Hosea 9:4

Offer — i.e., pour out as a libation. A better rendering is to be obtained by abandoning the Hebrew accentuation: And their sacrifices will not be pleasing to Him; it shall be to them as bread of sorrow — i.e., funeral food, which defiles for seven days those who partake of it. Another reference to the Mosaic legislation (Deuteronomy 26:14) — Yea, their bread is for their appetite (i.e., only for bodily sustenance), it cometh not to Jehovah’s house as a sacred offering.[12] These verses show that Hosea did not consider the worship of the Northern Kingdom as in itself illegal.

[12] Kuenen (Hibbert Lecture, p. 312) proposes an alteration in the text, whereby the parallelism becomes more harmonious and the construction simpler. He then renders, “They shall pour no libation of wine to Jehovah, and shall not lay out their sacrifices before Him: as food eaten in mourning is their food.” This agrees better with Hosea 3:4.