Felipe Fruto Ll. Ramirez, S.J. (“Israel’s Defilement and God’s Withdrawal in Hosea 5:3–7”) discusses an interesting example of how the eighth century prophet Hosea employs the ancient notion of religious impurity (ṭāmē‘) to explain to his contemporaries why God has abandoned his earthly sanctuary, thereby rendering the people’s cultic attempt at reconciliation with him meaningless and ineffective. We thus find in Hosea’s oracle the notion that God can abandon his shrine because of the defilement of the people. This may have presaged the later priestly theology of sancta contamination that is the reason for the annual ritual cleansing of the Temple during Yom Kippur. However, in keeping with the prophetic tradition, Hosea emphasizes religious and moral offenses as the reason for Israel’s defilement, the disastrous consequence of which affects both the land and its people. – from the Editor’s Preface