Hosea 7:13,14 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wo unto them, &c. These are words both of menace and lamentation. The prophet at once foretels and bewails their miseries. For they have fled from me As if it had not been enough that they at first left my government, temple, and worship, they have gone still further from me by their sinful and idolatrous courses. Destruction unto them The ruin of their country and commonwealth will be the consequence of their apostacy. Because they have transgressed against me Rebelliously cast off my authority and laws. Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies, &c. Though I delivered them from the Egyptians, and afforded them many other signal deliverances, yet they have not given me true glory, but have likened me to golden calves, and other images. Idolatry is frequently called in Scripture a lie, because it gives false representations of things; attributing power, &c., to things which, in their own nature, have no such power, or representing the Deity by forms which he is in no way like; therefore it was, properly speaking, changing the truth and glory of God into a lie, or, speaking lies against him. They also belied his corrections, as if not deserved; they belied the good which God had done them, as if it were too little, or not done by him, but by their idols. And they have not cried unto me, when they howled, &c. When they bemoaned their calamities, as sick men bewail themselves upon their beds of sickness; yet they did not call upon me heartily and sincerely. They assemble, &c., for corn and wine, and they rebel, &c. When they assemble themselves to deprecate a famine, they still retain the same disobedient temper toward me.