While suggesting that Jeroboam understood the calves to be a pedestal of deity,
On the other hand the following must be considered: the cultic
invocations “Behold your god” (הִנֵּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ 1 Kgs 12:28) or “This is your god” (אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
Ex 32:8); Hosea’s antithesis: “It is not God” (לא אלהים הוא 8:6a); the manner in which El is pictured
in Ugarit as a bull; the fact that Baal’s offspring is a bull; finally there is
the image of the bull in Tell el-Aschʿari
mentioned above. Certainly in Hosea as well, it is unquestionable that the calf
was more than just a pedestal for the divinity. For Hosea’s thought, probably
too little is claimed when it is said that the bull is an attribute or symbol
of the divinity and its strength. Hosea presupposes much more than the
customary idea that the divinity itself was pictured and represented by the
image of the calf. Thus the worship of the calf image is itself evidence that
the covenant has been broken. The thematic parallel in Ex 32 confirms the
connection of vv 1b and 5 in Hos 8. (Hans Walter
Wolff, Hosea: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea [Hermeneia—a
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1974], 141)
