Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves— Or it should rather be rendered, Let the sacrificers of men kiss the calves. It appears from this passage, that superstition and idolatry had made such a progress among the ten tribes, that human sacrifices were made an essential rite in the worship of the calves. And this was the finishing stroke, the last stage of their impiety; that they said Let the sacrificers of men kiss the calves: let them consider themselves as the most acceptable worshippers, who approach the image with human blood. Kiss the calves; that is to say, worship the calves. Among the ancient idolaters, to kiss the idol was an act of the most solemn adoration. Thus we read in Holy Writ of all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. Tully mentions a brazen statue of Hercules at Agrigentum, in which the workmanship of the mouth was sensibly worn by the frequent kisses of the worshippers. And in allusion to this rite, the holy Psalmist, calling upon the apostate faction to avert the wrath of the incarnate God by full acknowledgment of his divinity, bids them kiss the Son; that is to say, worship him.
It may seem extraordinary, that we find it no where mentioned in the sacred history by whom the practice was introduced of sacrificing men to the calves, the pretended emblems of the true God. But this would appear an objection of no great weight to the interpretation I have given of the prophet's words, which is the only one, I think, that they will naturally bear; if the prevalence of the practice were of necessity implied in the words of the prophet so interpreted. But it is possible, that the calves themselves were never so worshipped; but that the zeal for idolatry was so great with some of the latter kings, that they made it a condition upon which alone they would tolerate the worship of Jehovah in the calves, that the worshipper should join in the offering of human sacrifices to Moloch, or some other idol. For if any of the kings of Israel issued an edict of toleration, under such a condition; he said, in effect, "Let the sacrificers of men kiss the calves." It is true, no such measure is mentioned in the sacred history. But the silence of the history is certainly no confutation of any thing, to which the prophets clearly allude as a fact. For the history of the kingdom of Israel, under the different usurpers, after the fall of Zedekiah, the son of the second Jeroboam, is so concise and general, that we know little of the detail of it, but what is to be gathered from allusions. We have the names of the kings in succession, the length of their reigns, and their principal exploits. But we know nothing of the particulars, but what we gather from the prophets, or from the more circumstantial history of the collateral reigns in the kingdom of Judah; insomuch that human victims may have been offered to the calves, or the wor-shippers of the calves may have been compelled to dip their hands in the blood of Moloch's victims; though no evidence of either practice remains, but this allusion of the prophet Hosea; which leaves some degree of doubt between the two. Sacrifices to the calves themselves seem to me the more probable object of the allusion.
When it is recollected, that Solomon himself built a temple to Moloch, and that Ahab introduced the worship of the Tyrian Baal in the kingdom of Samaria, and that both these idols were appeased with infant blood; there is too much reason to believe, that the practice must have begun early in both kingdoms; although it probably was late before it came to a height in either. And yet the first mention of it, in the history of the kingdom of Samaria, is when the sacred writer closes that history, with an enumeration of the crimes which provoked the judgment of God, and brought on its ruin, 2 Kings 17:17. Nevertheless, it is certain, that this abominable custom was of older date, and perhaps of not much older date, in the kingdom of Samaria, than in that of Judah. For, in the kingdom of Judah, Ahaz is the first king, of whom we read that he adopted the practice. And it is mentioned, as one of the things in which he followed the example of the kings of Israel;—Ahaz—did not that which was right in the sight of Jehovah, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, insomuch that he passed his son through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, &c. See 2 Kings 16:2-3.
Upon the whole, it may be concluded with certainty, from this text of Hosea, that, in the latter period of the monarchy of the ten tribes, the practice of human sacrifices came to such a height, and was so much countenanced by the kings and rulers, that it was either enjoined as an essential in the worship even of the calves; or required of their worshippers, with regard to other idols, as the only condition upon which even that shadow of the true worship would be tolerated. The time when this took place cannot be determined with certainty; I think it must have been as early as the reign of Menahem; for, from the expressions in Exodus 16:3 we may gather, that Ahaz had the example of more kings of Israel than one or two, for the detestable rites which he introduced among his own subjects.