IN Isaiah and Hosea the loving-kindness of Jehovah finds outward expression in language of the tenderest affection. Jehovah proffers the fullest forgiveness to His sinful people; He invites them to return to Him from whom they have revolted; and waits patiently that He may have mercy upon them. To Israel, at one time as a fickle bride, at another time as a wayward child, are addressed appeals breathing all the spirit of human love, intensified by the underlying consideration that the Speaker is not man but God. And concomitantly with this enlargement of the prophets' apprehension of the moral side of the Divine Being there is visible an increasing sense of His spirituality.
—From Old Testament History, by
