Hosea 13:2

And now they sin more and more,....

When once he began to offend in Baal the ice was broken, and he grew worse and worse, coveted more idols, doted more upon those he had, and grew more ridiculous in the worship of them. Note, The way of idolatry, as of other sins, is down-hill, and men cannot easily stop themselves. It is the sad case of all those who have forsaken God that they sin yet more and more.

And now they sin more and more - They increase in every kind of vice, having abandoned the great Inspirer of virtue. Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves - This was the test. If there be a Jew that pretends to sacrifice, and whose conversion is dubious, let him come openly and kiss the calves. This will show what he is; no real Jew will do this. If he be an idolater, he will not scruple. This was the ancient method of adoration. 1. They kissed the idol.

according to their own understanding--that is, their arbitrary devising. Compare "will-worship," Col 2:23. Men are not to be "wise above that which is written," or to follow their own understanding, but God's command in worship. kiss the calves--an act of adoration to the golden calves (compare 1Ki 19:18;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase+unbalanced-parens

And now they sin more and more - Sin draws on sin. This seems to be a third stage in sin. First, under Jeroboam, was the worship of the calves. Then, under Ahab, the worship of Baal. Thirdly, the multiplying of other idols (see 2Ki 17:9-10), penetrating and pervading the private life, even of their less wealthy people. The calves were of gold; now they “made them molten images of their silver,” perhaps plated with silver. In Egypt, the mother of idolatry, it was common to gild idols, made of wood, stone, and bronze. The idolatry, then, had become more habitual, daily, universal. These idols were made of “their silver;” they themselves had had them “molten” out of it. Avaricious as they were (see the note above 2Ki 12:7-8), they lavished “their silver,” to make them their gods. “According to their own understanding,” they had had them formed. They employed ingenuity and invention to multiply their idols. They despised the wisdom and commands of God who forbad it. The rules for making and coloring the idols were as minute as those, which God gave for His own worship. Idolatry had its own vast system, making the visible world its god and picturing its operations, over against the worship of God its Creator. But it was all, “their own understanding:” The conception of the idol lay in its maker’s mind. It was his own creation. He devised, what his idol should represent; how it should represent what his mind imagined; he debated with himself, rejected, chose, changed his choice, modified what he had fixed upon; all “according to his own understanding.” Their own understanding devised it; the labor of the craftsmen completed it. All of it the work of the craftsmen - What man could do for it, he did. But man could not breathe into his idols the breath of life; there was then no spirit, nor life, nor any effluence from any higher nature, nor any deity residing in them. […]