Hosea 7:3

3 They delight the king with their evil, and the princes with their lies.

Hosea 7:3 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 7:3

They make the king glad with their wickedness
Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering sacrifice to the calves, and with the people in attending to that idolatrous worship, by which they hoped to secure the kingdom of Israel to themselves, and prevent the people going to Jerusalem to worship: it made them glad to the heart to hear them say that God was as well pleased with sacrifices offered at Dan and Bethel, as at Jerusalem: and the princes with their lies;
with their idols and idolatrous practices, which are vanity and a lie; though some interpret this of their flatteries, either of them, or their favourites; and of their calumnies and detractions of such they had a dislike of.

Hosea 7:3 In-Context

1 When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed, as well as the crimes of Samaria. For they practice deceit and thieves break in; bandits raid in the streets.

2 But they fail to consider in their hearts that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face.

3 They delight the king with their evil, and the princes with their lies.

4 They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.

5 The princes are inflamed with wine on the day of our king; so he joins hands with those who mock him.