There was no truth, nor sympathy, mercy and love for neighbor, nor knowledge of God in the land. All three are connected with each other and follow one another, with the last as the beginning. Wherever we have the greatest confluence of people, these three sources of happiness are in many ways buried more quickly. In 4:12 it is said: "My people seek advice from a piece of wood and their staff gives them revelations"; it is their prophet, for the spirit of prostitution, of apostasy from God, leads them into these errors. They offer incense under trees, because their shade is good. In gratitude to the shade of the tree, they show it divine honor and forget the living God, his judgments, his name, his prophets.
[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025) p. 238. This is a comment on Hosea 4:1, although it actually covers most of this chapter. The reading here is interesting; Hamann seems (more or less plausibly) to interpret the trees comment in 4:13 as giving a general template for how apostasy develops -- finding the protection of something to be good and pleasant, people begin out of gratitude to show it honor that should be reserved to God, and then slowly stop giving such honor to God.]