Is Hosea in the Old Testament?

Yes. The Book of Hosea is an Old Testament book, and its first verse dates the prophet to the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah and of Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel (Hosea 1:1).

Christian Boy Names Starting With H: Hosea, Habakkuk, Haggai and the Saints Who Followed

Hosea's book opens in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah (Hosea 1:1), and Hezekiah's own reign begins "in the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel" (2 Kings 18:1). Hezekiah therefore links the prophet Hosea to a king of Israel whose name, Hoshea, differs from the prophet's by one letter in English.

Hosea, Habakkuk and Haggai are each a prophet and the title of the book that carries his words. Their first verses introduce them very differently: a father and five kings for Hosea, only the word "prophet" for Habakkuk, and a date to the day for Haggai.

The two Hirams, Hur and Heman complete the biblical men on this list, while Herod is in the Bible as the king behind the killings at Bethlehem.

The saint names Hilary, Hubert, Hugh and Henry come from three bishops and an emperor who lived between the 4th and 12th centuries. Their entries in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia mark which stories about two of them are legend.

Quick Facts

Prophets with books: Hosea (Hosea 1:1), Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:1) and Haggai (Haggai 1:1)
Renamed by Moses: Hoshea son of Nun, renamed Joshua (Numbers 13:16)
King of Judah: Hezekiah, 29 years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:2)
Saints: Hilary (d. 368), Hubert (d. 727 or 728), Henry II (d. 1024) and Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1200)
Stories marked as legend: Hubert's stag; Henry II's virgin marriage
Biblical, as the king at Bethlehem: Herod (Matthew 2:16)

Is Hosea a prophet or a book, and who else was called Hoshea?

Hosea is both: a prophet, and the book named for him. Its first verse calls the book "the word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri" (Hosea 1:1).

The same verse places him in the days of four kings of Judah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel. That list of reigns is how the book dates his work, and the last king of Judah on it is Hezekiah.

The book's first command is a hard one. The Lord tells Hosea to "take for yourself a wife of prostitution" because "the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the Lord" (Hosea 1:2), and he marries Gomer daughter of Diblaim (1:3).

The prophet's own marriage is therefore the book's first sign of the land forsaking the Lord.

At least two other men in the NRSV Updated Edition carry a near-identical name, spelled Hoshea, and the better known of them is remembered by another name. Numbers 13:16 records that "Moses changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua" when Moses sent him with the men who spied out the land.

Hosea and Joshua are therefore different names in English, and this passage links them through one man who bore both.

Another Hoshea is a king: 2 Kings 18:1 names "King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel", in whose third year Hezekiah became king of Judah. A king called Hoshea was therefore reigning in Israel when the Hezekiah of Hosea 1:1 came to the throne.

Hosea son of Beeri: the prophet whose book opens with his name (Hosea 1:1).
Hoshea son of Nun: one of the men Moses sent to spy out the land, renamed Joshua (Numbers 13:16).
Hoshea son of Elah: king of Israel when Hezekiah began to reign in Judah (2 Kings 18:1).

Habakkuk and Haggai: a complaint to God and a house in ruins

Habakkuk's book introduces him in one line, "The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw" (Habakkuk 1:1), with no father and no king. In the next verse, 1:2, he is already complaining: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?"

Chapter 2 sets the proud, whose "spirit is not right in them", against "the righteous", who "live by their faithfulness" (Habakkuk 2:4). With no family or date in the opening, Habakkuk is known as a person through that complaint and that line.

Haggai is the H prophet with the most exact date. His book opens "in the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month" (Haggai 1:1).

The word comes through him to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, a different Joshua from the son of Nun. Its first challenge, in 1:4, is a question: "Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?"

How the three H prophet-books open
Prophet	How the book names him	Time the opening gives	A line from the opening chapters
Hosea	"Hosea son of Beeri" (1:1)	Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah; King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel	"Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution" (1:2)
Habakkuk	"the prophet Habakkuk" (1:1)	None	"the righteous live by their faithfulness" (2:4)
Haggai	"the prophet Haggai" (1:1)	Second year of King Darius, sixth month, first day	"while this house lies in ruins" (1:4)

For a family choosing among the three, the openings show the difference: Hosea comes with a father and a marriage, Habakkuk with a question put to God, and Haggai with a dated message about a house left in ruins.

Who was King Hezekiah?

Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz, was a king of Judah who "was twenty-five years old when he began to reign" and "reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem" (2 Kings 18:2). The writer of Kings says he "did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done" (18:3).

Verse 4 lists what he removed. He took away the high places, broke down the pillars and cut down the sacred pole, and he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had been making offerings to it; "it was called Nehushtan" (18:4).

Verse 5 then ranks him above every other king of Judah: he "relied on the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him or among those who were before him" (18:5).

Chapter 20 turns to his illness. When Hezekiah was "at the point of death", the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz told him, "you shall die; you shall not recover" (2 Kings 20:1).

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, prayed and "wept bitterly", and before Isaiah had left the middle court he was sent back with a different word: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears" and "I will add fifteen years to your life" (20:2-6).

The two Hirams, Hur and Heman

Hiram names two different men in 1 Kings. King Hiram of Tyre "had always been a friend to David" and sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that Solomon had been anointed king (1 Kings 5:1).

The second Hiram came from Tyre at Solomon's invitation. He was "the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali", his father had been a man of Tyre and an artisan in bronze, and he was "full of skill, intelligence, and knowledge in working bronze" (7:13-14).

A boy named Hiram can therefore be named for a foreign king who was David's friend, or for the craftsman who "did all his work" for King Solomon (7:14).

Exodus 17 records Hur for one act of help. When Moses' hands grew heavy in the battle with Amalek, "Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on either side, so his hands were steady until the sun set" (Exodus 17:12).

Israel prevailed whenever Moses held up his hand (17:11), so Hur's part in the battle is keeping Moses' hands raised until sunset.

Heman appears in 1 Kings 4:31 as a measure of wisdom: Solomon "was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman, Calcol, and Darda". The verse makes Heman a wise man whom Solomon surpassed, and it records nothing else about him.

Hilary, Hubert, Hugh and Henry: what is record and what is legend

The four H saint names span more than 800 years, from Hilary of Poitiers, who died in 368, to Hugh of Lincoln, who died in 1200. The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, the source of the dates here, names a story about two of them as legend or as having no basis in fact.

Four H saints in the Catholic Encyclopedia
Saint	Lived	Office and place	What the entry records	What the entry treats as legend or uncertain
Hilary of Poitiers	Early 4th century to 368	Bishop of Poitiers, chosen about 350	Raised in a "very probably pagan family", baptized after studying Scripture; exiled to Phrygia by Emperor Constantius; made a Doctor of the Church by Pius IX	No legend flagged; it reports rival traditions about what became of his body
Hubert	About 656 to 727 or 728	31st bishop of Maastricht and first bishop of Liège	Moved the see from Maastricht to Liège; honored in the Middle Ages as patron of huntsmen	The stag with a crucifix between its antlers, told "as the pious legend narrates"
Hugh of Lincoln	About 1135 to 1200	Carthusian prior of Witham, then bishop of Lincoln from 1186	Protected the Jews of Lincoln from popular violence; canonized in 1220	The swan of Stowe, told as the story behind his white-swan emblem without a judgment on it
Henry II	972 to 1024	German king and Holy Roman Emperor	Founded the see of Bamberg in 1007; canonized in 1146	The "virgin marriage" to Cunegond, which "has certainly no basis in fact"

Hubert's stag is the clearest case. The encyclopedia tells how, hunting on Good Friday, he saw a crucifix between a stag's antlers and heard a voice, but it frames the scene "as the pious legend narrates" and states his bishopric and the move of the see to Liège as history.

For Henry II, the same encyclopedia says later church legends gave him ascetic traits, "some of which certainly cannot withstand serious criticism", and it singles out the story of a virgin marriage to Cunegond. The Church canonized him in 1146 and Cunegond in 1200.

Henry's tutor was Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg, who was himself canonized in 1052.

Hilary's entry has no legend to mark, and its decisive facts are a conversion and an exile. He came to the faith by studying Scripture, and after he came to the council of Béziers in 356 to defend orthodoxy against the Arian party, Emperor Constantius had him sent to Phrygia, where he kept writing.

When Hilary returned to Poitiers in 361, he was visited by Martin, his former disciple and later bishop of Tours.

Hugh of Lincoln's entry records a public stand. He "was also prominent in trying to protect the Jews" of Lincoln during the persecution at the beginning of Richard I's reign, and he put down popular violence against them in several places.

The Henry II who founded Witham, where Hugh was prior, was the king of England, and he founded it in place of a crusade imposed on him as penance for the murder of Thomas of Canterbury. He is a different man from the emperor in the table.

Several saints are named Hugh, and the Catholic Encyclopedia gives them separate entries; the dates and facts above belong to Hugh of Lincoln.

Is Herod a Christian name?

Herod is a biblical name, and the man who bears it in Matthew 2:16 is the king who, "infuriated" at being tricked by the magi, "killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under".

The other H names here come with a prophet's call, a king's praise or a saint's life; Herod's name comes with the killing at Bethlehem.