Hosea 10 Commentary

Hosea 10 extends the detailed description of judgment begun in chapter 9. The nation Israel has practiced idolatry and apostasy. The leaders have provided a bad example, and it has spread among her people. They have multiplied pagan altars and sacred pillars, with the result that a pagan culture of exploitation and violence has replaced the love-your-neighbor culture required by Israel's covenant with their Suzerain (ruler) God.

Israel has been guilty of rebellion and gross immorality since the days of Gibeah (Judges 19) and has trusted in her military/political establishment and her alliances with Egypt and Assyria rather than trusting in God. As a result, the LORD will use Assyria (in whom Israel has trusted) as His tool to enforce the covenant provision for disobedience, removing Israel's poor witness to her neighbors.

Yet, even amid Israel's impending judgment, the LORD calls her to repent and re-embrace Him to avoid disaster. Israel's rebellion against the LORD leads Him to announce her total political/military destruction. The two-part division of the chapter is as follows:

1. Hosea tells Israel that her idolatry and violation of her covenant with God will cause Him to bring catastrophic judgment on her—devastation and exile. Per the terms of Israel's covenant with God, He will use Assyria as His tool to carry the people, and Israel's idolatrous calf, away to exile, destroying Samaria's power to reign (vv. 1–8).
2. The LORD announces judgment on Israel because she has been guilty of rebellion and gross immorality since the days of the gruesome episode of wickedness in Gibeah. God exhorts Israel to cease its exploitative and violent wickedness, and start loving one another, as they had promised to do in their covenant with God. Israel has trusted in her military/political establishment rather than trusting in the LORD, and will now be destroyed by a superior force (vv. 9–15).