The Prophet here again inveighs against the idolatry of the people, which was, however, counted then the best religion; for the Israelites, as it has been said were become hardened in their superstitions, and had long before fallen away from the pure and lawful worship of God. And we know, that where error has once prevailed, it attains firmness by length of time: hence the Israelites had become hardened in their perverted and fictitious worship. They thought that they did the most meritorious deed whenever they sacrificed, while at the same time, they provoked in this way the wrath of God more and more against themselves. And as they had become thus hardened, the Prophet says, that they multiplied for themselves altars for the purpose of sinning, and that there would be altars for them to sin It was (as I have already said) most difficult to persuade theme that their altars were for the purpose of sinnings and that the more attentive they were in worshipping God, the more grievously they sinned. We see how Papists of this day glory in their abominations. It is certain that they do nothing but what is accursed before God; for there reigns among them every kind of filthiness, and there is no purity whatever: they therefore continue to offend God as it were designedly. Put at the same time it is their highest holiness to multiply altars: the same also was the prevailing error in the Prophet's time. This was the reason why he said, that altars were multiplied in order to sin Who at this day can persuade the Papists, that many chapels as they build, are so many sins by which they provoke the wrath of God? But the faithful ought to be content, not with one altar, (for there is now no need of an altar,) but they ought to be content with a common table. The Papists, on the contrary, build altars to themselves without end, where they sacrifice; and they think that God is thus bound to them as by so many chains: as many chapels as are under the papacy are, they think, so many holds for God, (dei carceres,) and that God is there held inclosed. But if any one should say, that so many fiends (Diabolos) dwell in such places, we know how furiously angry they would be. It is then no superfluous repetition, when the Prophet says, that altars were multiplied in order to sin; and then, that altars would be for sin: for in the second clause, he speaks of the punishment which God would inflict on superstitious men. In the first clause, he shows that their good intentions were frivolous, and that they were greatly deceived, when at their pleasure they devised for themselves various forms of worship. This is one thing. Then it follows, There shall then be to them altars to sin; as they would not willingly repent, nor embrace salutary admonitions, God would at last really show how much he valued what they called their good intentions; for now a dreadful vengeance was at hand, which would prove to them, that in increasing altars, they did nothing else but increase sins. It then follows --

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall indeed be unto him to sin - that is, they shall be proved to him to be so, by the punishment which they shall draw upon him. The prophet had first shown them their folly in forsaking God for the help of man; now he shows them the folly of attempting to "secure themselves by their great shew and pretences of religion and devotion in a false way." God had appointed "one" altar at Jerusalem. There He willed the sacrifices to be offered, which He would accept. To multiply altars, much more to set up altars against the one altar, was to multiply sin. Hosea charges Israel elsewhere with this multiplying of altars, as a grievous sin. "According to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased altars. Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field" Hosea 10:1; Hosea 12:11. They pretended doubtless, that they did it for a religious end, that they might thereon offer sacrifices for the expiation of their sins and appeasing of God. They endeavored to unite their own selfwill and the outward service of God. Therein they might deceive themselves; but they could not deceive God. He calls their act by its true name. To make altars at their own pleasure and to offer sacrifices upon them, under any pretence whatever, was to sin. So then, as many altars as they reared, so often did they repeat their sin; and this sin should be their only fruit. They should be, but only for sin. So God says of the two calves, "This thing became a sin" 1-Kings 12:30, and of the indiscriminate consecration of priests (not of the family of Aaron), "This thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth" 1-Kings 13:33-34.

Many altars to sin - Though it does not appear that the Jews in Babylon were obliged to worship the idols of the country, except in the case mentioned by Daniel, yet it was far otherwise with the Israelites in Assyria, and the other countries of their dispersion. Because they had made many altars to sin while they were in their own land, they were obliged to continue in the land of their captivity a similar system of idolatry against their will. Thus they felt and saw the evil of their idolatry, without power to help themselves.

Because Ephraim hath, made many altars to sin,.... Not with an intention to commit sin, but to offer sacrifice for sin, and make atonement for it, as they thought; but these altars being erected for the sake of idols, and sacrifices offered on them to them, they sinned in so doing, and were the cause of sin in others, who were drawn into it by their example; as they were made to sin, or drawn into it, by Jeroboam their king, These altars were those set up at Daniel and Bethel, and in all high places, and tops of mountains, where they sacrificed to idols; and which was contrary to the express command of God, who required sacrifice only at one place, and on one altar, Deuteronomy 12:5; typical of the one altar Christ, and his alone sacrifice, who is the only Mediator between God and man; and they are guilty of the same crime as Ephraim here, who make use of more, or neglect him;
altars shall be unto him for sin; either these same altars, and the sacrifices offered on them, shall be reckoned and imputed to him as sins, trod shall be the cause of his condemnation and punishment: or, "let the altars be unto him for sin", so some (n); since he will have them, let him have them, and go on in sinning, till he has filled up the measure of his sins, and brought on him just condemnation; or else other altars are meant, even in the land of Assyria, where, since they were so fond of multiplying altars, they should have altars enough to sin at, whereby their sins would be increased, and their punishment for them aggravated. The Targum is,
"seeing the house of Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin, the altars of their idols shall he to them for a stumbling block,''
or ruin; so sin is taken in a different sense, both for guilt, and the punishment of it.
(n) "santo ergo illi altaria ad peccandum", Rivet.

It is a great sin to corrupt the worship of God, and will be charged as sin on all who do it, how plausible soever their excuses may seem to be. The Lord had caused his law to be written for them, but they cared not to know, and would not obey it. Man seems by the temples he builds to be mindful of his Maker, yet really he has forgotten him, because he has cast off all his fear; but none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered. So long as men despise the truths and precepts of God's word, and the ordinances of his worship, all the observances and offerings, however costly, of their own devising, will be unto them for sin; for those services only are acceptable to God, which are done according to his word, and through Jesus Christ.

God in righteous retribution gives them up to their own way; the sin becomes its own punishment (Proverbs 1:31).
many altars--in opposition to God's law (Deuteronomy 12:5-6, Deuteronomy 12:13-14).
to sin . . . to sin--Their altars which were "sin" (whatever religious intentions they might plead) should be treated as such, and be the source of their punishment (1-Kings 12:30; 1-Kings 13:34).

This threat is accounted for in Hosea 8:11., by an allusion to the sins of Israel. Hosea 8:11. "For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, the altars have become to him for sinning. Hosea 8:12. I wrote to him the fulnesses of my law; they were counted as a strange thing." Israel was to have only one altar, and that in the place where the Lord would reveal His name (Deuteronomy 12:5.). But instead of that, Ephraim had built a number of altars in different places, to multiply the sin of idolatry, and thereby heap more and more guilt upon itself. לחטא is used, in the first clause, for the act of sin; and in the second, for the consequences of that act. And this was not done from ignorance of the divine will, but from neglect of the divine commandments. אכתּוב is a historical present, indicating that what had occurred was continuing still. These words refer unquestionably to the great number of the laws written in the Mosaic thorah. רבו, according to the chethib רבּו, with ת dropped, equivalent to רבבה, as in 1-Chronicles 29:7, ten thousand, myriads. The Masoretes, who supposed the number to be used in an arithmetical sense, altered it, as conjecturally unsuitable, into רבּי, multitudes, although רב does not occur anywhere else in the plural. The expression "the myriads of my law" is hyperbolical, to indicate the almost innumerable multitude of the different commandments contained in the law. It was also in a misapprehension of the nature of the hyperbole that the supposition originated, that אכתּוב was a hypothetical future (Jerome). כּמו זר, like something foreign, which does not concern them at all.

Altars - Those which they shall find in Assyria. To sin - Shall be the occasion of his greater guilt and punishment.