Charles Ellicott Commentary Hosea 12:11

"Is Gilead iniquity? they are altogether false; in Gilgal they sacrifice bullocks; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field." — Hosea 12:11 (ASV)

This translates as: If Gilead is worthless, surely they have become nothing. In Gilgal they sacrificed bullocks; their altars also are like heaps upon the field’s furrows, referring to a past event: the desolating invasion of Gilead by Tiglath-Pileser in 734 B.C. We have undoubted references to this military expedition in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser II. Unfortunately, these inscriptions are in a very mutilated condition. From one passage, we learn: “The city Gil[ead] and [A]bel [Maacha] which is on this side of the land of Beth Omri (Samaria) the distant ... I joined in its whole extent to the territory of Assyria.” The biblical passage, 2 Kings 15:29, supplements this account by stating that Naphtali and Galilee also fell victim to the victorious arms of the invader.

From the verse before us, we infer that Gilgal, on the western bank of the Jordan near Jericho (see Note on Hosea 4:15), likewise felt the heavy hand of the conqueror, or perhaps its inhabitants fled in panic, and the local shrines became deserted ruins. From this time onward, we hear no more of Gilgal as a religious center. Nowack, however, follows Ewald in regarding the passage as prophetic of a coming calamity (see Introduction). In the word for “heaps” (gallîm), there is a play on the name Gilgal.