for literary criticism presented by the book.[1] Amongst the more
recent commentators, Davidson, G. A. Smith and Nowack regard
Hosea xiv. as written by the prophet, though the second admits
its chronological misplacement and the third its later expansion.
On the other hand, it is altogether rejected by Cheyne, Wellhausen,
Marti and Harper. These claim that the passage reflects the later
standpoint of completed punishment, and is therefore inconsistent
in the prophet who anticipates that punishment. But the case is
different from that of the epilogue to Amos, since Hosea’s personal
experience covers forgiveness as well as discipline (Marti consistently,
though without ground, rejects this experience also). There seems,
therefore, to be no sufficient evidence for denying thoughts of
restoration to Hosea, whilst it is highly probable that such passages
would be amplified in a later age. Indeed, the importance of these
passages for the interpretation of Hosea is apt to be overrated,
for, as one of those rejecting them remarks, though Hosea “promised
nothing,” yet he “contributed a conception of Yahweh which made
such a future not only possible but even probable” (Harper, p. cliii.).
We may therefore read the closing chapter as, at least, the explicit
statement of a hope implicit in Hosea’s teaching.
Hosea could discern no faithful remnant in Ephraim, yet Ephraim in all his corruption is the son of Yahweh, a child nurtured with tender love, a chosen people, whose past history declares in every episode the watchful and patient affection of his father. And that father is God and not man, the Holy One who will not and cannot sacrifice His love even to the justest indignation (chap. xi.). To the prophet who knows this love of Yahweh, who has learned to understand it in the like experience of his own life, the very ruin of the state of Israel is a step in the loving guidance which makes the valley of trouble a door of hope (ii. 15), and the wilderness of tribulation as full of promise as the desert road from Egypt to Canaan was to Israel of old. Of the manner of Israel’s repentance and conversion Hosea presents no clear image—nay, it is plain that on this point he had nothing to tell. The certainty that the people will at length return and seek Yahweh their God rests, not on any germ of better things in Israel, but on the invincible supremacy of Yahweh’s love. And so the two sides of his prophetic declaration, the passionate denunciation of Israel’s sin and folly, and the not less passionate tenderness with which he describes the final victory of divine love, are united by no logical bond. The unity is one of feeling only, and the sob of anguish in which many of his appeals to a heedless people seem to end turns once and again with sudden revulsion into the clear accents of evangelical promise, which in the closing chapter swell forth in pure and strong cadence out of a heart that has found its rest with God from all the troubles of a stormy life.
The strongly emotional temperament of Hosea suggests comparison with that of Jeremiah, who like himself is the prophet of the decline and fall of a kingdom. The subsequent influence of Hosea on the literature of the Old and New Testaments is very marked. Not only is it seen in the conception of the relation between God and His people as a marriage, which he makes current coin (cf. Marti, p. 15), but still more in the fact that his conception of the divine character becomes the inspiration of the book of Deuteronomy and so of the whole canon of Scripture. “In a special degree, the author of Deuteronomy is the spiritual heir of Hosea.”[2]
Recent Literature (where references to older works will be found): Cheyne, “Hosea” in Cambridge Bible (1884); W. R. Smith, The Prophets of Israel,2 with Cheyne’s introduction (1895); G. A. Smith, “The Book of the Twelve,” i., in The Expositor’s Bible (1896); Nowack, Die Kleinen Propheten (1897); Wellhausen, Die Kleinen Propheten3 (1898); Smend, Alttest. Religionsgeschichte,2 pp. 204 f. (1899); Davidson, art. “Hosea” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, ii. pp. 419 f. (1900); Marti, art. “Hosea” in Ency. Biblica, ii. c. 2119 (1901) (a revision of the original article by W. R. Smith, in the Ency. Britannica, partially reproduced above); Marti, Dodekapropheton (1903); W. R. Harper, “Amos and Hosea” in Inter. Critical Commentary (1905) (with copious bibliography). (W. R. S.; H. W. R.*)
HOSE-PIPE, or simply “hose,” the name given to flexible
piping by means of which water may be conveyed from one
place to another. One end of the pipe is connected to the source
of the water, while the other end is free, so that the direction of
the stream of water which issues from the pipe may be changed
at will. The method of manufacture and the strength of the
materials used depend naturally upon the particular use to
which the finished article is to be put. Simple garden hose is
often made of india-rubber or composition, but the hose intended
for fire brigade and similar important purposes must be of a much
more substantial material. The most satisfactory material is
the best long flax, although cotton is also extensively used for
many types of this fabric.
The flax fibre, after having been carefully spun into yarn, is boiled twice and then beetled; these two processes remove all injurious matter, and make the yarn soft and lustrous. The yarn is then wound on to large bobbins, and made into a chain; the number of threads in the chain depends upon the size of the hose, which may be anything from half an inch to 15 in. or even more in diameter. When the chain is warped, it is beamed upon the weaver’s beam, and the ends—either double or triple—are drawn through the leaves of the cambs of heddles, passed through the reed and finally tied to the cloth beam. The preparation of the warp for any kind of loom varies very little, but the weaving may vary greatly. In all cases the hose fabric is essentially circular, although it appears quite flat during the weaving operation.
There are very few hand-made fabrics which can compete with the machine-made article, but the very best type of hose-pipe is certainly one of the former class. The cloth can be made much more cheaply in the power-loom than in the hand-loom, but, up to the present, no power-loom has been made which can weave as substantial a cloth as the hand-loom product; the weak part in all hose-pipes is where the weft passes round the sides from top to bottom of the fabric or vice versa, that is, the side corresponding to the selvages in an ordinary cloth; the hand-loom weaver can draw the weft tighter than is possible in the power-loom, hence the threads at the sides can be brought close together, and by this means the fabric is made almost, but not quite, as perfect here as in other parts. It is essential that the warp threads be held tightly in the loom, and to secure this, they pass alternately over and under three or four back rests before reaching the heddles or cambs, which are almost invariably made of wire. Although the warp yarn is made very soft and pliable by boiling and beetling, the weaver always tallows it in order to make it work more easily.
 | |
| Fig. 1. | Fig. 2. |
 |
| Fig. 3.—Section through the Warp. |
The commonest type of hose-pipe is made on the double-plain principle of weaving, the cloth being perfectly plain but woven in such a manner that the pipe is without seams of any kind. Fig. 1 is a design showing two repeats or eight shots in the way of the weft, and six repeats or twenty-four-threads in the way of the warp, consequently the weave is complete on four threads, or leaves, and four picks. Fig. 2 illustrates the method of interlacing the threads and the picks: this figure shows that twenty-three threads only are used, the first thread—shown shaded in fig. 1—having been left out. It is necessary to use a number of threads which is either one less or one more than some multiple of four—the number of threads in the unit weave. The sectional view (fig. 2), although indicating the crossings of the warp and the weft, is quite different from an actual section through the threads: the warp is almost invariably two or three ply, and in addition two or more of these twisted threads pass through the same heddle-eye in the camb; moreover, they are set very closely together—so closely, indeed, that the threads entirely conceal the weft; it is, therefore, impossible to give a correct
- ↑ Apart from glosses and minor alterations, the only other critical problem of importance is that of the references to Judah scattered throughout the book (i. 7, iv. 15, v. 5, v. 10 f., vi. 4, 11, viii. 14, x. 11, xi. 12). There is no inherent improbability in some mention of the sister kingdom; but some of the actual references do suggest interpolation, especially i. 7, where the deliverance of Judah from Sennacherib in 701 B.C. seems intended. Each case, as Wellhausen implies, is to be considered on its merits. On these and other suspected passages, cf. Cheyne, Intro. to W. R. Smith’s Prophets of Israel, pp. xvii.-xxii.; Marti, p. 8; Harper, p. clix.
- ↑ Driver, Deuteronomy, p. xxvii.
