'He saves' (Hoshea — the same name the last king of Israel bore, and the name Moses changed to Joshua in Numbers 13:16). Son of Beeri, and the only writing prophet who was himself a NORTHERNER speaking to the north: his places are Samaria, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Tabor, Gilead, Shechem. He begins under Jeroboam II, when the northern kingdom was richer than it had ever been, and preaches through the chaos that followed — four of the next six kings were assassinated — up to the edge of Samaria's fall in 722 BC. ⚠ Almost nothing is known of him except his marriage, and that is known only because God turned it into the message: he is commanded to marry a wife of promiscuity and to give three children names that are sentences.