Hosea 4:8

"They feed on the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity."

"They feed on the sin of my people ..." Hosea had already mentioned the false priests and prophets (Hosea 4:5); and here he returned to the subject of the evil priesthood, as indicated by the contrast between "they" and "my people" in the same clause. Harper gave the meaning of this accurately, thus:

"The priests encouraged the people to sin in order that they the priests might have larger numbers of sin offerings, greater perquisites ... they live upon the vice of the day."[24]

"And they set their heart on their iniquity ..." There is a change from the plural "priests" in the first clause to the "they" in the second,[25] indicating that "my people" is the antecedent and that the second clause here means that the northern kingdom have set their heart, not upon God, but upon their sins which they love. Before leaving this, it should be noted that "sin offerings" may not appear in this verse at all, despite the possible understanding of the terms in this sense as cited above in the quotations from Harper. Mauchline is undoubtedly correct in his assertion that: "The words may have the less specific meaning that the priests have an appetite for human guilt and gloat over iniquity."[26] As was noted in our commentary on Amos 5:21 and related passages, there is no evidence that the pagan worship in Northern Israel included any such thing as a sin-offering, none whatever being mentioned in Amos. In view of that, the view of Mauchline should be preferred in this passage.