Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 12:8

"And Ephraim said, Surely I am become rich, I have found me wealth: in all my labors they shall find in me no iniquity that were sin." — Hosea 12:8 (ASV)

And Ephraim said, Yet I have become rich - Literally, “I am simply rich.” As if he were saying, “The only result of all this with which the prophets charge me is that I have become rich; and since God thus prospers me, it is a sure proof that He is not displeased with me, and that no iniquity can be found in me.”

This is the ordinary practical argument of people: as long as God withholds His punishments, they assume their ways cannot be so displeasing to Him.

With the people of this world, with its politicians, and in trade, it is the one decisive argument: “I was in the right, for I succeeded.” “It was a good speculation, for he gained thousands.” “It was good policy, for, see its fruits.” This is an answer at which the pagan laughed: “The people hiss me, but I, I, safe at home, applaud myself when the coin jingles in my chest.”

The pagan ridiculed it; Christians enact it. But in truth, the fact that God does not punish is often the evidence of His extreme displeasure.

They shall find no iniquity in me that would be sin - The merchants of Ephraim continue their protest: “In all the toil of my hands, all my buying and selling, my bargains, contracts, they can prove no iniquity against me.”

And then, in a tone of simple innocence, they add that that would be sin, as though they could not do what would be sin.

None suspect themselves less than those intent on gain.

The evil customs of other traders, the habits of trade, the seeming necessity for some frauds, the conventional nature of others, the minuteness of others, with their frequent repetition, blind the soul until it sees no sin, while, with every smallest sale, “they sell their own souls into the bargain.”