Hosea 7:3

3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, 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 would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they practise falsehood; and the thief entereth in, [and] the troop of robbers assaileth without.

2 And they say not in their hearts [that] I remember all their wickedness: now do their own doings encompass them; they are before my face.

3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

4 They all practise adultery, as an oven heated by the baker: he ceaseth from stirring [the fire] after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.

5 In the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine: he stretched out his hand to scorners.