Hosea 10:12, "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you."
Israel had turned their back on God. Turning away from the Lord to follow a path of adultery she had become as a backsliding heifer playing a harlot with her lovers.
The account of Hosea's prophesy reveals a nation who had forsaken the covenant of their God and returned to the idolatry of Egypt.
II Kings 13:13-19, "And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice."
In 755 B.C. the word of the Lord came to Hosea the prophet, "Go, take a wife of whoredoms and have children of whoredoms because the land has committed great whoredoms forsaking their God." Because of their adulterous acts God sent Israel into captivity by the hand of Syria in 722 B.C.
Israel was a nation who had forgotten their husband and the covenant they had agreed to by running after strange gods. The prophesy of Hosea reveals God as Israel's Husband and what He would do to regain her fidelity.
