Hosea 8:11

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Many altars.—Multiplication of altars was condemned in the law (Deuteronomy 12:5 seq.). The narrative in Joshua 22 shows that unity of altar and sanctuary was essential to the unity of the nation. The last clause should be rendered, he had altars for sinning. The worship of God was degraded into the sensuous approaching Baal-worship. In the first clause sin equals transgression, in the last transgression plus guilt and peril.

Benson Commentary

Hosea 8:11-12. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin — “Since the Israelites, forsaking that one altar at which alone God required them to serve him, idolatrously multiplied altars to themselves, — altars against God’s command; (to do which was manifestly a sin in them;) therefore shall those, their beloved altars, be accordingly occasions of great sin, and as such imputed to them to their condemnation.” The meaning is, that

“God would give them up, to run on in their evil courses, till their iniquity was full, and they were ripe for destruction; and then that God would deliver them into the hands of their enemies, who should compel them to do that service at, and to, their idolatrous altars, which should appear a manifest punishment to them for those of their own. So should they be punished by that wherein they had offended.” — Pocock. I have written to him the great things of my law — Or, many things, as רביmay be translated. The Vulgate renders it, multiplices leges meas, my manifold laws. That law which I gave them by Moses, containing rules excellent in themselves, and such as would have made them great in the eyes of their neighbours, they have disregarded, as if it had neither reason nor authority, and did not concern them: see Deuteronomy 4:6; Deuteronomy 4:8.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:11-14 It is a great sin to corrupt the worship of God, and will be charged as sin on all who do it, how plausible soever their excuses may seem to be. The Lord had caused his law to be written for them, but they cared not to know, and would not obey it. Man seems by the temples he builds to be mindful of his Maker, yet really he has forgotten him, because he has cast off all his fear; but none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered. So long as men despise the truths and precepts of God's word, and the ordinances of his worship, all the observances and offerings, however costly, of their own devising, will be unto them for sin; for those services only are acceptable to God, which are done according to his word, and through Jesus Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall indeed be unto him to sin - that is, they shall be proved to him to be so, by the punishment which they shall draw upon him. The prophet had first shown them their folly in forsaking God for the help of man; now he shows them the folly of attempting to "secure themselves by their great shew and pretences of religion and devotion in a false way." God had appointed "one" altar at Jerusalem. There He willed the sacrifices to be offered, which He would accept. To multiply altars, much more to set up altars against the one altar, was to multiply sin. Hosea charges Israel elsewhere with this multiplying of altars, as a grievous sin. "According to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased altars. Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field" Hosea 10:1; Hosea 12:11. They pretended doubtless, that they did it for a religious end, that they might thereon offer sacrifices for the expiation of their sins and appeasing of God. They endeavored to unite their own selfwill and the outward service of God. Therein they might deceive themselves; but they could not deceive God. He calls their act by its true name. To make altars at their own pleasure and to offer sacrifices upon them, under any pretence whatever, was to sin. So then, as many altars as they reared, so often did they repeat their sin; and this sin should be their only fruit. They should be, but only for sin. So God says of the two calves, "This thing became a sin" 1 Kings 12:30, and of the indiscriminate consecration of priests (not of the family of Aaron), "This thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth" 1 Kings 13:33-34.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. God in righteous retribution gives them up to their own way; the sin becomes its own punishment (Pr 1:31).

many altars—in opposition to God's law (De 12:5, 6, 13, 14).

to sin … to sin—Their altars which were "sin" (whatever religious intentions they might plead) should be treated as such, and be the source of their punishment (1Ki 12:30; 13:34).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Because: this refers to what follows.

Ephraim hath made many altars; multiplied either to many idols, every one having his altar, or multiplied altars in several places to the same idol. They had many high places, and altars in all of them.

To sin; both as acting against the law of God, which required but one altar, and also these altars were to sin, in that they were for sacrifices to be offered on them to idols. These persons did not intend them for sin, but their good intention did not, could not change the thing, it was sin, however they intended.

Altars, either those here erected, or those they shall find in Assyria when they come captives thither,

shall be unto him to sin; either because forced in captivity to worship Assyrian idols, and to attend their altars and sacrifices, or else by a just and dreadful judgment from God delivering them over to their wilful blindness and idolatrous heart: since they would never be reclaimed, nor taken off from sinful multiplying altars, let them follow their own hearts, and set up what they will; much like that Revelation 22:11. Or else thus, Altars shall be the occasion of his greater guilt and punishment, his altars, i.e. his idolatrous worship, shall be that sin that ruins him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Because Ephraim hath, made many altars to sin,.... Not with an intention to commit sin, but to offer sacrifice for sin, and make atonement for it, as they thought; but these altars being erected for the sake of idols, and sacrifices offered on them to them, they sinned in so doing, and were the cause of sin in others, who were drawn into it by their example; as they were made to sin, or drawn into it, by Jeroboam their king, These altars were those set up at Dan and Bethel, and in all high places, and tops of mountains, where they sacrificed to idols; and which was contrary to the express command of God, who required sacrifice only at one place, and on one altar, Deuteronomy 12:5; typical of the one altar Christ, and his alone sacrifice, who is the only Mediator between God and man; and they are guilty of the same crime as Ephraim here, who make use of more, or neglect him;

altars shall be unto him for sin; either these same altars, and the sacrifices offered on them, shall be reckoned and imputed to him as sins, trod shall be the cause of his condemnation and punishment: or, "let the altars be unto him for sin", so some (n); since he will have them, let him have them, and go on in sinning, till he has filled up the measure of his sins, and brought on him just condemnation; or else other altars are meant, even in the land of Assyria, where, since they were so fond of multiplying altars, they should have altars enough to sin at, whereby their sins would be increased, and their punishment for them aggravated. The Targum is,

"seeing the house of Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin, the altars of their idols shall he to them for a stumbling block,''

or ruin; so sin is taken in a different sense, both for guilt, and the punishment of it.

(n) "santo ergo illi altaria ad peccandum", Rivet.

Geneva Study Bible

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Because] Rather, For. It is a justification of the foregoing threat.

hath made many altars to sin] In times of national trouble, sacrifices were multiplied, to propitiate the national God (comp. Isaiah 1:11). But as no corresponding effort was made to purify the conduct and the character, such sacrifices did but increase the load of the national guilt. Instead of ‘many sacrifices’, Hosea says ‘many altars’ because there was even less attempt in the times of Hosea and Isaiah to centralize worship in the northern kingdom than in the southern. The strict rule of Deuteronomy (one temple and one altar) seems at present far removed from the general consciousness. See Introduction, part v.

altars shall be unto him to sin] Rather, (yea,) altars are to him for sinning (thereby). There is no unfairness on Jehovah’s part; Israel cannot pretend ignorance of His will.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 11, 12. - These two verses are closely connected with the preceding verse and with each other. Ver. 11 not only accounts for, but justifies, the threat of punishment announced in ver. 10 by reference to Ephraim's sin; and ver. 12 shows the inexcusableness of Ephraim in thus sinning. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Instead of the one sanctuary with its altar in the place which the Lord their God would choose out of all their tribes to put his Name there and to accept the offerings of his people, they multiplied altars contrary to the express command of God; while those altars which they erected in any places that pleased them were not for the service of the true God, but for the worship of idols, the calves, Baal, and ether vanities of the heathen. Thus they multiplied their sin by every altar they reared and every idol they worshipped. Their altars, instead of proving their piety, plunged them in greater sin and deeper guilt. I have written to him the great things of my Law, but they were counted as a strange thing. For the Athenians, whose city Paul found full of idols, and which in addition to its many other altars had one to an unknown god, there was some excuse, for they were not privileged with a revelation of the Divine will in a written Law; but for Israel no such apology was possible. This verse proves plainly that, in their sinning by multiplying idols and altars, they were entirely without excuse. The kethie or textual reading has ribbo for ribboth by the omission of tar and equivalent to רְבָבָה, that is, ten thousand, or myriads; the Qeri or Maasoretie correction, רֻבֵּי, plural of דב, multitudes. The idea conveyed is the numerous directions, preceptive and prohibitive, of the Pentateuch; the commandments, so full and explicit, comprehending alike the great things and the little; the details, so minute as well as manifold, that there was no possibility of mistake, provided there was any mind to be informed. Still more, these commandments, directions, and details were not only communicated verbally and orally to Israel; they were committed to writing, and thus placed permanently on record. And yet, notwithstanding all this, the great things of God's Law were regarded by many or most of those to whom they were addressed as instructions foreign to their interest, with which they had no concern, and which consequently had no claim on their attention and deserved no place in their recollection. The variety of names for the Divine commands is very noteworthy. There are commandments equivalent to all precepts of which the motives are assigned, as of circumstance to distinguish Israel from ether people; statutes, for which no motives are assigned, as in the case of the red heifer, prohibition against wearing garments of mixed material, and ceremonial prescripts in general; testimonies, precepts intended to keep up the memory of any event of fact as the Passover to remind of the departure from Egypt; precepts, rational injunctions, left, so to say, to our intelligence, as the unity of the Deity and the fact of his being the Creator; and judgments, judicial directions relating to buying and selling, inheritances, and such like. Hosea 8:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This threat is accounted for in Hosea 8:11., by an allusion to the sins of Israel. Hosea 8:11. "For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, the altars have become to him for sinning. Hosea 8:12. I wrote to him the fulnesses of my law; they were counted as a strange thing." Israel was to have only one altar, and that in the place where the Lord would reveal His name (Deuteronomy 12:5.). But instead of that, Ephraim had built a number of altars in different places, to multiply the sin of idolatry, and thereby heap more and more guilt upon itself. לחטא is used, in the first clause, for the act of sin; and in the second, for the consequences of that act. And this was not done from ignorance of the divine will, but from neglect of the divine commandments. אכתּוב is a historical present, indicating that what had occurred was continuing still. These words refer unquestionably to the great number of the laws written in the Mosaic thorah. רבו, according to the chethib רבּו, with ת dropped, equivalent to רבבה, as in 1 Chronicles 29:7, ten thousand, myriads. The Masoretes, who supposed the number to be used in an arithmetical sense, altered it, as conjecturally unsuitable, into רבּי, multitudes, although רב does not occur anywhere else in the plural. The expression "the myriads of my law" is hyperbolical, to indicate the almost innumerable multitude of the different commandments contained in the law. It was also in a misapprehension of the nature of the hyperbole that the supposition originated, that אכתּוב was a hypothetical future (Jerome). כּמו זר, like something foreign, which does not concern them at all.