BIG IDEA:
DANGEROUS SELF-RELIANCE FUELS COVENANT TRANSGRESSION FOR A NATION THAT HAS FORGOTTEN ITS GOD
INTRODUCTION:
Robin Routledge: While there is general agreement that 8:1 marks the beginning of a new section, some view 8:1–14 and 9:1–9 as separate units (Wolff 1974; Macintosh 1997; Ben Zvi 2005: 185; Moon 2018). There are, though, common elements (Hubbard 1989: 143; cf. Ben Zvi 2005: 164). As well as having similar themes, both include Hosea’s only references to the house of the Lord (8:1; 9:4; cf. 9:8); using near-identical language, both deliver the same verdict: he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins (8:13; 9:9); and both view punishment as a return to Egypt (8:13; 9:3). It seems reasonable, therefore, to take them as two parts of a single section.
Allan Redpath: Do we understand what it means to forget God? I’m not sure we do. It does not mean that God was put into the realm of oblivion. You cannot forget God like that! Even in denying God you are remembering Him. Intellectually we do not forget God. The word “forgot” here means, ‘Israel hath mislaid his Maker.’ If you forget something, it is out of your memory altogether. If you mislay something, you are completely aware of its existence; but as far as you are concerned, it is out of use, out of circulation.
Biblehub: Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind — Hosea 8 serves as a somber reminder that forsaking God and His laws to seek our own ways or depend on human wisdom leads to spiritual decline and divine judgement. Even in the face of dire consequences, God’s call for repentance prevails, urging us to return to Him, offering a beacon of hope amidst the gloom. . .
Hosea 8 is a dramatic call to repentance and a stark warning to the nation of Israel. As the Prophet Hosea blows a metaphorical trumpet, signifying impending judgement, he forewarns of divine retribution for Israel’s rebellious and idolatrous practices. Throughout the chapter, Hosea provides vivid illustrations of Israel’s abandonment of God’s laws, turning to false gods, self-reliance, and misguided alliances.
Derek Kidner: If there is one theme that unifies the diversity of this chapter, it is that of Israel’s dangerous self-reliance, with its self-appointed kings, its man-made calf, its expensive allies, its own version of religion, and its impressive fortresses. What God makes of all this, and what kind of test it could survive, these people have not troubled to ask themselves.
Allen Guenther: The oven full of sins ignites and bursts into a firestorm of judgment. Israel will experience these in two forms: withdrawal of fertility, and the horrors of war culminating in national exile. The accusation oracles establish the theme that Israel seems incapable of discerning the reasons for God’s history of judgments. They have lost the covenant perspective from which to view their world. Cult has been severed from morality. Consequently, Israel is no longer able to connect God’s corrective and disciplinary acts with the underlying sins. The nation has forgotten how to return to their Lord. As a result they begin to despair of pleasing God.
Hosea addresses that despair by continuing to spell out the principal reasons for the deluge of judgments: they install their own kings, rely on covenants with other nations, reject the corrective prophetic message, pervert worship, and practice the fertility cult.
Duane Garrett: The opening text alternately complains on the one hand over how Israel has sought artificial political protection and lives in a world of artificial piety, and on the other hand it asserts that the result will be military disaster and famine conditions. The text is structured in the following fashion:
A The Coming Conquest (8:1a)
B Artificial Piety: Vain Reliance on the Covenant (8:1b–3)
C Artificial Political Protection: Choosing Their Own Kings (8:4a)
B´ Artificial Piety: The Calf-idol (8:4b–6)
A´ The Coming Deprivation (8:7)
C´ Artificial Political Protection: Seeking Foreign Help (8:8–10)
B´´ Artificial Piety: Unintended Results of Worship (8:11–13)
C´´ Artificial Political Protection: Fortresses (8:14)
This structure presents a picture of an Israel that, in its religion, had a presumptive confidence in the covenant and repeated the sin of the golden calf and whose worship had results that were the opposite of what they supposed. In the political realm they chose their own leaders rather than seek Yahweh’s direction, they sought help from other nations rather than from God, and they relied on their walls and military power to defend them.
I. (:1-6) FAILED COVENANT FIDELITY
A. (:1-3) Rejection of God’s Goodness and of God’s Covenant – Replaced by Ignorance, Rebellion and Defeat
- (:1) Declaration of Coming Judgment
“Put the trumpet to your lips!
Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the LORD,
Because they have transgressed My covenant,
And rebelled against My law.”
H. Ronald Vandermey: In the eighth chapter, Hosea launches immediately into an announcement of the judgment that is to befall the nation. A trumpet (cf. 5:8) is again sounded to warn the nation that the judgment is about to commence. Assyria, pictured as a swift eagle (Deut. 28:49), has been designated as God’s tool to render justice for the transgressing of the covenant. Historically, this prediction of judgment was fulfilled both in the invasion of Tiglath-pileser III (734-733 B.C.), and in the conquest of Shalmaneser in 722 B.C. (2 Kings 15:29; 17:1-6).
Lloyd Ogilvie: Israel transgressed Yahweh’s covenant (1 Kin. 19:10, 14) and rebelled against His Law. In the covenant Yahweh elected Israel to be His people and chose to be their God. The Law was given as a gracious gift to guide the people in the covenant relationship with Yahweh. His absolute authority over His people was established and maintained by both the covenant and the Law. For God’s people to transgress the covenant was to step over the demarcation line drawn by the call for ultimate obedience to Yahweh and give that obedience to another god. The Israelites’ rebellion (pešaʿ) against the Law was faithlessness to all Yahweh had disclosed about His will for His people. The Torah was more than instruction by the priests, it represented Yahweh’s written commandments, promises, and statutes. To go against them was to rebel against Yahweh Himself.
J. Andrew Dearman: Judgment is announced on YHWH’s household through a beautifully structured parallel charge of violating covenant (ʿābar bĕrît) and transgressing instruction (pāšaʿ tôrâ). The vocabulary can be found elsewhere in Hosea (6:7, “violate covenant”; 4:6 and 8:12, “instruction”; 7:13, “rebelled against me”; 14:9, “transgressors”).
M. Daniel Carroll R.: This section begins with an exclamation to sound the trumpet (v.1). Perhaps the prophet is envisioned as the watchman of the nation (cf. 5:8; 9:8), who is to announce the impending judgment. God’s instrument of chastisement will come like a bird of prey, swiftly and mercilessly (Dt 28:49; Jer 4:13; Hab 1:8).
H. D. Beeby: God’s response of sending the vulture-enemy was then not vengeance or hatred or peevishness; his action was demanded by the covenant in that it called for both blessing and curse (Deut. 27–28). To spurn God was to close the only possible door to blessing and to opt for the curse.
Jeremy Thomas: at the end of the verse by the way, the mention of foreign tongues associated with foreign invaders, is one of the main ideas of tongues in Acts 2 Pentecost. The nation Israel just committed an atrocity; they just crucified their own Messiah. What do you think was coming next? The tongues wasn’t some great blessing like our Charismatic friends wish for. Tongues were a sign of foreign invasion. The Holy Spirit had just invaded and they weren’t ready for him at all. 37 years later what foreign army did the Lord bring against Israel in AD70 and send into exile? Rome. Titus led the Roman army and they tore Jerusalem to shreds, destroyed the Temple. What’s the point of tongues after that? There is no lasting purpose. It was a sign gift. A sign to the nation Israel that they better get with it spiritually or that was it, they were going to get creamed. And they didn’t listen and so they got creamed. So what’s God warning of here in Hosea. The exact same thing. Get with the program Israel or you’re going to get a big spanking, My nation Assyria is going to cream you and you’re going to go into Exile.
- (:2) Deception of False Security
“They cry out to Me, ‘My God, we of Israel know Thee!’”
James Mays: They call him ‘my God’, an appellation which lays hold on the election and claims its blessing in trust (2.23; Pss. 18.2; 22.1; 63.1, etc.). In the confessional sentence, ‘We know you’, the worshippers take up a primary motif of Hosea’s prophetic speech, perhaps in response to his sayings (cf. commentary on ‘knowledge of God’ in 4.1), and claim to express in their lives the revelation of Yahweh. They break the covenant and say ‘my God’, rebel against the tōrā and say, ‘We know you’!
John Goldingay: Prayer doesn’t work and sacrificial giving doesn’t please God unless they are associated with acknowledging God in life as well as in words and giving.
- (:3) Doomed to Defeat for Rejecting the Good
“Israel has rejected the good;
The enemy will pursue him.”
H. Ronald Vandermey: The good (Hebrew, tob) is a reference not only to God’s character (Amos 5:14; Mic. 6:8); but also to the manifestation of His goodness in covenant blessings (2:8; 3:5). As prof that Israel has rejected the good, Hosea devotes the remainder of the chapter to the enumeration of specific examples of Israel’s folly.
J. Andrew Dearman: Two basic charges are leveled throughout the book that illustrate rejecting good: the embrace of idolatry and polytheism on the one hand, and involvement with international suitors on the other hand.
Robin Routledge: The unnamed enemy is probably Assyria.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The word good is a comprehensive word that includes knowledge of God, the gifts of the covenant, the commandments, the promises of God’s provision and protection, and a future filled with hope. Israel has made a choice. She rejected not only the good, but the Good One (as some translators render it) and consequently received the enemy in judgment for her obstinate stubbornness.
B. (:4a) Rejection of God’s Sovereignty – Replaced by Autonomy
“They have set up kings, but not by Me;
They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.”
Robin Routledge: The appointment of kings is motivated by ruthless ambition, not divine call.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The crucial problem was that Israel no longer sought the guidance of God. This was a decisive step away from Him in the downward spiral of forgetting Him. He was no longer the source of wisdom for large or small decisions, but shelved as an anachronism. . .
The opposite of forgetting God is to receive His sovereign control and guidance in every moment, choice, and decision. He will accept no vice-regency in our lives. Nor will He serve as our advisor while we reign on the throne of our little kingdom.
James Mays: The rejection is not of kingship per se, but of its development as a focus of power independent of Yahweh. For that reason, judgment will create an interlude when Israel lives without king and official (3.4; 7.10b).
J. Andrew Dearman: The making of kings was a sacral act in the ancient world; it thus required divine approval. Thus prophets and priests must proclaim the investiture as divinely willed, and the designated king would be anointed and invested in his office. Hosea offers his prophetic perspective that the kings (and related officials) have not been YHWH’s designees, whatever the official steps undertaken in Israel.
Derek Kidner: Although the king-making castigated here was far from democratic in our sense – being a series of conspiracies and bloody coups – God saw it as the people’s doing for all that; for the violence at the top had its roots in the anarchy below. We could have guessed as much, but chapter 4:1-3 has already put it beyond doubt.
Allen Guenther: Though Israel claims to know their God (Hos. 8:2), they appoint over themselves rulers whom the Lord does not know. It is not that Israel is being ruled by foreigners. Rather, they are governed by kings who do not walk according to God’s decrees nor submit to his instruction (cf. Deut. 17:14-20). Israel has substituted rulers of their own choice for rulers God might choose.
John Goldingay: The people of God are inclined to think that the solution to their problems is organizational or structural or administrative or political. Although God expects to decide who leads his people, they are inclined to make their own appointments, even if they are also going through the motions of seeking to know his will. The “officials” would include members of a king’s staff such as senior priests, secretaries of state, recorder, commander in chief, palace administrator, and overseers of the governors and of the conscript labor force (1 Kings 4:1–7).
David Thompson: S. Lewis Johnson once said one of the things that greatly troubled him is that many people in the church want their leader to make them be like all the other churches. He said most of the time that will bring people into the “reproach of God.” So rather than pray for God to send them His choice, they appoint their leaders who will make them like all the other churches. They get the resumes and they appoint some “rah rah” leader who will be good with youth, who will bring in progressive music, who will head lots of programs. The problem is these men are not called or gifted by God to feed people the Word of God. Very few churches actually look for someone who will study to rightly divide Scripture, who will give attention to systematic reading of the Word of God and the teaching of the Scriptures. Instead, they appoint their own leaders because they really don’t care about the Word of God.
C. (:4b-6) Rejection of Genuine Worship of God – Replaced by Idolatry
- Foolishness of Devoting Silver and Gold to the Making of Idols
“With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves,
That they might be cut off.”
Gary Smith: Verses 4–6 describe Israel’s rebellion against God in the area of politics and worship. Referring back to his earlier discussion in 7:3–7, Hosea reminds his audience that they have removed one king and appointed another without asking God for direction or identifying his chosen leader (see 2 Kings 15). They have rejected God’s sovereign control and “approval” of key decisions and have taken over his role of directing the nation.
- (:5) Fury of Divine Wrath Directed against Idolatry
a. Wrath Due to Idolatry
“He has rejected your calf, O Samaria,
saying, ‘My anger burns against them!’”
Gary Smith: The people have also made idols of gold and silver, particularly the golden calves at Dan and Bethel (Hos. 8:5–6; see 1 Kings 12). God’s “anger burns against them” (8:5) because these bull images were quickly confused with the Canaanite god Baal, thus syncretizing perverse pagan ideas with the pure revelation of God revealed in the Torah. God laments the impurity this has brought to the nation and yearns for the day when they will reject idols (8:5b). This hunk of metal in the form of a bull is just a man-made piece of art, not a divine being with almighty power. It is not the God of Israel. Therefore, God rejects this calf and will have it cut to pieces (8:4b, 6b).
David Allan Hubbard: The spurning is God’s response to Samaria’s spurning of his covenant (v. 3) and the transferring of their loyalty from Yahweh to the calf that symbolized for them the fertility of Baal. These Samaritans, who are the subjects of the verbs in verse 4, must be the them against whom God’s anger burned (cf. Isa. 5:25 for this wrath, which in Isaiah is coupled with God’s outstretched hand, ready to smite in judgment; cf. 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4). That burning wrath, not forgiving love, is Yahweh’s disposition here is due both to the lack of Israel’s penitence and to the intensity of their sin. The honour of the jealous God has been crudely compromised in the calf-cult (cf. Exod. 32:10, 11, 19 where Yahweh and Moses both burn with anger at the sight of the golden calf), and his entire countenance (anger and ‘nose’ are the same Heb. word, ’ap) has been set aflame with a righteous blaze that only Israel’s full return will quench (11:9; 14:4).
Trent Butler: The entire history of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) had been marked by worship of calves that the first king, Jeroboam I, had set up about 930 B.C. (1 Kgs. 12:28–33). God never accepted those calves as true representations of his worship.
Indeed, the calves incited Israel to worship the bull that represented Baal in the Canaanite worship system.
b. Guilt Persists without Repentance
“How long will they be incapable of innocence?”
Robin Routledge: The final part of verse 5 expresses Yahweh’s dismay over Israel’s lack of purity. This is linked with the cleanness necessary to come before God (Pss 26:6; 73:13; cf. Gen. 20:5). Despite calls to turn back to Yahweh, the people persist in idolatrous disobedience.
J. Andrew Dearman: The prophet’s representation of divine anger in 5 includes a rhetorical question. How long can Israel remain guilty? A major claim of the book is that Israel cannot remain guilty forever. Israel must repent or suffer the consequences. Moreover, the time of judgment is at hand in the historical process. That is the unspoken conclusion to the question of 8:5.
David Allan Hubbard: How long? does not raise a chronological question but laments that Israel’s lack of purity (cf. Gen. 20:5; Pss 26:6; 73:13, where the Heb. word describes innocent hands, clean of guilt) has become a permanent practice.
- (:6) Fundamental Refutation of Idolatry
“For from Israel is even this! A craftsman made it, so it is not God; Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.”
James Mays: The blunt assertions of the first line of v. 6 are scornful and abusive. How can a deity be manufactured in an artisan’s shop! This analysis of the ridiculous folly of an idol focuses on the one fact that it is the creation of a human being, which made it an impossibly futile figure to those who knew Yahweh by experience and tradition as the maker of history (Isa. 8.2, 20; 40.18–20; 44.9ff.). The protest that the bull is no god implies that the Israelites had come to see the image itself as divine. It was incredible to Hosea that they should have faith in what they had made and could control. Their reverence will be shown up for superstition in the fate to come upon their image. This thing carved of wood and covered with gold will be riven into splinters!
Allen Guenther: Inherent in the anti-idol argument is an implicit comparison with God’s original design. People were made in the divine image. When they rebel against their covenant Lord, they re-create him in the image of the animals they were to rule. At a deeply subconscious level, people attempt to control their gods. They are, like the first humans, intent on becoming and acting like gods.
II. (:7-10) FRUITLESS FOREIGN ALLIANCES
A. (:7) Decisions to Abandon God Reap Dire Consequences
“For they sow the wind, And they reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads; It yields no grain.
Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.”
Lloyd Ogilvie: The agricultural proverb establishes the irrevocable connection between present actions and future judgment. Wolff interprets each aspect of the proverb in this light.
“The order God has established in the world can be demonstrated to Israel’s farmers by using the harvest as an example (v. 7a). The deed is the seed that sprouts up in abundance for harvest. Here, rûah, a gentle breeze, is a catchword used in Wisdom for unstable, helpless vanity (Eccl. 1:14, 17; Prov. 11:29; Job 7:7). Trust in cultic and political maneuvers thus leads to self-deception (cf. 12:2). Just as surely as the calf of Samaria will be shattered. Sûpâ is a destructive whirlwind which, like the harvest, grows out of the seed of a gentle breeze. . . . With the wind and vanity of their idol worship, Israel brings upon itself a whirlwind of disaster.”
On the other hand, Andersen and Freedman translate the proverb, “They will sow when it is windy. They will reap in a whirlwind,” and comment:
“The purpose of idol-making was to secure good harvests, among other benefits, and it is likely that the king himself was a sacral person in the performance of the necessary rites. A fit punishment for such contempt toward Yahweh would be the removal of the kings, destruction of the idol (v. 6), and ruination of agriculture. . . . The farmer is to be frustrated at each major stage of his work. Sowing in the wind, he loses much of the grain at the start. Harvesting in a gale, he loses most of the yield at the end.”
Stuart underlines the futility of the fertility cult in bringing abundance.
Verse 7 contains three brief futility curses, in which expectations are thwarted before they can be realized (. . . cf. Deut. 28:30–42). In ancient times sowers would throw their seed with a gentle wind, which helped scatter it evenly on a tilled field; rûah has thus an adverbial sense, i.e., ‘with a wind’ without symbolic overtones. The disaster which brings to naught the planning and effort of the sower is seen in the storm disintegrating and scattering the heads of grain before they can be harvested.
However, Stuart also allows that the interpretation of Wolff may be valid as well and that the saying is a double entendre with the sense that “what you sow you will reap many times over,” with rûah standing for worthlessness. . .
To sow with the wind, then, was to sow with a false expectation of Baal’s fertility. The consequences would be Yahweh’s judgment in the destruction of the crop.
James Mays: The second saying is set in rhyme, a somewhat rare device in Hebrew poetry. ‘Grain without growth (semaḥ) yields no meal (qemaḥ).’ What fails in the beginning can hardly succeed at the end. This saying applies to the same folly in Israel’s life as the first. They have called on the cult for fertility and turned to allies for security, but to no avail. Now can they expect better of such conduct in the future? Hosea nails the point down with an added prediction of judgment. Even if their present crop did yield grain, they would not harvest it, for strangers would swallow it up. The enemy sent by Yahweh (v. 3) guarantees the truth of the Wisdom principle!
Jeremy Thomas: Now which pattern or patterns of suffering are going on in verse 7? Sow the wind…reap the whirlwind. That’s cause effect. . . Cause, people in Israel did stupid things, effect they reap the whirlwind, just as night follows day so if you sin there are consequences.
John Schultz: In beautiful inconsistency, the prophet theorizes that some stalks would produce grain but this will not mean that the one who sowed would be fed with it. The land would be invaded and the invader would take away the crop, leaving the population to starve to death. Israel had had enough of such experiences in her past. We read that, in the days of Gideon: “Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.”
B. (:8) Disappearance and Despising of Israel
“Israel is swallowed up;
They are now among the nations Like a vessel in which no one delights.”
Robin Routledge: The nation will share the same fate as the grain, and will disappear among foreign peoples, notably Assyria. And, as a result of divine judgment, and maybe partly, too, due to its vacillating, pleading for help with one nation then another (cf. 7:11) and forming and breaking alliances, Israel has become worthless (literally, ‘a vessel without value’) on the international stage.
J. Andrew Dearman: Israel’s political involvement has made it not stronger but weaker.
Trent Butler: Israel’s land was situated between Assyria and Babylon to the northeast and Egypt to the southwest. Similarly, it stood between Asia Minor and Syria to the northwest and the trading lanes of the Arabian Desert to the southeast. All land traffic had to go through Israel, so all nations wanted to control their territory. God announced that such desire would be history. Enemies would swallow up the nation just as strangers swallowed up whatever grain might be produced. Arrogant Israel stood as a worthless, broken pot that no one wanted, and they stood on foreign soil, not their own.
C. (:9) Desperate Diplomacy
“For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey all alone;
Ephraim has hired lovers.”
Lloyd Ogilvie: The donkey image uses a pun on the word donkey with the name Ephraim. Instead of remaining with the herd, the wild donkey goes off to seek its mate. “Ephraim has hired lovers.” The image shifts. The people are like a whore who has sunk so low that she must pay her lovers and cannot even earn a whore’s wage.
J. Andrew Dearman: The Asian wild ass is not a solitary figure; it lives in herds as a sociable animal. Like the zebra, however, it does not take to domestication. Ishmael, for example, is compared to the wild ass (Gen. 16:12), although the mobile desert dwellers descended from him were tightly organized in clans and tribes. Perhaps the related characteristics of independence and stubbornness are the vehicle (source domain) of the metaphor to render the tenor (target domain) of a laughable and pitiful Israel overwhelmed in the diplomatic arena. Elsewhere Hosea describes the people as a stubborn heifer (4:16). A wild ass hiring love is a metaphor of cutting sarcasm, intended to shame Ephraim and its diplomatic frenzy. Here is a solitary wild ass (which still has plenty of opportunities to mate in its own herd) out paying for lovers! The love in this case would be the goodwill or favors offered by the Assyrian suzerain. Ephraim, however, is going to pay for them.
D. (:10) Diminishment Despite Seeking Assistance
“Even though they hire allies among the nations,
Now I will gather them up;
And they will begin to diminish because of the burden of the king of princes.”
Lloyd Ogilvie: The figure of gather is one of judgment, as in Hosea 9:6, Joel 3:2, Micah 4:12–5:1, and Ezekiel 16:37 and 22:20. Israel will be gathered like ripe fruit placed in a container, there to waste away under the rule of the Assyrian “king of princes” or mighty king.
Trent Butler: Having gathered them, God will make them decrease in number as they serve their unfaithful kings and leaders and pay the exorbitant taxes demanded so the kings can continue to pay tribute to Assyria or other nations (2 Kgs. 15:19–20). This gathering for decrease stands in opposition to God’s act of gathering the Israelites in Egypt, where he made them multiply miraculously in spite of the burdens of the Egyptian kings.
III. (:11-14) FUTILE RELIGIOUS PURSUITS
Gary Smith: Verses 11–14 draw a logical connection between God’s condemnation of Israel for giving unacceptable sacrifices and her rejection of God’s instructions in the Torah. According to Leviticus, sacrifices were to be a sweet-smelling aroma that pleased God (Lev. 1:9, 13, 17; 2:9, 12; 3:5, 16; 4:31) because the people’s worship and repentance brought forgiveness of sins. But in Hosea’s time the people’s “choice sacrifices” (Hos. 8:13) on the many pagan altars around the nation have brought greater sinning instead of expiation of sin and divine pleasure (8:11). This is due to the nation’s rejection of the divine instructions God gave in the laws of Moses (Hosea blamed the priests for not teaching people these laws in 4:6).
Since the people have adopted their theological understanding of sacrifices, dietary laws, the character of the divine, and appropriate social behavior from their Canaanite culture, God’s instructions in the Torah seem strange and inapplicable in their setting (8:12). Since God’s instructions do not fit in with the times, the people have rejected his covenant stipulations. They are like a spouse who has decided not to live by the marriage covenant any longer.
These actions give God few choices. He must punish the nation for her sins. The people are only pleasing themselves, not God, when they eat these sacrifices. They forget who God is, the One who originally made them into a nation (see Isa. 44:2; 51:13) and who can send them back to Egypt and nullify his redemptive acts (Hos. 8:13). The leaders of the nation love the luxury of bigger homes and the security of stronger palaces and fortifications for themselves. But they forget that God protects cities, not walls. Therefore in the near future God will demonstrate his power and destroy these proud cities and the homes in them.
A. (:11) Repurposing of Religious Intentions
“Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin,
They have become altars of sinning for him.”
Trent Butler: One thing multiplied in Israel—altars. They built altars to offer sacrifices for their sins. To all appearances such altars sought to fulfill God’s demands for sin offerings (Lev. 16:1–34). But the unfaithful people confused offerings to the God of Israel and offerings to Baal. They confused obeying God’s covenant expectations and carrying out ritual, which they thought was a guaranteed way of pleasing God. They could not learn that “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). Thus altars for sin offerings became altars for sinning for a people who had forgotten the meaning of obedience.
James Mays: An altar marked a holy place, a shrine where a deity was thought to be available for worship and communion; it was an instrument of commerce with the god. Building altars was a pious act. Had not the fathers done so (Gen. 12.7; 33.20; 35.7)? Altars meant sacrifice and sacrifice atoned for whatever sins were committed. As Israel prospered in the land, more and more altars were erected (10.1). Religion got its proportionate share of the nation’s prosperity, probably because the cult was imagined to be the machine which produced such abundance. Ephraim had an impeccable record in the cause of sanctuary extension. Yet Yahweh sends no commendation by the prophet. His startling word is that the many altars built to deal with sin have become a place to sin. As Israel now uses them, altars come between Yahweh and his people instead of bringing them to encounter. Sacrifice has become an end in itself (v. 13a; see Amos 4.4f.) and has displaced attention to the will of their Lord (v. 12). The sacrificial cult was practised according to the ways of Canaan and was an occasion for depravity and evil (4.13f.). Just as the expansion of the priesthood meant increase of iniquity, the multiplication of altars brought the proliferation of sin. The cult resulted in the very opposite of its pious purpose!
J. Andrew Dealman: There are at least two possibilities why Hosea connected the increase in altars and the increase in sinfulness, which, of course, was the opposite of Ephraim’s intent in building them. One is a charge of polytheism, with Ephraim following the logic of polytheism in offering sacrifice to a number of deities in hopes of securing its well-being. Modern proverbial analogies would be “covering all the bases” or “hedging one’s bets.” The other possibility is a critique of perceived syncretistic and baalized forms of Yahwism that usher forth from those who do not “know YHWH” (8:2). If 8:13 continues the charge of inadequate cultic service to YHWH, then syncretistic, baalized forms of Yahwism are likely in mind in v. 11. The brevity of Hosea’s expression makes it difficult to choose between these options for increased sacrificial activities, and it is quite possible that the broad-based charge includes examples of both.
B. (:12) Refusal to Heed Divine Instruction
“Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law,
They are regarded as a strange thing.”
Robin Routledge: This points to the people’s disregard for Yahweh’s written instruction, and includes an indictment of the priests, who have failed to teach the people as they should (cf. 4:4–10; Mal. 2:6–9). Indeed, it appears that Israel’s religion has become so corrupted by false worship that what is set out in the law and should be intrinsic to Israel’s covenant faith is now considered ‘strange’ (zār).
C. (:13a) Rejection of Sacrifices which Have Been Perverted into Gluttonous Feasts
“As for My sacrificial gifts, They sacrifice the flesh and eat it,
But the LORD has taken no delight in them.”
D. (:13b) Remembrance of Sins with a View to Punishment
“Now He will remember their iniquity, And punish them for their sins;
They will return to Egypt.”
E. (:14) Root Problem: Displaced Security
“For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
And Judah has multiplied fortified cities,
But I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.”
Surprising mention of Judah here.
J. Andrew Dearman: “Judah” has pursued its security in ways similar to Israel and will be judged similarly.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The last verse of Hosea 8 not only summarizes the whole chapter but serves as a fulcrum for the levers of truth throughout the whole chapter. When we take verse 14 as the text for a message, we have a basic theme for the exposition of the main points throughout the chapter. “For Israel has forgotten his Maker” (Hos. 8:14). . .
This is the reason for the misplaced authority, the misappropriated autonomy, the misdirected adoration, and the miscalculated assumptions. In this final verse of chapter 8, both Israel and Judah are assured of the fateful loss of conscious accountability and consistent attention to their Creator, Sustainer, and absolute sovereign Lord.
Robin Routledge: It continues the theme of sin and judgment, with the indictment that the people have forgotten (šākaḥ) Yahweh (cf. 2:13; 4:6; 13:6) and engage instead in building projects, which are probably aimed at flaunting their wealth and providing security. There may be an intentional contrast between Israel forgetting Yahweh, and Yahweh remembering Israel’s sin in the previous verse.
David Allan Hubbard: Judah’s fortified cities (NIV’s ‘towns’ is better, given their size) speak of the false reliance on self-protection and military might (cf. 10:14; 11:6) which Judah (and Israel) substituted for trust in God (cf. Ps. 127:1); Sennacherib claimed to have taken forty-six such Judean towns just three decades after Hosea spoke these words; and the means used for building such lavish enterprises were themselves unjust – unfair taxation, profit from crooked businesses, and slave labour.
Duane Garrett: Yahweh concludes his first complaint with another lamentation over Israel’s desire to find security through political and military means. The nation “forgets” God when it supposes that it must resort to military buildup in order to provide security for itself. In this context “palaces” probably are not especially places of luxury but fortified residences analogous to Herod’s residence at Masada. Together with fortified towns and garrisons, these were to be a security network that both protected the nation and in particular preserved the lives and wealth of the upper classes. The “fire” that Yahweh sends is metonymy for invasion and siege work by enemy nations, but the language recalls the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire.