Hosea 8:6

From Israel was it also. Hosea here shows the folly of Israel’s behavior. This opening clause indicates the origin of this particular idol worship, the calf image of gold. It arose in the northern kingdom under Jeroboam I (1 Kings 12:26-33), and continued under his successors. It was, indeed, “not God.” This particular form of calf worship was not brought from a foreign country, as were the cults of Baal and Ashtoreth from the Sidonians, Chemosh from the Moabites, and Molech from the Ammonites. The workman made it. It is the greatest folly to look upon any object that has been planned and fashioned by us as superior to us. Idolatry makes men go against the very principle of reason. They fashion the idol and yet account it their god; at the same time they, who are made and sustained by God, forsake Him. The essence of true religion is the worship of one’s Creator; the folly of idolatry lies in the worship of what one’s own hands have made (see v. 14).