Hosea 13:2

"And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves."

"They sin more and more ..." Sin has a way of growing worse and worse, and more and more. It feeds upon itself, constantly increasing until the sinner is destroyed. It is a malignancy with relentless progression.

"Molten images ..." Not only is this a reference to a clear and specific commandment in the Decalogue, the very word for molten image here is "Masseka," exactly the same word used in Exodus for the golden calf. "Figurines on the model of the bull-image were being struck for use in private and public ritual."[5] It is clearly the calf-worship of the old Canaanite paganism that is in view here.

"Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves ..." Despite the uncertainties and the problems of the Hebrew text in this place, the depravity of the onceworshippers of God is starkly revealed. "Behind Hosea's statement is an utter disgust, unmatched elsewhere."[6] How incredible was it that intelligent men should kiss the image of a bull calf!

"Kissing the calves, or kissing the hand toward the calves or idols, was an act of devotion or homage expressed toward the false deity. The practice of "kissing the hand toward" is found as early as Job and later in the days of Elijah (Job 31:27; 1 Kings 19:18). The Spirit instructs the kings of the earth to kiss the Son, that is, to do homage to Him (Psalms 2:12)."[7]

The mass insanity on the part of mankind which leads them in the attribution of divine attributes to images was exposed and denounced by the apostle Paul in his famed address on Mars' hill in Athens. "Men ought not to think that God is like an image graven with art and man's device" (Acts 17:22-31).

The New English Bible, of course, has a "corrected" version of Hosea in this place: "Those who kiss calf-images offer human sacrifice"; but we agree with Polkinghorne that, "The New English Bible does not improve the sense with such a rendition."[8] The problem for some of the translators is that they have failed to take into account the somewhat independent and disconnected outburst, "Men kiss calves!" It is certain that the prophet felt no compulsion whatever to follow the staid and precise rules of grammatical construction. The American Standard Version is fully adequate in the rendition followed here.

"According to their own understanding ..." This exceedingly important phrase is generally ignored by commentators; but it contains the germ of all that was wrong in Israel's worship. It represented their ideas, their devices, their inventions, their innovations, and their preferences, as contrasted with what God had commanded them to do. "This is comparable to what Paul wrote in Colossians 2:23 regarding `will-worship.' Men are not to be wise above that which is written, or follow their own understanding, but God's command in worship."[9]