Hosea 8:11

"Because Ephraim hath multiplied altars for sinning, altars have been unto him for sinning."

The importance of this statement lies in the testimony which it furnishes to the existence of laws, or a code of laws, in Hosea's time.[20]

Of course, that code of laws was none other than the one given by the Lord himself in the Pentateuch. Hindley pointed out that:

At any one time, only one altar was to be set up for the nation in the place which God would choose (Deuteronomy 12:26f; 14:24; 27:4-8; 2 Kings 21:4,5). No special stress on write in the following verse suggests that Hosea was already familiar with a written law.[21]

"Altars have been unto him for sinning ..." The purpose of an altar was that of procurement of the forgiveness of sins; but in the case of Ephraim, his altars were only occasions for committing more sins. This derived not merely from the fact of their multiplicity, which in itself was sinful, but also from the fact of the vulgar and licentious "worship" associated with the altars of the fertility cult all over Israel. Sacred prostitution was their dominant feature. Having multiplied altars and having degraded them with the evil rites of paganism, the very purpose of the altars, in any holy sense, was lost to the nation of northern Israel.