Gomer: Bible - Jewish Women's Archive

Scholars have advanced a number of theories to reckon with historical questions about the portrayal of Gomer in Hosea 1-3. Some commentators regard Hosea and Gomer’s marriage as an allegory, not meant to be taken literally. Such an interpretation would perhaps preserve Gomer’s moral goodness by erasing her existence as a real woman and having her serve God’s purposes. Others think that Gomer actually was a licentious woman, maybe even a prostitute, whom Hosea felt obliged to marry and whose illegitimate children Hosea adopted. A mediating position interprets the command to marry the immoral Gomer proleptically (after the fact): Gomer was chaste at the time of marriage, but subsequently became unfaithful to Hosea as an adulteress, a common harlot, or a temple prostitute.

Some try to vindicate Gomer's reputation by insisting that she should not be equated with the woman in Hosea 3, another wife, whom Hosea was commanded to marry and whose promiscuity is unfairly laid upon Gomer. A variant of this position regards the blameless Gomer of Hosea 1 becoming wrongly identified with the prostitute whom Hosea hires (rather than marries) in Hosea 3. In order to preserve the sanctity of marriage, still other interpreters argue that Hosea did not actually marry Gomer. The verb take in 1:2 could mean “marry a wife” or “take a woman sexually.” Following the latter sense, Hosea was commanded to have sex with two unchaste women: Gomer and the unnamed woman of Hosea 3. His symbolic actions are not meant to parallel the marriage between God and Israel (Hosea 2).

Most commentators today understand the unnamed woman in Hosea 3 to be Gomer of Hosea 1. The standard opinion that Gomer was a prostitute is based on misleading translations of eshet zenunim in 1:2, which have Hosea marrying “a wife of whoredom” (NRSV, JPS), “a wife of harlotry” (RSV), “a harlot wife” (NAB), or simply “a whore” (NJB). However, Gomer is never labeled as a zonah, the technical term for a prostitute. Nor is Gomer called a kedesha (literally, “holy one”), wrongly translated as “temple prostitute” or “cult prostitute” to describe the daughters of Israel in 4:14. Kedesha refers to a woman serving in the cult. The nature of her activity (whether sexual or not) is, however, difficult to reconstruct from the extant evidence. In the prophet’s mind, her rituals involved sexuality, but it would be a mistake to accept his polemical condemnations at face value.

For Hosea, Gomer is a “wife of whoredom,” not because she is a prostitute, but because, according to the mores of Israel, she is blatantly licentious and wanton. In her sexual activity, Gomer is condemned as being “like a whore,” although she is not a prostitute by profession. As a promiscuous wife, Gomer is much more threatening to the social order than a prostitute—a woman marginalized but still tolerated in Israel. An adulterous woman could never be permitted in a patrilineal society based on the principle of male descent and inheritance through legitimate sons. Through prostitution, men were allowed socially condoned sexual access to “other” women who were not their wives. Women, on the contrary, were permitted no other men besides their husbands. Because of this unequal sexual access to other partners, which itself is based on other gendered asymmetries, ancient Israelite marriage becomes a powerful metaphor, delineating the exclusive boundaries of God’s covenant with Israel and Israel’s infidelity to that covenant by worshipping other gods.

During the course of their marriage, Gomer bears Hosea three children with symbolic names: a son, Jezreel, meaning, “God sows” (1:4–5); a daughter, Lo-ruhamah, meaning “not pitied” (1:6–7); and another son, Lo-ammi, meaning “not my people” (1:8–9). Each child symbolically represents the deteriorating state of the nation.