Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset the Jewish nation till after the captivity; the ten tribes from the first were guilty of it, but especially after the days of Ahab; and this is the sin which, in these verses, they are charged with. Observe,

I.The provision that God made to prevent their falling into idolatry. This we have, Hos 13:4. God did what was fit to be done to keep them close to himself; what could have been done more? 1. He made known himself to them as the Lord their God, and took them to be his people in a peculiar manner. Both by his word and by his works all along from the land of Egypt he declared, I am the Lord thy God; he told them so from heaven at Mount Sinai, that he was the Lord and their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. This he continued both to declare and to prove to them by his prophets and by his providences. 2. He gave them a law forbidding them to worship any other: "Thou shalt know no God but me; not only shalt not own and worship any other, but shalt not acquaint thyself with any other, nor make the rites and usages of the Gentiles familiar to thee." Note, It is a happy ignorance not to know that which we ought not to meddle with. We find those commended who have not known the depths of Satan. 3. He gave them a good reason for it: There is no saviour besides me. Whatever we take for our God we expect to have for our saviour, to make us happy here and hereafter; as, where we have protection, we owe allegiance, so where we have salvation, and hope for it, we owe adoration.

II.The honour that Ephraim had, while he kept himself clear from idolatry (Hos 13:1): While Ephraim spoke trembling, or with trembling (that is, as Dr. Pocock understands it, while he behaved himself towards God as his father Jacob did, with weeping and supplications, and spoke not proudly and insolently against God and his prophets, while he kept up a holy fear of God, and worshipped him in that fear) so long he exalted himself in Israel, that is, he was very considerable among the tribes and made a figure. Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, exalted himself and his family. When he spoke there was trembling, that is, all about him stood in awe of him; so some understand it. Note, Those that humble themselves, especially that humble themselves before God, shall be exalted. When people speak with modesty and jealousy of themselves, with a diffidence of their own judgment and a deference to others, they exalt themselves, they gain a reputation. But as for Ephraim he soon lost himself: When he offended in Baal he died, that is, he lost his reputation, his honour soon dwindled and sunk, and was laid in the dust. Baal is here put for all idolatry; when Ephraim forsook God, and took to worship images, the state received its death's wound and was never good for any thing afterwards. Note, Deserting God is the death of any person or persons.

III.The lamentable growth of idolatry among them (Hos 13:2): Now they sin more and more. When once he began to offend in Baal the ice was broken, and he grew worse and worse, coveted more idols, doted more upon those he had, and grew more ridiculous in the worship of them. Note, The way of idolatry, as of other sins, is down-hill, and men cannot easily stop themselves. It is the sad case of all those who have forsaken God that they sin yet more and more. Let us trace them in their apostasy. 1. They made themselves molten images, proud to have gods that they could cast into what mould they pleased; probably these were the calves in miniature like the silver shrines for Diana; the zealots for the calf-worship carried about with them, it may be, images of the gods they worshipped, made on purpose for themselves. 2. They made them of their silver, and then doubted not of their property in them, when they purchased them with their own money or made them of their own plate melted down for that purpose. See what cost they put themselves to in the service of their idols, which they honoured with the best they had, and therefore made their molten images of silver. 3. They made them according to their own understanding, according to their own fancy. They consulted with themselves what shape they should make their idol in, and made it accordingly, a god according to the best of their judgment. Or according to their own likeness, in the form of a man. And, when they made their idols men like themselves in shape, they made themselves stocks and stones like them in reality; for those that make them are like unto them, and so is every one that trusts in them. 4. It was all the work of the craftsmen. Their images did not pretend, like that of Diana, to have come down from Jupiter (Act 19:35); no, perhaps the workmen stamped their names upon them, such an idol was such a man's work. See Hos 8:6; Isa 44:9, etc. 5. Though they were thus the work of their hands, yet they were the beloved of their souls; for they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. Either the priests called upon the people thus to pay their homage, or the people, who were not allowed to come so near themselves, called upon the men that sacrificed, the priests that attended for them, to kiss the calves in their name and stead, because they could not reach to do it, so very fond were they of paying their utmost respects to such an idol as they were taught to have a veneration for. Though they were calves, yet, if they were gods, the worshippers, by themselves or their proxies, thus made their honours to them. They kissed the calves, in token of the adoration of them, affection for them, and allegiance to them, as theirs. Thus we are directed to kiss the Son, to take him for our Lord and our God.

IV.Threatenings of wrath for their idolatry. The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another; and therefore all those that worship images shall be confounded, especially if Ephraim do it, Psa 97:7. Because they are so fond of kissing their calves, therefore God will give them sensible convictions of their folly, Hos 13:3. They promise themselves a great del of safety and satisfaction in the worship of their idols, and that their prosperity will thereby be established; but God tells them that they shall be disappointed, and driven away in their wickedness. This is illustrated by four similitudes: - They shall be, 1. As the morning cloud, which promises showers of rain to the parched ground. 2. As the early dew, which seems to be an earnest of such showers. But both pass away, and the day proves as dry and hot as ever; so fleet and transitory their profession of piety was (Hos 6:4), and so had they disappointed God's expectation from them, and therefore it is just that so their prosperity should be, and so their expectations from their idols should be disappointed, and so will all theirs be that make an idol of this world. 3. They are as the chaff, light and worthless; and they shall be driven as the chaff is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, Psa 1:4; Psa 25:5; Job 21:18. Nay, 4. They are as the smoke, noisome and offensive (see Isa 65:5), and they shall be driven away as the smoke out of the chimneys, that is soon dissipated and disappears, Psa 68:2. Note, No solid lasting comfort is to be expected any where but in God.

And now they sin more and more - They increase in every kind of vice, having abandoned the great Inspirer of virtue.

Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves - This was the test. If there be a Jew that pretends to sacrifice, and whose conversion is dubious, let him come openly and kiss the calves. This will show what he is; no real Jew will do this. If he be an idolater, he will not scruple. This was the ancient method of adoration.

1.They kissed the idol.

2.When the statue was too high or too far off, they presented the hand, in token of alliance.

3.They brought that hand respectfully to their mouths, and kissed it.

This was the genuine act of adoration; from ad, to, and os, oris, the mouth. So Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxviii., c. 1. Adorando, dexteram ad oscula referimus.

And Apuleius, Asin., lib. iv:

Admoventes oribus suis dexteram, ut ipsam prorsus deam religiosis adorationibus venerabantur.

See Calmet, and see the note on Job 31:17.

And now they sin more and more,.... Since the times of Jeroboam, and also of Ahab, adding other deities to the calves, and to Baal, as follows; increasing the number of their idols, and their idolatrous sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies: this they did in the times the prophet, who prophesied after the times of as it is common with evil men and seducers to wax worse and worse, and to proceed to more ungodliness, and from evil to evil; such is the way of idolaters, they stop not, but run into greater absurdities and grosser idolatries:

and have made them molten images of their silver: which is to be understood, not of the calves, or of Baal, made of gold, which they purchased with their silver; but of other images they had in their houses, or carried about with them, made of their silver, of their plate, which they melted and cast images of it, of whatsoever shape or form they pleased:

and idols according to their own understanding; which were entirely of man's device, and had nothing divine in them, either as to matter or form, but wholly the invention of the human brain; or, "according to their own likeness", as the Targum, and so other Jewish interpreters; after the form of a man, and yet were so weak and stupid as to account them gods:

all of it the work of the craftsmen; of silversmiths and founders, and such like artificers; the same, or of the same sort, with the craftsmen that made shrines for Diana, Act 19:24; and therefore such a work, wrought by such hands, could never be a deity, or have anything divine in it; they must be as stupid and senseless as the work itself to imagine there should: and yet

they say of them; the false prophets, or the idolatrous priests, say of such idols:

let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves: let those that bring their sacrifices, or those that offer them, pay religious worship and adoration to the calves; which they signified by kissing the idols they sacrificed to, either their mouths, or their hands; or, if out of their reach, they kissed their own hands in token of honour to them; which rites were commonly used among the Heathens. Cicero (s) says at Agrigentum, where was a temple or Hercules, where the people not only used to show a veneration to his image by prayers and thanksgivings, but they used to kiss it. So Apuleius (t) speaks of a beautiful virgin, the report of whose beauty brought together a vast number of citizens and strangers; who, amazed at the sight of her, put their right hand to then mouths, the first finger resting upon the thumb erect, and gave her reverence with religious adoration, as if she had been the goddess Venus herself; and Minutius Felix (u) says of Caecilius, that, observing the image of Serapis (probably much like one of these calves), putting his hand to his mouth, according to the superstitious custom of the common people, with his lips smacked a kiss; and so Pliny (w) observes, in worshipping, the right hand is used for a kiss, turning about the whole body, which to do to the left was reckoned the more religious; hence it is observed (x) of Aemilius, a derider of and scoffer at things divine, that he would never make supplication to any god, nor frequent any temple; and if he passed by any place of worship, he reckoned it a crime to put his hand to his lips by way of adoration, or on account of that; and it seems to have obtained as early as the times of Job among idolatrous people, that, upon the sight of the sun or moon, they immediately with their mouth kissed their hands; see Job 31:26; hence Lucian (y), speaking of the Indians, says, rising early in the morning, they worship the sun, not as we, who think the prayers are finished when the hand is kissed; and Tertullian (z), addressing the Heathens in his time, thus bespeaks them, most of you, out of an affectation of worshipping the celestial bodies at the rising of the sun, move and quaver your lips; hence kissing is used for the worship of the Son of God, Psa 2:12. Some read the words, "let those that sacrifice a man (a) kiss the calves"; as if it respected the abominable practice of sacrificing men to Mo; or intimated that men were sacrificed to the calves at Bethel.

(s) In Verrem, l. 4. Orat. 9. c. 13. (t) Metamorphos. sive de Asino Auero, l. 4. p. 60. (u) Octavius, p. 2. (w) Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 2. (x) Apuleii Apolog. p. 226. (y) . (z) Apolog. c. 16. (a) "immolatores hominem, vel immolantes homines", Vatablus; "sacrificantes hominem", Montanus, Calvin, Schmidt; so some in Abenda. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin render it as an imperative, "sacrifice men"; and the Syriac version, "O ye that sacrifice men".

according to their own understanding--that is, their arbitrary devising. Compare "will-worship," Col 2:23. Men are not to be "wise above that which is written," or to follow their own understanding, but God's command in worship.

kiss the calves--an act of adoration to the golden calves (compare Kg1 19:18; Job 31:27; Psa 2:12).