He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
The Prophet goes on with the same subject; for he shows that Israel perished through their own fault, and that the crime, or the cause of destruction, could not be transferred to any other. There is some ambiguity in the words, which does not, however, obscure the sense; for whether we read calf in the objective case, or say, thy calf has removed thee far...
The reproofs and threatenings here are introduced with an order to the prophet to set the trumpet to his mouth (Hos 8:1), thus to call a solemn assembly, that all might take notice of what he had to deliver and take warning by it. He must sound an alarm, must, in God's name, proclaim war with this rebellious nation.
Commenting on Hosea 8:1-7
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off,.... Or, is the cause of thy being cast off by the Lord, and of being cast out of thine own land, and carried captive into another; the past tense is used for the future, as is common in prophetic writings, to denote the certainty of the thing: or "thy calf hath left thee" (a); in the lurch...