John Calvin 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)

The Prophet continues with the same subject, for he shows that Israel perished through their own fault, and that the crime, or the cause of destruction, could not be transferred to anyone else. There is some ambiguity in the words, which, however, does not obscure the meaning; for whether we read calf in the objective case, or say, your calf has removed you far off, it will be the same.

Some say, “has forsaken you,” as they do above, “Israel has forsaken good;” but the meaning of throwing away is to be preferred. Your calf, then, Samaria, has cast you off, or, “The Lord has cast far off your calf.” If we read your calf in the “objective” case, then the Prophet denounces destruction not only on the Israelites but also on the calf in which they hoped.

But the probable interpretation is that the calf had removed Samaria far away, or driven its people far away; and this, I have no doubt, is the meaning of the words. For the Prophet, to confirm his previous teaching, seems to remind the Israelites again that the cause of their destruction was to be found nowhere else but in their wickedness, and especially because they, having forsaken the true God, had made an idol for themselves and formed the calf to be in the place of God.

Now, it was an extremely gross and perverse stupidity that, having experienced through so many miracles the infinite power and goodness of God, they should yet have turned to a dead thing. They forged a calf for themselves! Must they not have been driven, as it were, by a monstrous madness when they thus fell away from the true God, who had so often and so wonderfully made himself known to them?

Therefore God now says, Thy calf, O Samaria; that is, “The captivity that now threatens you will not happen by chance, nor will it be right to ascribe it to the wrongdoing of enemies, that they will by force take you to distant lands; but your very calf drives you away.

God had indeed established you in this land, that it might be a quiet inheritance for you to the end; but your calf has not allowed you to rest here. The land of Canaan was indeed your inheritance, as it was also the Lord’s inheritance; but after God has been banished, and the calf has been introduced in His place, by what right can you now remain in possession of it? Your calf, then, expels you, because by your calf you first attempted to banish the true God.” We now perceive the Prophet's mind.

He afterwards says that his anger kindled against them. He includes here all the Israelites and shows that it could not be otherwise: God would inflict extreme vengeance on them, because they were not teachable (as we have often observed before) and could not be turned or reformed by any warnings.

How long, he says, will they not be able to attain cleanness, or innocence? He here deplores the obstinacy of the people: that at no time had they returned to their senses, and that there was no future hope for them.

How long then will they not be able to attain innocence? “Since it is so; that is, since they are unreceptive (incompatibiles, as is commonly said), since they are devoid of all purity or innocence, I am, therefore, now forced to adopt the final remedy, which is to destroy them.”

Here God shuts the mouths of the ungodly, so that they cannot object that the severity he so rigidly exercised towards them was immoderate. He refutes their false accusations by saying that he had patiently endured them and was still enduring them. But he saw that they were so obstinate in their wickedness that no hope could be entertained for them.