God's Good Covenant: Poetic Beauty in Hosea Enhanced by Counting

In this study of Hosea Loren Bliese documents his current research into how the poetics of the Hebrew Bible were enhanced by arranging the counts of words and structures in order to beautify the message. The two words good and covenant are the only words that come once each in the five parts of the book. They point to a structural theme of the book that Gods covenant is good in contrast to idolatrous relationships that lead to disaster. Hoseas symbolic numbers are derived from both twenty-two of the Hebrew letters and from twenty-six the value of the divine name YHWH along with other numbers related to the name. Plays on the word repent or return have a build-up of repetitions to the end where the plea Return Israel to the LORD your God is prominent. Each of these words is marked by numeric significance. The book is a discourse analysis of Hoseas whole text focusing on features of prominence including symbolic numbers. The study analyzes thirty of the forty-five poems in Hosea with the form of metrical chiasmus pointing to a central peak. Bliese has developed this in previous writings. Abundant chi-square probability calculations support his analysis.