Hosea 10:5

It is hard to express the sarcastic force and concentrated scoff of the original: “calves,” literally, she calves, the feminine form to express contempt, the plural in allusion to the scattered worship in numerous shrines throughout Israel (or, perhaps, a pluralis majestatis of mockery). The next clause should read thus: — For it (pers. pronoun, referring to the calf par excellence of the chief seat of worship at Bethel, here degraded into Bethaven), people mourn because of it, and its priests tremble because of it. (The word for “priests,” kemarîm, means always idolatrous priesthood.