation defined in terms of specific historical events. He argues that this passage hangs together rhetorically, and that the substance of its message--including its striking configuration of metaphors--fits particular historical circumstances. Thus there is no reason to suppose that the various sections of the text came from different times, or that their present arrangement is the result of a redactional process. He concludes that Hosea 2 was a single prophetic speech authored by the prophet himself, in which he addressed his contemporaries in the northern kingdom toward the end of the Syro-Ephraimite War (731-730 B.C.E.), urging them to understand the theological significance of this war in a particular way.

Kelle's case rests largely on his argument that the basic analogy drawn by the text is not, as is commonly supposed, between Hosea's troubled marriage and Israel's covenant relationship with YHWH. It is rather between this marriage and the northern kingdom's alliances. The issue is not that Israel has forsaken YHWH by participating in fertility cults devoted to Baal. Rather, the northern kingdom has broken its treaty with Assyria and gotten involved with...