Book of Hosea Chapter 1 Vs. 3

 Hosea's Wife and Children

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. Hos. 1:3

So he went... Three things the prophet did:

1. He went—he did not argue with God as Moses did (Exo. 4:18).

2. He took Gomer for his wife (Hos. 1:3).

3. He became a father, Gomer having borne him a son.

and took Gomer... Gomer means completion; that is, filling up the measure of idolatry.

In the course of prophesying he made mention of this person, who was a notorious common strumpet; and suggested hereby that they were just like her; or these were fictitious names he used to represent their case by Gomer signifies both "consummation" and "consumption".

The meanings of the people’s names are very important in this. The name "Gomer" means completion. This means then, that God has sent them final warning. They have gone too far, with their unfaithfulness to God. "Diblaim" means two cakes. If we put the names together, we would see that the woman was a pleasure, but not a true wife as she was full of sin. Thank goodness the son here is Hosea's son.

Hosea’s Marriage: Israel’s Unfaithfulness

This relationship, characterized by infidelity on the wife’s part, was to portray Israel’s unfaithfulness to its covenant with the Lord (cf. Hos. 2:2-23). In response to the divine command Hosea.… married Gomer, a daughter of Diblaim.

Much debate has centered on the circumstances of Hosea’s marriage. Some have held that the marriage was only visionary or allegorical, not literal. This proposal was motivated by a desire to sidestep the supposed moral difficulty of the holy God commanding His servant to marry a woman of disreputable character. However, the account is presented as a straightforward narrative, not as a report of a vision or as a purely symbolic act (cf. Hos. 3:1-5). The Lord sometimes required His prophets to carry out orders that many would consider over and above the call of duty (e.g., Isa. 20:1-4; Eze. 4:1-5:4).

Those who hold to a literal marriage disagree over Gomer’s status at the beginning of her relationship with Hosea. Some argue that Gomer was a prostitute at the time she was married. A modification of this is the view that she was a typical young Israelite woman who had participated in a Canaanite rite of sexual initiation in preparation for marriage (Wolff, Hosea, pp. 14-5). Others contend that Gomer was sexually pure at the time of marriage and later became an adulteress. The Book of Hosea does not provide information concerning Gomer’s premarital sexual experience. The expression “adulterous wife” (lit., “wife of adultery”) does not describe her condition at the time of marriage, but anticipates what she proved to be, a wife characterized by unfaithfulness. Any knowledge of Gomer’s status at the time of marriage is thereby precluded.

The children are those mentioned in Hos. 1:3-9. “Unfaithfulness” does not necessarily imply they were the products of Gomer’s illicit relationships. The fact that Hosea is not specifically mentioned in Hos. 1:6 and Hos. 1:8 as the children’s father need not point to their illegitimacy. In Gen. 29:32-35 the same phrase which appears in Hos. 1:6, 1:8 (“she conceived again and gave birth”) is used with no mention of the father (Jacob) because he is identified in the preceding context (as in Hosea, Hos. 1:3; cf. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, p. 168). “Children of unfaithfulness” may simply point to their being born in the context of (but not as a direct result of) Gomer’s infidelity. Also the phrase emphasizes the mother’s character, not that of the children. Andersen and Freedman understand the phrase as elliptical: “children of (a wife of) promiscuity” (Hosea, p. 168). It is similar to other Hebrew expressions in which the descriptive term points primarily to a quality of the parent not of the offspring (cf. b^enê hann^e‛ûrı̂m, lit., “sons of youth,” i.e., “sons born to a youthful parent,” Psm. 127:4; and ben z^eqūnı̂m, lit., “son of old age,” i.e., “a son born to an aged parent,” Gen. 37:3).

Hosea’s Children: Israel’s Judgment

The divinely chosen names for Hosea’s three children served as reminders of the broken relationship between the Lord and Israel and pointed ahead to judgment. Each section on the children (Hos. 1:3-5, 1:6-7, 1:8-9) contains a birth notice (Hos. 1:3, 1:6, 1:8), a divine word of instruction concerning the child’s name (Hos. 1:4, 1:6, 1:9), and an explanation of the meaning of the name (Hos. 1:4-5, 1:6, 1:9). God’s words (Hos. 1:7) are unique in that they qualify the announcement of judgment given (Hos. 1:6).

Jezreel

The first child (a son) was named Jezreel. At this point the significance of his name was not in its meaning (“God sows”), but in its association with past and future events at the place Jezreel (cf., however, Hos. 1:11; 2:22-23). Jezreel was the site of Jehu’s ruthless massacre of the house of Ahab (Hos. 1:4; cf. 2Kgs. 9-10). In the future it would be the scene of Israel’s military demise (Hos. 1:5).