Did the Israelites of Samaria necessarily have a literal cow idol in their temple?

Question

Hosea 8:4-5 states:

They have set up kings, but not by Me;
They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.
With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves,
That they might be cut off.
He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying,
“My anger burns against them!”
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

It strikes me as odd that they would go ahead and make the exact same calf idol, the exact same mistake, as was made in Exodus. Could this perhaps be a literary device? i.e. Hosea is deliberately calling their idol a calf to compare it to the one in Exodus?

So I am not asking for a literal answer (was it a calf), but is it reasonable for OT prophetic literature, and OT prophets to make such a (non literal) allegoric statement? (Although a literal, this is true because of XYZ would be useful)

Answer 1

It is highly unlikely Hosea is using a literary device.

First, there were two real golden calves in Israel the people worshipped. When the nation divided, Jeroboam, the first king of Israel made two golden calves:

Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!” (1 Kings 12:28 NKJV)

When the Northern Kingdom went into captivity the history of the separation from Judah is recounted in 2 Kings chapter 17 (NKJV):

For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods (17:7)… So they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves… (17:16)… For He tore Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them (17:21-22)

They sinned against the LORD God who brought them up from Egypt; they walked in the sins of Jeroboam and did not depart from them.

About 50 years after Jeroboam died, Jehu became ruler of Israel and instituted many reforms in Israel. He destroyed the house of Ahab; killed the ministers and priests of Baal and destroyed the temple of Baal. He did not destroy the golden calves:

However Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin, that is, from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan. (2 Kings 10:29 NKJV)

Jehu left Jeroboam’s calves in Dan and Bethel and they are called the “sins of Jeroboam.”

Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jeroboam II followed Jehu as kings in Israel. Of these three it is said:

Jehoash: And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He did not depart from them. (2 Kings 13:2 NKJV)

Jehoash: And he did evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, but walked in them. (2 Kings 13:11 NKJV)

Jeoboam II: And he did evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, but walked in them. (2 Kings 14:24 NKJV)

All of the kings of Israel following Jehu did not depart form the sins of Jeroboam; they continued to walk in them. It was during the reign of Jeroboam II that Hosea prophesized:

The word of the LORD that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. (Hosea 1:1 NKJV)

Therefore, when Hosea is delivering his messages, Jeroboam's calves were still in existence and based on 2 Kings 17, likely remained until the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity.

Second, Hosea is told to use his own life as an example of what is wrong in Israel:

When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the LORD.” (Hosea 1:2 NKJV)

Since the LORD is using actual events (Hosea’s marriage to a prostitute) to serve as an example, it is unlikely Hosea would later interject a literary device (which could be mistaken). More likely Hosea continues using things that are real (Jeroboam's calves) to convey his message.

According to the JPS Study Bible:

”The book’s main themes are Israel’s abandoning of the LORD, the LORD’s punishment for that abandonment, calls for Israel’s repentance, and hope for an ideal future of reconciliation between the LORD and Israel.” (p 1143)

The issues were real and eventually resulted in the LORD allowing Israel to be conquered and taken captive by the Assyrians. The serious nature of the LORD’s message is seen by His instructions to marry a prostitute; the message continues with instructions to name the children and then change their names. Employing a literary device could have the effect of blunting the message and is inconsistent with the fact Hosea was instructed to have something real (his family) to serve as an example for the message.

Since the calf was real, the second part of the question should be considered: is Hosea intentionally making a connection to the golden calf in Exodus (31:18-32:35)?

No one disputes the existence of Jeroboam’s two golden calves. He located one in the north and one in the south:

And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. (1 Kings 12:29 NKJV)

Therefore in Israel there were two golden calves; yet Hosea points to one:

Your calf (עֶגְלֵ֣ךְ) is rejected, O Samaria! My anger is aroused against them— How long until they attain to innocence? For from Israel is even this: A workman made it, and it is not God; But the calf (עֵ֖גֶל) of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. (Hosea 8:5-6 NKJV)

Calf in Hosea is singular and 8:6 uses the same word exactly as it is found in Exodus:

And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf (עֵ֖גֶל) (Exodus 32:4 NKJV)

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf (עֵ֖גֶל), and worshiped it and sacrificed to it… (Exodus 32:8 NKJV)

Hosea writes of just one calf in Samaria, intentionally ignoring the reality there are two present at the time he is delivering his message. When He does this, he uses the same word used in Exodus. Therefore Hosea has been purposely written to make a connection to the golden calf in Exodus (and not Jeroboam's calves).

As noted in one answer there are some scholars who apply the documentary hypothesis to Exodus and conclude the events of the golden calf were a later addition. The theory is that the golden calf in Exodus was a “pejorative recasting of a northern legend about the origination of Jeroboam’s calves.” (JPS Study Bible p 183) According to the theory, the Exodus event never happened and the story was fabricated and inserted (rather poorly) into Exodus.

Based upon Hosea, this theory can be rejected. In order for Hosea to be referring to the golden calf in Exodus, that story must already be in Exodus at the time Hosea is writing.

Answer 2

The documentary hypothesis, a theory held by many historians and academics in the field of linguistics, states that the Pentateuch, including the Book of Exodus, was a late composition. Historians no longer follow Wellhausen's original hypothesis as closely as was the case, but Carol A. Redmount says in 'Bitter lives', published in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, page 63, that recent research indicates that even more of the extant Exodus account than previously thought comes from periods during or after the Israelite monarchy or even the Exile. It is accepted that earlier in the first millennium BCE, there was probably a simpler tradition of an exodus from Egypt by just a few families or escaping slaves who travelled north to join the Hebrew people already living in the Levant. Redmount says the biblical Exodus account was never intended to function or to be understood as history in the present-day sense of the word.

Some point out that Hosea verses 12:1 and 13:4 (and others) could mean that Hosea was aware of the Exodus tradition, but Lester L. Grabbe says in Ancient Israel, page 84, not everyone is confident any longer in such literary analysis:

Hosea 12:1: Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.

Hosea 13:4: Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

There is something of a consensus among scholars that the Book of Exodus was compiled after the time of Hosea and based on traditions that evolved over the centuries. In the form extant at the time of Hosea, the emerging tradition probably did not have the story of worshipping a golden calf. In worshipping a bull calf, the Israelites of whom Hosea wrote were not repeating the mistake of the Exodus, because the tradition now found in Exodus chapter 32 did not yet exist.

We should not be surprised that the Israelites worshipped an idol. Mark S. Smith says in The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, page 64, that according to the available evidence, Israelite religion in its earliest form did not contrast markedly with the religions of its Levantine neighbours in either number or configuration of deities. He says the number of deities in Israel was relatively typical for the region. A common motif was the bull, because it represented both power and fertility. The father god of the Levantine region, El, was often represented by a bull. The moon god was variously represented by a calf and by an adult bull, probably reflecting the phases of the moon. On page 119 of Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God: In Ancient Israel, Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger display some sketches of sacred bull figures found by archaeologists in early Israel.

The Book of Hosea was ostensibly written as a warning to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel during the last decades of the kingdom, but as the book unfolds we see that it was actually written in Judah as a warning to the people of the southern kingdom - not to follow Israel to destruction. The century or so after the destruction of Israel in 722 BCE was a period of religious revival in Judah, with the southern kingdom moving towards monolatry and eventual monotheism.

So, Hosea was not using a literary device, but was reporting that a literal calf was worshipped in a temple in Samaria, the Israelite capital, as well as in another temple in Bethel. This is the "XYZ" of the question!