The Reception of Jacob’s Traditions in Hosea 12

Some Difficulties

Abstract

From the consideration of the mysterious "style" of God's love expressed in spousal language in Hosea and the peculiar "conjugal behavior" of Jacob known above all from the accounts of Genesis, the author arrives at chapter 12 of Hosea, to ask herself if the prophet Hosea, relentlessly critical of national traditions but at the same time deeply convinced of what God's spousal "love" can achieve in his dissolute beloved one, would not have "seen" in the "Jacob case" another encouraging "example", revealing how a dissolute life had been redirected based on a deep experience of a love that claimed to be conjugal, of legitimate acquisitions, enduring fraud, and that would have taught him almost unwittingly, through the dynamism of authentic love, how to "love as God loves." The article presents a section of his "research itinerary" and raises the issue of the alleged influence that the version of Jacob's tradition that we know from Gen would have had at the time of the composition of the Ossean text, and, consequently, whether it is relevant, and how far, to take it into account when interpreting the passage in question.