Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 9:15

"All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them: because of the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house; I will love them no more; all their princes are revolters." — Hosea 9:15 (ASV)

All their wickedness is in Gilgal - “Gilgal,” having been the scene of so many of God’s mercies, had been, on that very ground, chosen as a popular scene for idol-worship (see the note above at Hosea 4:15). And doubtless, Ephraim still deceived himself, and thought that his idolatrous worship, in a place once so hallowed, would still be acceptable with God. “There, where God of old was propitious, He would be so still, and whatever they did, should, even for the place’s sake, be accepted; the hallowed place would necessarily sanctify it.” In answer to such thoughts, God says, “all their wickedness,” the very chief and sum, the head from which the rest flowed, their desertion of God Himself, whatever they hoped or imagined, all their “wickedness is” there.

For there I hated them - “There, in the very place where previously I showed them such great tokens of love, and was with them by My gracious presence, “even there I have hated them” and now hate them.” “He says not, I was angry or displeased with them there, but in a word indicating the greatest indignation, “I hated them.” Great must be that wickedness which provoked the Father of mercies to such great displeasure as to say that He “hated them”; and severe must be those judgments which are the effects of hatred and utter aversion to them in Him.”

For the wickedness of their doings - The sin of Israel was no common sin, not a sin of ignorance, but against the full light. Each word indicates evil. The word “doings” expresses “great bold doings.” It was “the wickedness of their wicked works,” a deeper depth of wickedness in their wickedness, an essence of wickedness, for which, God says, “I will drive them out of My house,” that is, as before, out of His whole land (see the note above at Hosea 8:1).

I will love them no more - So He says in the beginning: “I will have no more mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away” (Hosea 1:6): “This was a national judgment, and so involved all of them regarding their outward condition, which they enjoyed as members of that nation, making up one body politic. It did not respect the spiritual condition of individuals, and their relation to God in this respect.”

As individuals, they were “not cut off from God’s favor and tokens of His love, nor from the power of becoming members of Christ, whenever any of them should come to Him. It only struck them forever out of that “house of the Lord” from which they were then driven,” or from hopes that that kingdom should be restored, which God said He would cause to cease.

All their princes are revolters - Their case then was utterly hopeless. No one of their kings “departed from the sin of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin.” The political power that should protect goodness became the fountain of corruption.

“None is there to rebuke those who offend, to recall those who err; no one who, by his own goodness and virtue, by pacifying God, can turn away His wrath, as there was in the time of Moses.”

“If you ask why God cast them out of His house, why they were not received in the Church or the house of God, He says to them it is because they “are all revolters, departers,” that is, because before they were cast out visibly in the body, they departed in mind, were far away in heart, and therefore were cast out in the body also, and lost what alone they loved: the temporal advantages of the house of God.”