For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, And multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
"Which they used for Baal ..." The guilt of this lies in the fact that the very wealth which God had bestowed upon Israel was used to build, ornament, promote and worship the vulgar old god of the Canaanites, Baal! Gold was used for images of that so-called `god', as when Jeroboam I manufactured and installed the golden calves at Dan and at Bethel.  Such wealth was also lavished upon the building of pagan shrines, the support of the pagan priesthood, etc.  Thus, the very wealth which God had bestowed upon them became, in their hands, the instrument of their dishonoring him. It is evident here that, "The prophet is thinking simultaneously of his unfaithful wife and of unfaithful Israel."[31]  "Baal was the Phoenician sun-god, answering to the female Astarte, the moon-goddess."[32]  As noted above, Jezebel had taken the lead in the introduction of this abomination into Israel, when, as the daughter of Ethbaal, she came from her native Tyre to be the wife of Ahab the king of Israel.