Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures has served as a standard reference for more than a century. The subtitle “Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical” aptly describes the three-pronged approach to the biblical text. This translated version of the German text is often considered by many to be superior to the original.
“The Prophet’s name = Deliverance, stood thus in marked contrast to the aim of his mission,—the announcement of ruin and destruction. And yet it well agreed with his vocation as a messenger of God, to return to whom would have been the only but the sure way to deliverance. So also the final ‘deliverance’ of God’s people was the grand object kept in view through all the terrors of the judgment denounced upon apostate Israel. Thus the position at the beginning of the Book of the Twelve Prophets, occupied by Hosea, was truly significant.” (Pages 2–3)
“‘The prophetic exhibition of the love of God, wounded sorely and in numberless ways by Israel’s guilt, and therefore necessarily a chastening love, though ever remaining unchanged in its inner nature, which being so deeply grounded would not destroy, but heal and recall to itself.’” (Page 7)
“Accordingly Hosea was, most probably, an older contemporary of Isaiah, whose ministry began in the long reign of King Uzziah in Judah, though much later than that of Hosea, and extended to a period much later. He would also be contemporary with Micah, if he actually lived until the beginning of Uzziah’s reign. On the other side he comes in contact with Amos; for the latter prophet lived in the contemporary reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II.; and if it was the case that Hosea did not appear until after the death of Amos, he must have been closely connected with him, not merely in time, but also in their common vocation.” (Page 6)
“But what the prophet is to do this time in respect to the woman is אהב. This must express not merely a disposition to love (for a command, and especially the command לֵךְ, would not agree with this, expressing as it does an outward act), but an attestation or effectuation of love. Yet this presupposes an inclination to love; in so far it is demanded of the prophet. For he is to represent the conduct of God, and in that his displays of love spring from a loving mind. The prophet is to love a woman who is not in the least worthy of love—to love whom one feels and can feel no desire.” (Page 44)