Hosea 9:8 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The watchman of Ephraim was with my God; the old true prophets indeed were with God, heard what he spake, and told it to the people; they were for God, for his honour, law, worship, and temple; and so should prophets now be. Ephraim once had such prophets, such were Elijah and Elisha, but none such now, or Ephraim cares not for them. The prophet speaks of God, the true God, as his God, in opposition to idols, on which Ephraim doted now, whose pretended oracles they believed. But the prophet; the prophets now-a-days, who call themselves prophets, and are so accounted by the people, have, as the people, left God, and do no more consult with God. Is a snare of a fowler; their pretended predictions and promises are but a snare, such as fowlers lay to take fowl in; and these impostors are conscious to themselves that they are deceivers; at least they cannot but know that the true God never gave them answer at any of their images, yet they pretend he hath done it, and that he will prosper them; so they insnare the people first in sin, next in punishment. In all his ways; and all they design and endeavour by all means is to keep the people in this opinion and hope. And hatred in the house of his God; so is hatred in the sight of God, he doth hate such deceivers; and he is hatred, i.e. ere long will he hatred, in the sight of the people he deceived; they shall hate their false prophets, who from the house of their God, by answers from the idols in their temples, confirmed the people in their rebellion, and hardened them against returning to God, which ends in their ruin: or else hatred, &c., i.e. cause of the people's hatred, against God and one another.