.
III. So what is the Main issue?.
Who is Gomer? There are a number of views that are argued among theologians. First, was Gomer simply a prostitute? Was she a temple prostitute? Maybe she was just an ordinary woman who later became unfaithful? Or maybe this Gomer does not exist but rather Gomer is a parable simply illustrating a message that God wanted to convey to the Israelites? All these different views can add an extra dimension on how we look and exegete the story.
IV. What are the views?.
The first view is that Gomer was a prostitute before she married Hosea. This is the most obvious out of all the views. Hosea was ordered by God to marry a prostitute and this is believed because the word "harlot" in both the Greek (porné ) and the Hebrew (zanah) can be translated into "prostitute". The case for Gomer being a prostitute becomes even more convincing when Hosea writes about how he had to buy Gomer back even though she was his property as his wife. This tells us that she was somebody else's property and back then prostitutes were considered this and were sold or traded like property. When Hosea went to buy her back, we can see that he pays them 15 shekels of silver, a homer and half of barley (Hosea 3:2). The common price for a slave at that time was 30 shekels (Exodus 21:32). But we see him paying only 15 shekels and a homer and a lethech of barley. Klostermann offers a clear explanation: "barley according to 2 Kings 7:18 and Exodus 21:32, was half a shekel per seah during a period of severe stringency. If the normal price of barley had been a third of a shekel per seah, that would have meant ten shekels per homer; the total price which Hosea paid for Gomer must have been according to this calculation been 30 shekels."1.
If this view were true, this paints a picture as to how God rescued us from our bondage to our sins, just as Hosea rescued Gomer from being a prostitute.