Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? For it is from Israel,an artisan made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. (Hosea 8: 5-6)

When the Northern Kingdom had been founded, nearly three centuries before Hosea, the new royal house had good reason to restore and reinforce the prestige of ancient places of worship outside Jerusalem. The Temple of Solomon was impressive, but it could not claim association with the patriarchs as could many high places in the Northern Kingdom.

In the First Chronicle of Kings (chapter 12, verses 25-33) we read of King Jeroboam's religious reforms, including setting up at Dan and Bethel "two calves of gold." While the chronicler clearly sees this act as heretical, this may be more helpful in understanding the view from Jerusalem than the King's intent or the religious attitude of those who worshiped.

Even in the words of the critical historians that have survived, it seems clear that King Jeroboam did not see the calves as replacing worship of Yehovah, but as giving such worship a physical focus to compete with the Jerusalem mysteries. We can think of our attendance to the Cross to understand the value of such a device.

There are Biblical scholars who argue that until Hosea many places of Hebrew worship featured a central image: a calf, tree, or holy relic of some type. None of these were seen as god or God, but as a psychological help in the act of prayer and meditation. Hosea is the founding father of all iconoclasts.

The iconoclast worries that we will confuse surface for substance. We will worship nature as god rather than as an expression of God. We pray to our favorite saint, rather than to God as expressed in the life of the saint. It is a reasonable concern. Reality requires digging deep. We often prefer skimming the surface.