‘When YHWH spoke at the first by Hosea, YHWH said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom, for the land does commit great whoredom, departing from YHWH.'
God's first requirement for Hosea's prophetic ministry was that he marry and have children. And when he did so he was to recognise that they were involved in a land of spiritual whoredom (spiritual unfaithfulness), a land which had proved unfaithful to YHWH and was lusting after the Baalim, with the result that they were ignoring God's true worship and God's covenant requirements. They had ‘departed from YHWH'. (‘Land' here equals ‘the people of the land', with their actions seen as having tainted the land). This idea of considering ‘going after other gods' as ‘whoredom' was already rooted in the nation's history (see Exodus 34:15-16; Deuteronomy 31:16), and the whole verse is pregnant with God's clearly expressed disgust, horror and disapproval of what they were doing. It is a complete indictment of Israel. And the final aim of what Hosea was to do was to use the naming of his children as a warning message from YHWH to Israel.
‘Wife of whoredom' and ‘children of whoredom' merely indicate that they were identified with the whole people in their unfaithfulness. People were seen in those days as very much a part of the society in which they lived and the society to whom they owed allegiance. Thus if Hosea married he had no choice but to take a ‘wife of whoredom', because the whole nation was seen as tainted by the behaviour of the king and the majority of the people. And it was that behaviour that YHWH was bringing out. It is a reminder to us that to ‘depart from the living God', replacing Him with other things, is whoredom.