Hosea 10:8

The high places also of Avon, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. By Aven is generally understood Beth-aven, that is, Bethel; but some take the word as an appellative, and thus bamoth-aven would signify the "high places of iniquity." These unlawful places of sacrifice and unholy places of iniquity are further characterized by the appositional "the sin of Israel." By constructing and frequenting such places Israel had primarily and grievously sinned. By sacrificing to and worshipping even Jehovah on these high places instead of in Jerusalem, the only legal place for Divine service under the Law, their national sin in the matter of worship began; subsequently, however, things became worse, and these high places became scenes of most abominable idolatries and shamelessly sinful practices. Those places—one and all—are in the words before us doomed to destruction. The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars. The destruction is thus vividly described as total and complete; those bad eminences were devoted to entire wasteness and desolation. "It is a sign of extreme solitude," says Jerome, "so that no traces even of wall or buildings remained to be seen;" similarly Rashi says, "Thorns and thistles shall grow up upon their altars, because the worshippers thereof have departed and no one longer remains to attend to them" so Kimchi: "On the altars of Israel which they (the enemies) shall lay waste shall thorns spring up." And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us. The sight of such fearful ruin and desolation overwhelms the wretched inhabitants of the land with distress and dismay; in sheer despair and even desperation they invoke a sure and sudden death as much preferable to their remaining longer spectators of such heart-rending scenes. Their exclamation appears to be proverbial, and to have had its origin in the custom of the Israelites fleeing, in seasons of great calamities, to the mountains and clefts of the rocks to hide themselves; thus in 4:2 we read that "because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and eaves, and strongholds." The object of their exclamation is to be buried under the hills or mountains rather than endure such calamities longer; or rather than the enemies should see them in their shame. Aben Ezra makes "altars" the subject of "shall say," as if it were the wish of the altars to be covered that they may never more be seen. Theodoret considers the sense of the passage to be that the multitude of calamities in the war occasioned by hostile invasion would be so great that there would be no one who would not prefer being overwhelmed in an earthquake or by the sudden fall of the mountains, rather than endure the calamities inflicted by the enemies. Similarly, but more concisely, Jerome says, "They are more willing to die than see the evils that bring death."