Hosea 8:11-12

Hosea 8:11-12. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin “Since the Israelites, forsaking that one altar at which alone God required them to serve him, idolatrously multiplied altars to themselves, altars against God’s command; (to do which was manifestly a sin in them;) therefore shall those, their beloved altars, be accordingly occasions of great sin, and as such imputed to them to their condemnation.” The meaning is, that

“God would give them up, to run on in their evil courses, till their iniquity was full, and they were ripe for destruction; and then that God would deliver them into the hands of their enemies, who should compel them to do that service at, and to, their idolatrous altars, which should appear a manifest punishment to them for those of their own. So should they be punished by that wherein they had offended.” Pocock. I have written to him the great things of my law Or, many things, as רבי may be translated. The Vulgate renders it, multiplices leges meas, my manifold laws. That law which I gave them by Moses, containing rules excellent in themselves, and such as would have made them great in the eyes of their neighbours, they have disregarded, as if it had neither reason nor authority, and did not concern them: see Deuteronomy 4:6; Deuteronomy 4:8.