[416] 2 Kings xv. 8-16. It may be to this appearance of three kings within one month that there was originally an allusion in the now obscure verse of Hosea, v. 7.
[417] 2 Kings xv. 17-22.
[418] Or prince, שׂר: cf. Hosea's denunciation of the שׂרים as rebels.
[419] Isa. vii.; 2 Kings xv. 37, 38.
[420] Some have found a later allusion in chap. x. 14: like unto the destruction of (?) Shalman (of ?) Beth' Arbe'l. Pusey, p. 5 b, and others take this to allude to a destruction of the Galilean Arbela, the modern Irbid, by Salmanassar IV., who ascended the Assyrian throne in 727 and besieged Samaria in 724 ff. But since the construction of the phrase leaves it doubtful whether the name Shalman is that or the agent or object of the destruction, and whether, if the agent, he be one of the Assyrian Salmanassars or a Moabite King Salman c. 730 b.c., it is impossible to make use of the verse in fixing the date of the Book of Hosea. See further, p. [289]. Wellhausen omits.
[421] v. 1; vi. 8; xii. 12: cf. W. R. Smith, Prophets, 156.
[422] Cf. W. R. Smith, l.c.
[423] Cf. W. R. Smith, Prophets, 157: Hosea's "language and the movement of his thoughts are far removed from the simplicity and self-control which characterise the prophecy of Amos. Indignation and sorrow, tenderness and severity, faith in the sovereignty of Jehovah's love, and a despairing sense of Israel's infidelity are woven together in a sequence which has no logical plan, but is determined by the battle and alternate victory of contending emotions; and the swift transitions, the fragmentary unbalanced utterance, the half-developed allusions, that make his prophecy so difficult to the commentator, express the agony of this inward conflict."
[425] Præf. in Duod. Prophetas.