Hosea 9:15 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Gilgal; for there I hated them— For there they became hateful to me, for their flagitious practices;—I will drive them, &c. That is, "I will no longer consider them as my family, my children, and servants." See chap. Hosea 8:1. The first great offence of the Israelites, after their entrance into the holy land, was committed when they were encamped in Gilgal; namely, the sacrilegious peculation of Achan. There, says God, of old was my quarrel with them; and to this, I think, these words allude. Gilgal was the place where the armies of Israel, upon their entering Canaan, first encamped; where Joshua set up the twelve stones, taken by God's command out of the midst of Jordan, in memorial of the miraculous passage through the river. There the first passover was kept, and the fruits of the promised land first enjoyed. There the captain of the host of Jehovah appeared to Joshua. There the rite of circumcision, which had been omitted during the forty years of the wandering of the people in the wilderness, was renewed. And in the days of the prophet Samuel, Gilgal appears to have been an approved place of worship and burnt-offering. But in later times it appears from Hosea and his cotemporary Amos, that it became a place of great resort for idolatrous purposes. And these are the wickednesses in Gilgal, of which the prophet here speaks. See Bishop Horsley.