Hosea 8:13

They sacrifice, &c. Rather, My sacrificial gifts they sacrifice; (yea,) flesh, and they eat it; i.e., their sacrifices are a mere form, Jehovah abhors them; the only positive result is that the sacrificer has the luxury of a dinner of flesh-meat. (Comp. a similar accusation against the priests, Hosea 4:8.) That sensual appetites were partly concerned in the offering of sacrifices even in times of national trouble may perhaps be inferred from Isaiah 22:13, the eating of animal food being only allowed, especially we may suppose in Jerusalem, in connexion with a sacrificial act; comp. Leviticus 17:3-6; Deuteronomy 13:15-16 (a mitigation of a primitive rule). [The word rendered -gifts" is uncertain.]

now The climax of Israel's iniquity has been reached; Jehovah will now prove in act that He has not forgotten their transgressions.

they shall return to Egypt Some think this is a kind of poetical expression for being carried into captivity a most unnatural supposition. In Isaiah 7:18 we find a threat of a double invasion from Egypt and from Assyria, and why can we not imagine that a people who were ever vacillating between Egyptian and Assyrian alliances should be threatened with an Egyptian as well as an Assyrian captivity? Comp. the prophecies of restoration from Egypt in Isaiah 11:11; Micah 7:12. The word -return" is pointed with the terrible associations of the -house of bondage"; comp. Deuteronomy 28:68. Hosea repeats the threat in Hosea 9:3; Hosea 9:6; Hosea 11:5.