Hosea 8:13

"As for the sacrifices of mine offerings, they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but Jehovah accepteth them not: now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins; they shall return to Egypt."

Hosea had already pointed out one thing which made their sacrifices unacceptable to God, and that was the very multiplicity and location of the altars themselves; but from the other prophets we learn that there were other glaring defects. They had ignored the law with regard to offering leaven with the sacrifices; there was the omission of any sin offerings; there were the licentious fertility rites that were carried on right side by side with the altars; there was the desecration of sacred vessels dedicated to God which were used for drinking, etc., etc.

"They sacrifice flesh and eat it ..." There was nothing to their sacrifices except the satisfaction of bodily appetite.

"Now will I remember their iniquity ..." The emphasis here is upon the word "now." The day of grace was past. God had exhausted every possible means of winning the wayward nation back to any acceptable loyalty to himself. Nothing was left except to order the punishment. As dramatically stated in Hosea 8:3, "Let the enemy pursue him."

"They shall return to Egypt ..." "Egypt is merely a type of the land of bondage, as in Hosea 9:3,6."[25] All of the redemptive work of God's calling and development of Israel will be nullified. They began as a nation of slaves; very well, they shall become so again. Given also noted the figurative nature of this expression:

"The turning point was now reached; their iniquity was full. God had delivered their fathers out of the bondage of Egypt; but now he will send their posterity into a bondage similar to or even worse than that of Egypt."[26]

As a matter of fact, the bondage into which the northern kingdom fell was far worse than that of Egypt, because: (1) the nation would not continue to grow as it had in Egypt; (2) there would be no terminus of it; and (3) the complete amalgamation of the once chosen people with their pagan captors would be final. They would no longer exist as a separate people, distinguished in any manner from the populations of the world.