In Hebrew school, they skipped over the interesting parts.
I never knew about David’s affair with Bathsheba, Amnon’s assault of Tamar or that in Hosea 1, the prophet is commanded to, “Go, take unto thee a wife of harlotry.” In “The Prophet’s Wife,” Milton Steinberg tells the story of Hosea’s marriage and ponders why God would ask a prophet to take a wife who is so clearly steeped in impurity.
Steinberg was no stranger to controversy. His first novel, “As a Driven Leaf,” imagined the life of the Talmudic heretic Elisha ben Abuya. In this novel, Steinberg does the same for Hosea and Gomer—his harlot wife—bringing two enigmatic figures to life.
The book imagines Hosea to be the third and least impressive son of a wealthy household. While his brothers fight, cavort and worship idols, Hosea obeys his father and becomes a scribe. Hosea enters adulthood as a withdrawn and odd man who seems to observe life rather than live it.
Hosea comes alive only when he rebels against his father’s wishes and falls in love with Gomer, a poor orphan with the reputation of a shameless hussy. She attracts Hosea, however, with her beauty, grace and wit, and it is only when speaking of his love for her that we see Hosea display the passion and fire that would define him as a prophet.
Gomer does not reciprocate this passion. Even as she pleads with Hosea to rescue her from a life of poverty, she confesses that she does not love him “the way a wife should.” Steinberg never explains her lack of feeling, leaving the reader mystified.
In many ways, this is the novel’s central theme. What more must Hosea do to win Gomer’s love? Steinberg may be hinting that Hosea is not the perfect husband he seems to be. He may be good and kind, but he is still passive and withdrawn, willing to go through life as obediently as possible. We see Hosea’s passion for his duties as a scribe, but his desire for his wife wanes after their marrage. In fact, Gomer almost disappears from the book after the wedding and Hosea meanders off into a subplot involving a false prophet. This is one of the weakest moments of the novel; this subplot adds nothing to the plot and leaves the reader waiting for Gomer’s betrayal.
There is a certain schadenfreude in anticipating the true beginning of Hosea’s suffering and when the suffering does come, it is a moment worth waiting for. Hosea’s return home is Steinberg at his finest, turning his gentle hero into a cruel, active and wrathful aggressor, at last confronting the tensions between himself, his wife and his family.
As he did with Elisha ben Abuya in “As a Driven Leaf,” Steinberg takes Gomer—a person of dubious repute—and writes her story. Steinberg is at his best with these controversial characters, exploring why they made the choices they did. He plays the part of defense counsel, giving a voice to those whom the canon condemns. Through his measured prose, Steinberg forces the reader to realize that people can make bad choices without being bad people.
Steinberg died while writing the novel and so, alas, it is unfinished. Hosea does not yet begin to prophesy in the pages, but Steinberg is able to portray Hosea’s first steps toward activism in his return home, the book’s climactic scene. Had he never had to face confrontation, Hosea would likely have been a happy scribe of wealthy means with a family, living life as passively as he could.
The editors considered continuing the book, asking scholars to try and find a resolution to all the unanswered questions. Fortunately that idea was abandoned, as there would be no way to complete the story without Steinberg’s vision.
Even unfinished, “The Prophet’s Wife” is a masterpiece.
“The Prophet’s Wife, Milton Steinberg. 210 pp. Behrman House, 2010. Photo Courtesy Behrman House.
