Commentary - Hosea 8:11-13

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Hosea's prophecy, the Lord continues to press His covenant lawsuit against the northern kingdom of Israel, here designated as Ephraim. The charges are specific and they cut to the very heart of Israel's relationship with God: their worship, their understanding of God's law, and their sacrificial system. What we have here is a diagnosis of a terminal spiritual disease. Israel's attempts at religion have become the very substance of their sin. Their flurry of religious activity is not just misguided; it is a flagrant, treasonous rebellion. They have taken the very things that were meant to bring them near to God, altars, law, and sacrifices, and have weaponized them in the service of their own autonomy and idolatry. The passage concludes with the inevitable verdict that follows such covenantal infidelity: God will not accept their hollow worship, He will remember their sin, and He will enforce the curses of the covenant, which includes a grim return to the bondage from which He once rescued them.

This is a foundational text for understanding the nature of true versus false worship. False worship is not simply the absence of worship, but is more often a corrupt form of it. Israel was very religious, but their religion was an abomination. They were busy, but busy in rebellion. God's response shows that He is not interested in the bare performance of religious duties. He demands hearts that are submitted to His Word and that trust in His provision. Anything less is a strange fire, and the end of such worship is not blessing, but judgment.

Outline

Context In Hosea

Hosea 8 is situated within a larger prophetic oracle that details the reasons for God's impending judgment on Israel. The chapter opens with the image of a trumpet sounding an alarm because Israel has "transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law" (Hos. 8:1). The prophet has already detailed their political idolatry in setting up kings without God's consent (Hos. 8:4) and their material idolatry in the worship of the golden calf of Samaria (Hos. 8:5-6). This passage (vv. 11-13) serves as a summation of their religious apostasy. It functions as a bill of particulars in God's lawsuit. Having dealt with their political and tangible idols, God now turns His attention to the very structure of their religious life. Their worship is not just flawed; it is fundamentally corrupt. This indictment provides the theological justification for the judgment that follows, not just in this chapter but throughout the book, the dissolution of the nation and their exile at the hands of the Assyrians.

Key Issues

The Poison in the Remedy

One of the most insidious forms of rebellion is that which cloaks itself in the garb of piety. When a man is an outright atheist, his position is clear. But when a man builds an altar, reads from a holy book, and offers a sacrifice, things can get murky. This is the situation Hosea confronts. Israel's problem was not a lack of religion; it was a surplus of the wrong kind. They had taken the very remedies God had prescribed for sin, altars for atonement, law for guidance, sacrifices for communion, and had managed to turn them into a toxic poison.

An altar is meant to be a place of reconciliation, where sin is dealt with. But Israel had made their altars into factories for sinning. The law is meant to be a lamp to the feet, revealing the character of God. But to Israel, it was a foreign document, irrelevant to their lives. Sacrifices were meant to be an expression of faith and repentance, a pointer to the ultimate sacrifice. But for Israel, they were just a barbecue. In each case, the form was there, but the heart was gone. And when the heart is gone, the form becomes a grotesque mockery. This is a perpetual danger for the people of God. We can have our buildings, our programs, our liturgies, and our Bibles, and all of it can be nothing more than a strange thing to the God we claim to worship.

Verse by Verse Commentary

11 Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, They have become altars of sinning for him.

The charge begins with their worship. God had commanded that sacrifice was to be centralized at the one altar in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 12). This was to safeguard the purity of worship and to represent the unity of God's people under one God. But Ephraim, the northern kingdom, had rejected this from the beginning, setting up their own rival worship centers. Here, we are told they have multiplied altars. This was not just a matter of convenience; it was a matter of syncretism. They wanted to worship Yahweh, but they wanted to do it on their own terms, in their own way, and often mixed with the worship of the Baals. They built altars "for sin," which can be read as altars for sin offerings. They were going through the motions of atonement. But God re-labels their activity. What they intended as altars for dealing with sin have, in fact, become altars of sinning. The very act of their worship was sin. Every sacrifice they offered on these illegitimate altars was another layer of guilt, another act of high-handed rebellion against the clear command of God.

12 Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, They are counted as a strange thing.

The second charge concerns their relationship to God's Word. God did not leave them in the dark. He gave them His law, a comprehensive revelation of His character and will. The phrase ten thousand precepts is hyperbolic, of course, emphasizing the richness and sufficiency of what God had revealed. He "wrote" it for them, indicating its authority and permanence. And how did Israel respond to this gracious gift of divine instruction? They treated it as a strange thing. It was foreign, alien, irrelevant. It was like a technical manual for a device they had no interest in using. They had the Scriptures, but they did not know the God of the Scriptures. Their worship was untethered from God's revelation, and so it drifted into idolatry. This is the root of all liturgical corruption. When the Word of God ceases to be the central authority for how we approach God, our worship will inevitably become a reflection of our own sinful hearts, a strange thing to God and ultimately to ourselves.

13 As for My sacrificial gifts, They sacrifice the flesh and eat it, But Yahweh has not accepted them. Now He will remember their iniquity And punish them for their sins; They will return to Egypt.

The third charge deals with the result of their corrupted worship and rejected law. They are still offering sacrifices. They bring the animals, they perform the rituals, they "sacrifice the flesh and eat it." From an external, sociological point of view, everything looks fine. There is religious activity. There are community meals. But there is a devastating divine commentary on all of it: Yahweh has not accepted them. Their offerings are null and void. They are going through the motions, but the transaction is not honored in heaven. Why? Because you cannot separate the ritual from the relationship. Having rejected God's law and established their own idolatrous altars, their sacrifices were an insult, not an offering.

Because their worship is rejected, judgment is now inevitable. God says, Now He will remember their iniquity. This doesn't mean God had forgotten. It is covenantal language. To "remember" iniquity is to act upon it, to call the sin into account before the court. The time for forbearance is over. The sentence will now be executed. And what is the sentence? They will return to Egypt. This is the ultimate covenant curse. The great founding act of their nation was the Exodus, their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. To return to Egypt is to have their history run in reverse. It means a return to slavery, to bondage, to being a non-people. Whether this means a literal return to the geographical land of Egypt or, more likely, a return to an "Egypt-like" bondage under the Assyrians, the point is the same. Their sin has forfeited their liberty. The God who brought them out is now the God who will send them back.

Application

Hosea's indictment of Israel is a timeless word for the church. The temptations of Ephraim are our temptations. The temptation to multiply altars is the temptation to create our own standards of worship, to blend the truth of God with the cultural sensibilities of the age, to build a religion that is convenient and comfortable rather than holy and true. We must constantly ask if our worship is grounded in the explicit commands of Scripture or if we have set up our own golden calves, whether they be made of gold, or emotionalism, or political ideologies.

The temptation to count God's law as a strange thing is ever-present. We live in an age that despises authority and divine commands. It is easy for the church to downplay the hard edges of Scripture, to treat the law as an ancient and irrelevant document. But when we do this, we cut ourselves off from the knowledge of God. A church that does not love and submit to God's law will inevitably create a god in its own image. Our worship will become a barbecue, a social gathering, but God will not accept it.

The only hope against this slide into apostasy is the gospel. Israel's sacrifices were rejected because they were offered in unbelief and rebellion. But there is one sacrifice that is always accepted, the sacrifice of God's own Son. Jesus Christ is the true altar, the true law-keeper, and the true sacrifice. He did not go through the motions; He offered Himself, body and soul, in perfect obedience. When we come to God through Him, our worship, flawed as it is, is accepted for His sake. He cleanses our sin-stained offerings and presents them as holy to the Father. The warning of Hosea should drive us to cling to Christ alone, lest our very religion become our damnation.