("not My people".) Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah ("not loved"), and Lo-ammi are the three children of the prophet Hosea's wife, Gomer, taken by God's command. "Jezreel" symbolised the coming destruction of Jehu's line, as Jehu had destroyed that of Ahab of Jezreel; also that as Jezreel means both God sows and God scatters, so God will yet sow Israel whom He now scatters (Hosea 1:4-6; Hosea 1:9-10; Hosea 1:11), "great shall be the day of Jezreel," i.e. great shall be the day when they shall be God's seed planted in their own land by God (Jeremiah 24:6; Jeremiah 31:28; Jeremiah 32:41; Amos 9:15; Hosea 2:23). "I will sow her (Jezreel, the sown one, Hosea 2:22) unto ... Me in the earth." Not only Judaea, but the whole earth shall be the seed plot wherein Gentile nations shall be the spiritual growth of the Jewish seed sown everywhere (Micah 5:7; Romans 11:12; Romans 11:15; Zechariah 10:9). Lo-ruhamah, changed into Ruhama, means that He will first withdraw His "loving mercy" and at last restore it. And Lo-ammi, changed into Ammi, that He will make Israel, now "not His people" owing to apostasy, to become again "His people." The three children symbolize successive generations:
(1) Jezreel represents the dynasty of Jeroboam I, ending with Jehu's shedding the blood of the last of the line at Jezreel;
(2) Lo-ruhamah, a daughter, represents the effeminate period which followed;
(3) Loammi, a son, represents Jeroboam II's vigorous dynasty, which however brought no revival of religion; still Israel was not God's people really, and so should be no longer so in name but cast away.