Hosea 4:11

Whoredom and wine. These vices are pertinently put together to show their force in depriving man of his true and proper affections, his reason, and his understanding (see on Gen. 9:21).

Take away the heart. The “heart” is used here to represent the mind, the understanding, the affections. As a man thinks “in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). If a person’s mind, understanding, and affections are vitiated and corrupted by lustful excesses, he sacrifices his possibilities for service for God (see Prov. 4:23). One of the lamentable accompaniments of Israel’s worship of strange gods was the indulgence in the licentious rites and the debasing moral conduct that accompanied idol worship.