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 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 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. From first to last it was "all" man's "work;" and man's own wisdom was its condemnation. The thing made must be inferior to its maker. made man, inferior to Himself, but lord of the earth, and all things therein; man made his idol of the things of earth, which God gave him. It too then was inferior to "its" maker, man. He then worshiped in it, the conception of his own mind, the work of his own hands.

They say of them - Strictly, Of them, (i. e., of these things, such things, as these,) "they, say, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves." The prophet gives the substance or the words of Jeroboam's edict, when he said, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, behold thy gods, O Israel." "Whoever would sacrifice, let him do homage to the calves." He would have calf-worship to be the only worship of God. Error, if it is strong enough, ever persecutes the truth, unless it can corrupt it. Idol-worship was striving to extirpate the worship of God, which condemned it. Under Ahab and Jezebel, it seemed to have succeeded. Elijah complains to God in His own immediate presence; "the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life, to take it away 1 Kings 19:10, 1 Kings 19:14. Kissing was an act of homage in the East, done upon the hand or the foot, the knees or shoulder. It was a token of divine honor, whether to an idol (1 Kings 19:18 and here,) or to God Psalm 2:12. It was performed, either by actually kissing the image, or when the object could not be approached, (as the moon) kissing the hand Job 31:26-27, and so sending, as it were, the kiss to it. In the Psalm, it stands as a symbol of worship, to be shown toward "the" Incarnate "Son," when God should make Him "King upon His holy hill of Sion."

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.

2. When the statue was too high or too far off, they presented the hand, in token of alliance.

3. They brought that hand respectfully to their mouths, and kissed it.

This was the genuine act of adoration; from ad, to, and os, oris, the mouth. So Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxviii., c. 1. Adorando, dexteram ad oscula referimus.

And Apuleius, Asin., lib. iv:

Admoventes oribus suis dexteram, ut ipsam prorsus deam religiosis adorationibus venerabantur.

See Calmet, and see the note on Job 31:17.

And now they sin more and more,.... Since the times of Jeroboam, and also of Ahab, adding other deities to the calves, and to Baal, as follows; increasing the number of their idols, and their idolatrous sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies: this they did in the times the prophet, who prophesied after the times of as it is common with evil men and seducers to wax worse and worse, and to proceed to more ungodliness, and from evil to evil; such is the way of idolaters, they stop not, but run into greater absurdities and grosser idolatries:

and have made them molten images of their silver: which is to be understood, not of the calves, or of Baal, made of gold, which they purchased with their silver; but of other images they had in their houses, or carried about with them, made of their silver, of their plate, which they melted and cast images of it, of whatsoever shape or form they pleased:

and idols according to their own understanding; which were entirely of man's device, and had nothing divine in them, either as to matter or form, but wholly the invention of the human brain; or, "according to their own likeness", as the Targum, and so other Jewish interpreters; after the form of a man, and yet were so weak and stupid as to account them gods:

all of it the work of the craftsmen; of silversmiths and founders, and such like artificers; the same, or of the same sort, with the craftsmen that made shrines for Diana, Acts 19:24; and therefore such a work, wrought by such hands, could never be a deity, or have anything divine in it; they must be as stupid and senseless as the work itself to imagine there should: and yet

they say of them; the false prophets, or the idolatrous priests, say of such idols:

let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves: let those that bring their sacrifices, or those that offer them, pay religious worship and adoration to the calves; which they signified by kissing the idols they sacrificed to, either their mouths, or their hands; or, if out of their reach, they kissed their own hands in token of honour to them; which rites were commonly used among the Heathens. Cicero (s) says at Agrigentum, where was a temple or Hercules, where the people not only used to show a veneration to his image by prayers and thanksgivings, but they used to kiss it. So Apuleius (t) speaks of a beautiful virgin, the report of whose beauty brought together a vast number of citizens and strangers; who, amazed at the sight of her, put their right hand to then mouths, the first finger resting upon the thumb erect, and gave her reverence with religious adoration, as if she had been the goddess Venus herself; and Minutius Felix (u) says of Caecilius, that, observing the image of Serapis (probably much like one of these calves), putting his hand to his mouth, according to the superstitious custom of the common people, with his lips smacked a kiss; and so Pliny (w) observes, in worshipping, the right hand is used for a kiss, turning about the whole body, which to do to the left was reckoned the more religious; hence it is observed (x) of Aemilius, a derider of and scoffer at things divine, that he would never make supplication to any god, nor frequent any temple; and if he passed by any place of worship, he reckoned it a crime to put his hand to his lips by way of adoration, or on account of that; and it seems to have obtained as early as the times of Job among idolatrous people, that, upon the sight of the sun or moon, they immediately with their mouth kissed their hands; see Job 31:26; hence Lucian (y), speaking of the Indians, says, rising early in the morning, they worship the sun, not as we, who think the prayers are finished when the hand is kissed; and Tertullian (z), addressing the Heathens in his time, thus bespeaks them, most of you, out of an affectation of worshipping the celestial bodies at the rising of the sun, move and quaver your lips; hence kissing is used for the worship of the Son of God, Psalm 2:12. Some read the words, "let those that sacrifice a man (a) kiss the calves"; as if it respected the abominable practice of sacrificing men to Mo; or intimated that men were sacrificed to the calves at Bethel.

(s) In Verrem, l. 4. Orat. 9. c. 13. (t) Metamorphos. sive de Asino Auero, l. 4. p. 60. (u) Octavius, p. 2.((w) Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 2.((x) Apuleii Apolog. p. 226. (y) . (z) Apolog. c. 16. (a) "immolatores hominem, vel immolantes homines", Vatablus; "sacrificantes hominem", Montanus, Calvin, Schmidt; so some in Abenda. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin render it as an imperative, "sacrifice men"; and the Syriac version, "O ye that sacrifice men".

And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, {d} Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

(d) Let the men that sacrifice or while they sacrifice men. The false prophets persuaded the idolaters to offer their children after the example of Abraham, and he shows how they would exhort one another to the same, and to kiss and worship these calves which were their idols.

13:2 Of them - Of the idols. Let the man - Let all that bring their offerings to these idols, worship and adore, and shew they do so by kissing the calves.

they sin...: Heb. they add to sin

the men...: or, the sacrificers of men

2. 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; Job 31:27; Ps 2:12).

13:1-8 While Ephraim kept up a holy fear of God, and worshipped Him in that fear, so long he was very considerable. When Ephraim forsook God, and followed idolatry, he sunk. Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves, in token of their adoration of them, affection for them, and obedience to them; but the Lord will not give his glory to another, and therefore all that worship images shall be confounded. No solid, lasting comfort, is to be expected any where but in God. God not only took care of the Israelites in the wilderness, he put them in possession of Canaan, a good land; but worldly prosperity, when it feeds men's pride, makes them forgetful of God. Therefore the Lord would meet them in just vengeance, as the most terrible beast that inhabited their forests. Abused goodness calls for greater severity.