Hosea 10:5

Samaria. The capital and leading city of the northern kingdom. Calves. Heb. ‘egloth, “young cows,” or “heifers.” Elsewhere in Hosea the idolatrous calves are designated by the Hebrew masculine form. Probably the word is in the feminine gender for the purpose of expressing contempt for the images that Jeroboam I set up. The use of the feminine form may also imply the weakness of these gods; for, instead of these calves helping the people, the people were afraid that these calves would be taken away captive. Rather than the plural, the LXX has the singular, “calf,” which agrees better with the singular pronoun “it” (vs. 5, 6). Beth-aven. Literally, “the house of evil power,” or “the house of wickedness” (see on ch. 4:15). Bethel, “the house of God,” once a place of sacred memory because of its association with the patriarch Jacob, later became one of the two centers of idolatrous calf worship (1 Kings 12:26-33). Priests. Heb. kemarim, a word occurring elsewhere in the OT only in 2 Kings 23:5, where it is translated “idolatrous priests,” and in Zeph. 1:4, where it is transliterated “Chemarims.”