The Hebrew word translated Jezreel
can mean scatter,
usually referring to judgment and often exile, or sow,
with the more positive sense of bringing God’s people into the land (Hosea 1:11). Thus Hosea is undoubtedly playing on it throughout this passage. In Hosea 1:4 it refers to the place where Jehu violently overthrew the dynasty of Omri (2 Kings 9:1 – 10:36; see also 1 Kings 21:1–29). This is why Hosea speaks about the blood of Jezreel,
describing the violent excess that led to much blood being shed, or sown, on the land.
Naming the child Jezreel,
which can be literally translated as God will sow,
points both to the end of Israel’s kingship and the loss of their land.
As God had promised at the very outset of the northern kingdom (1 Kings 13:1–34), it would not last forever. In naming the first child, Jezreel, God was declaring that this inevitable judgment was going to come about because of the murderous beginning to Jehu’s reign and dynasty, especially the killing of Ahaziah (2 Kings 9:27) and forty-two of his relatives (2 Kings 10:12–14).1
Addressing the northern kingdom, perhaps even Jeroboam II, the descendant of Jehu, God promises his justice against their violence.
4 And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.