Hosea. In the Hebrew Bible, Hosea, son of Beeri, was an 8th-century BC prophet in Israel who authored the book of prophecies bearing his name.
He is one of the Twelve Prophets of the Jewish Hebrew Bible, also known as the Minor Prophets of the Christian Old Testament. Hosea is often seen as a prophet of doom, but underneath his message of destruction is a promise of restoration.
The Talmud claims that he was the greatest prophet of his generation. The period of Hosea's ministry extended to some sixty years, and he was the only prophet of Israel of his time who left any written prophecy.
The name Hosea, meaning salvation, or He saves, or He helps, seems to have been not uncommon, being derived from the auspicious verb from which we have the frequently recurring word salvation. It may be a contraction of a larger form of which the divine name or its abbreviation formed a part, so as to signify YHWH helps.
According to the Bible Numbers 13:8, 13:16 that was the original name of Joshua, son of Nun, until Moses gave him the longer, theophoric name Yehoshua, YHWH is salvation. Although it is not expressly stated in the Book of Hosea, it is apparent from the level of detail and familiarity focused on northern geography, that Hosea conducted his prophetic ministries in the Northern Israel of which he was a native. In Hosea 5:8 ff., there seems to be a reference to the Syro-Ephraimite War whic