a.  The Lord’s covenant relationship with Israel (north and south) is like a marriage.  It is unique and exclusive.  The Lord is devoted to it.  His heartfelt desire is still that Israel will be to Him a faithful wife rearing faithful children.
          b.  Israel’s role in this relationship has been almost wholly negative –- a long record of unfaithfulness and callous disregard.  Israel is in no sense morally or spiritually superior to other nations.
          c.  Israel’s true identity lies deeper than the trappings of nationhood.  For Hosea, Israel seems to be more a set of Jacobs who strive with God –- but it will become a people who hear His lion’s roar and turn to seek Him.  This is an Israel that only God can create; it is no simple matter of natural descent.
          d.  Other nations do not have a marriage relationship with the Lord.  They exist (1) as possible snares to Israel, leading Israel’s hearts astray with their gods and their military might; (2) as the Lord’s instruments of judgment upon Israel. 
          e. In marrying Gomer, Hosea came to understand something of God's centuries-long sojourn with Israel, and we get a first glimpse of what it costs God to love men.