Hosea 3:4

"For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim."

This is a prophecy of the long and bleak interval between the Old Testament and the New Testament, during which the northern kingdom never more had a king, and during which even the southern kingdom also came into very great hardship, suffering vassalage to other kingdoms and paying very dearly for their loss of status as the wife of God, or his "chosen people." The last view of Gomer in the above verse leaves her visible not as Hosea's wife, but as his slave, without conjugal relations.

"King ... prince, sacrifice ... pillar, ephod or teraphim ..." Despite there being three pairs here, only the last is marked by a conjunction. Scholars are sharply divided between two views. McKeating and others felt that all of the things mentioned here were legitimate institutions denied to Israel during the period of waiting;[22] while others as firmly suppose that none of these things was actually legitimate, even the institution of the king being viewed, not as the will of God, but as God's rejection (1 Samuel 8). The truth would appear to be that Hosea simply means that none of these things, whether legitimate, or illegitimate, would be available for Israel during the days of their captivity. This would appear to be supported by the fact that Gomer was denied intercourse, whether through harlotry, or through normal relationship with a husband, the type thus strongly suggesting the meaning of the antitype. Keil explained this scrambling of the legitimate and illegitimate thus:

"The prophet mentions objects connected with both the worship of Jehovah, and that of idols, because they were both mixed together in Israel, and for the purpose of showing to the people that the Lord would take away both."[23]

"Some of the things in this list were definitely condemned, and the rest were not God's first choice,"[24] having been allowed as a concession to the rebellious Israelites, as in the case of their having a king. Each of these items will be noted below.

"King ... prince ..." Under the conception of the Theocracy, God was the rightful ruler and King of Israel; but the people, desiring to be like the nations around them demanded a king. The prophet Samuel was commanded of the Lord to grant their desire, noting at the same time that in such a demand they had rejected God (1 Samuel 8:7). The very kings which Israel received as a result of their sinful demands were the principal instruments of their eventual destruction, Ahab and his pagan queen Jezebel, for example, having introduced and promoted paganism. McKeating was right, therefore, in his discernment that Hosea, "seems to regard the institution of the monarchy as a mistake in the beginning (Hosea 8:4,9; 10:9-10; and 13:10-11)."[25] "King and prince" in this passage therefore stand for the presumptuous and sinful institution of the monarchy with which Israel displaced the Theocracy, a mistake which ultimately destroyed Israel's relationship with God.

"Without sacrifice ... pillar ..." Matthew Henry, following the LXX, read this "sacrifice or altar,"[26] giving it the meaning of legitimate worship; but we shall interpret it as it appears in our version (ASV). Sacrifice, of course, was authorized and commanded in the true religion of the Jews, but the legitimacy of the sacrifices which Israel at that time was offering to God might indeed have been sinful due to the lack of a legitimate priesthood, their failure to observe the sacred laws pertaining to sacrifices, and to the encroachments of the cultism, leading to the sacrifices being offered not in Jerusalem, but in Dan or Bethel.

Regarding the "pillars," "The law required that the pillars of the Canaanites be destroyed (Exodus 23:24), and the Israelites were warned not to erect any for themselves (Leviticus 26:1)."[27]

"Without ephod ... teraphim ..." The difficulty of knowing exactly what is said here derives from the fact that "ephod" apparently had two meanings. As a garment, it seems to have been a legitimate part of the dress of the High Priest; but it also had another meaning. Jamieson interpreted this passage as a pairing of the legitimate and illegitimate, making the sacrifice and pillar, ephod and teraphim, to be in each pair the true opposed to the false. Thus he viewed the sacrifice as true worship, the pillar as false; and the ephod as approved and the teraphim disapproved.[28] Also Butler favored this understanding of the last two pairs as a contrast in each case of the true and the false:

"Sacrifice and pillar" represent Israel's syncretistic religion; "ephod and teraphim" represent the two means (Mosaic and idolatrous) of receiving religious revelations.[29]

"The teraphim ..." These were small household images revered in some manner idolatrously (Genesis 31:34ff and Jeremiah 17:15). Dummelow compared them to the Lares of ancient Rome,[30] and Harper compared them to the Penates.[31] These relics of paganism appeared to be cherished by many of the Israelites; but in the times prophesied here, their idolatry would be taken away for ever.