_For the Calf of Beth-Aven the inhabitants_[579] _of Samaria shall be anxious: yea, mourn for him shall his people, and his priestlings shall writhe for him--for his glory that it is banished from him._ In these days of heavy tribute shall the gold of the golden calf be safe? _Yea, himself shall they pack_[580] _to Assyria; he shall be offered as tribute to King Pick-Quarrel._[581] _Ephraim shall take disgrace, and Israel be ashamed because of his counsel._[582] _Undone Samaria! Her king like a chip_[583] _on the face of the waters!_ This may refer to one of the revolutions in which the king was murdered. But it seems more appropriate to the final catastrophe of 724-1: the fall of the kingdom, and the king's banishment to Assyria. If the latter, the verse has been inserted; but the following verse would lead us to take these disasters as still future. _And the high places of idolatry shall be destroyed, the sin of Israel; thorn and thistle shall come up on their altars. And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us._ It cannot be too often repeated: these handmade gods, these chips of kings, shall be swept away together. Once more the prophet returns to the ancient origins of Israel's present sins, and once more to their shirking of the discipline necessary for spiritual results, but only that he may lead up as before to the inevitable doom. _From_[584] _the days of Gibeah thou hast sinned, O Israel. There have they remained_--never progressed beyond their position there--_and this without war overtaking them in Gibeah against the dastards_.[585] _As soon as I please, I can chastise them, and peoples shall be gathered against them in chastisement for their double sin._ This can scarcely be, as some suggest, the two calves at Bethel and Dan. More probably it is still the idols and the man-made kings. Now he returns to the ambition of the people for spiritual results without a spiritual discipline.