Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, [and] your tithes after three years:
Ver. 4. Come to Bethel and transgress] Do so, if you think it good; and since you are so set upon it, go on, despair, die and be damned: That which will perish, let it perish, quoniam vobis stat sententia, since you are resolved, and there is no removing of you, take your own course, at your own peril. Here then we have a most bitter sarcasm, wherein God, in seeming to command sin, showeth his utmost dislike of it; for he is not a God that loveth wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with him, Psalms 5:4. See the like ironic expressions, Jer 7:21 Ezekiel 20:39 Ecc 11:9 Num 22:20 Isaiah 29:1; Isaiah 8:9; Isa 47:12 Jdg 10:14 1 Kings 18:27. Bethel-Place of Transgression
At Gilgal multiply transgressions] That your madness may appear to all men, 1 Timothy 4:15. See Hosea 4:15. See Trapp on " Hos 4:15 "
And bring your sacrifices every morning] Like apes, imitate the daily sacrifice; and do those self-same things to your idols which I have commanded to be done to myself alone; and in other places, that should be done at Jerusalem only. Do all this, and try what will come of it. Will you try a fall with God? will you despitefully spit in the face of Heaven? Do ye provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? do ye not provoke yourselves to the confusion of your own faces? Jeremiah 7:19 .
And your tithes after three years] That so ye may seem to keep my law exactly, Deuteronomy 14:28, and to be wanting in no duty, either of piety or charity. Wasps also have their honeycombs; idolaters a form of devotion.