‘Israel is a luxuriant vine,
Which puts forth his fruit.
In accordance with the abundance of his fruit,
He has multiplied his altars,
In accordance with the goodness of their land,
They have made goodly pillars.'
With withering sarcasm Hosea now depicts what Israel has become. They are indeed a luxurious vine which puts forth its fruit (something that they were no doubt claiming for themselves), but their response to having an abundance of fruit has been to build an abundance of altars. Most of the credit is going to Baal (and their own perverted sexual behaviour). And their response to the goodness of the land (the land, be it noted, of YHWH) as it produces abundantly is to erect goodly pillars. Such pillars were a symbol of Baal and were erected at their many sanctuaries in his honour. Many examples have been discovered archaeologically.
Note the play on ‘abundance of fruit' and ‘multiplied altars', ‘goodly land' and ‘goodly pillars', clearly stressing that the more they were blessed, the more they looked to Baal. So the more YHWH prospered Israel, the more Baalism was taking over their minds. They had never had it so good, and they gave Baal most of the credit, seeing it as a just response to all their exuberant worship and all their perverted sexual antics. They felt that they made a good partnership. And in so far as YHWH was still worshipped, it was as a part of this nature pattern. At the same time they were conveniently able to ignore the fact that they had already lost over half their land to Assyria, land which had become a province of Assyria, and also to overlook the fact of the threat of an Assyria looming ever larger, an ever threatening reality. Their eyes were simply on their own present with its fruitful harvests and freedom from all restraint, and they seemingly thought that it could go on for ever.