Charles Ellicott Commentary Hosea 10:5

"The inhabitants of Samaria shall be in terror for the calves of Beth-aven; for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced over it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it." — Hosea 10:5 (ASV)

It is hard to express the sarcastic force and concentrated scorn of the original term "calves": literally, she calves, the feminine form used to express contempt, the plural alluding to the scattered worship in numerous shrines throughout Israel (or, perhaps, a pluralis majestatis of mockery).

The next clause should be read as follows: For it (a personal pronoun, referring to the calf par excellence of the main place of worship at Bethel, here degraded to Bethaven), people mourn because of it, and its priests tremble because of it. The word for "priests," kemarîm, always means an idolatrous priesthood.