Editing Hosea (section)

==Rabbanic Literature==
The reign of Uzziah, who for a little while occupied the throne during his father Amaziah's lifetime, is notable particulary because it marks the beginning of the activity of three of the prophets Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah. The oldest of the three was Hosea, the son of the prophet and price Beeri, the Berri who was later carried away captive by Tiglath-pileser, the King of Assyria. Of Beeri's prophies we have but two verses, preserved for us by Isaiah. The peculier marriage contracted by Hosea at the command of G-d Himself was not without a good reason. When G-d spoke to the prophet about the sins of Israel, expecting him to defend or excuse his people, Hosea said severly:"O Lo-d of the world! Thine is the universe. In place of Israel choose another as Thy particular people from among the nations of the earth." To make the true relation between G-d and Israel known to the prophet, he was commanded to take to wife a woman with a dubious past. After she had borne him several children, G-d suddendly put the question to him:"Why followest thou not the example of thy teacher Moses, who denied himself the joys of family life after his call to prophey?" Hosea replied: "I can neither send my wife away nor divorce her, for she has borne me children." "If, now,"said G-d to him, thou who hast a wife of those honesty thou art so uncertain that thou canst not even be sure that her children are thine, and yet thou canst not seperate from her, how, then can I seperate Myself from Israel, from My children, the children of My elect, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!" Hosea entreated G-d to pardon him. But G-d said: "Better were it that thou shouldst pray for the welfare of Israel, for thou art the cause that I issued three fateful decrees against them." Hosea prayed as he was bidden, and his prayer averted the empending threefold doom. Hosea died at Babylon at a time in which a journey thence to Palestine was beset with many perils. Desirous of having his earthly remains rest in sacred ground, he requested before his death that his bier be loaded upon a camel, and the animal permitted to make tis way as it would. Wherever it stopped, there his body was to be buried. As it commanded, so it was done. Without a single mishap the camel arrived at Safed. In the Jewish cemetery of the town it stood still, and there Hosea was buried in the presence of a large concourse."<ref name="google.com">[https://books.google.com/books?id=s3OumwEa8dAC&dq=Jehoiada+Legends+of+the+Jews&pg=PA258 The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg .p260]</ref>