Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 8:5

"He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?" — Hosea 8:5 (ASV)

Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off - Israel had cast off God, his good. In turn, the prophet says, the “calf,” which he had chosen to be his god instead of the Lord his God, “has cast” him “off.” He repeats the word by which the prophet described Israel’s sin, “Israel hath cast off and abhorred good,” in order to show the connection of his sin and its punishment.

“Your calf,” whom you made for yourself, whom you worship, whom you love, of whom you said, “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28–31); “your” calf, in whom you trusted instead of your God, it has repaid you the dishonor you put on your God; it has “cast you off” as a thing “abhorred.”

So it is with all people’s idols, which they make for themselves, instead of God. First or last, they all fail a person, and leave him poor indeed. Beauty fades; wealth fails; honor is transferred to another; nothing abides, except God. Hence our own great poet of nature makes a fallen favorite say, “had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in my age have left me naked to my enemies.”

My anger is kindled against them - Our passions are but some distorted likeness of what exists in God without passion; our anger, of His displeasure against sin. And so God speaks to us in the manner of humans, and pictures His divine displeasure under the likeness of our human passions of anger and fury, in order to bring home to us what we wish to hide from ourselves: the severe and awful side of His Being, His Infinite Holiness, and the truth that He will indeed avenge. He tells us that He will surely punish, just as people who are extremely incensed execute their displeasure if they can.

How long will it be before they attain to innocence? - Literally, “how long will they not be able innocence?” So again it is said, “him that hath an high look and a proud heart, I cannot” (Psalms 101:5); we supply, “suffer.” “New moons and sabbaths I cannot” (Isaiah 1:13); our version adds, “away with,” that is, endure. So here probably.

As they had with abhorrence cast off God their good, so God says, “they cannot endure innocence;” but He speaks as wondering and aggrieved at their hardness of heart and their obdurate holding out against the goodness, which He desired for them. “How long will they not be able to endure innocence?” “What madness this, that when I give them place for repentance, they will not endure to return to health of soul!”