"For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel; And the horns of the altar will be cut off, And fall to the ground.
And the horns of the altar - This was the one great “altar” 1 Kings 12:32-33; 1 Kings 13:1-5 for burnt-offerings, set up by Jeroboam, in imitation of that of God at Jerusalem, whose doom was pronounccd in the act of its would-be consecration. He had copied faithfully outward form. At each corner, where the two sides met in one, rose the “horn,” or pillar, a cubit high , there to sacrifice victims, Psalms 118:27, there to place the blood of atonement Exodus 29:12. So far from atoning, they themselves were “the” unatoned “sin” of “Jeroboam whereby 2 Kings 17:21 he drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. These were to be cut off; hewn down, with violence. A century and a half had passed, since the man of God had pronounced its sentence. They still stood. The day was not yet come; Josiah was still unborn; yet Amos, as peremptorily, renews the sentence. In rejecting these, whereon the atonement was made, God pronounced them out of covenant with Himself. Heresy makes itself as like as it can to the truth, but is thereby the more deceiving, not the less deadly. Amos mentions the altars of Bethel, as well as the altar. Jeroboam made but one altar, keeping as close as he could to the divine ritual. But false worship and heresy ever hold their course, developing themselves. They never stand still where they began, but spread, like a cancer 2 Timothy 2:17. It is a test of heresy, like leprosy, that it spreads abroad Leviticus 13:0, preying on what at first seemed sound. The oneness of the altar had relation to the Unity of God. In Samaria, they worshiped, they know not what John 4:22, not God, but some portion of His manifold operations. The many altars, forbidden as they were, were more in harmony with the religion of Jeroboam, even because they were against God’s law. Heresy develops, becoming more consistent, by having less of truth.