Hosea 8:4
They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.
The verse speaks of the closing years of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel. Israel set up its kings and princes without God's choice, authority, approval, knowledge, or regard. Those rulers were godless usurpers who seized the throne by violence and bloodshed, with king after king assassinated to make way for others ambitious to rule, worse than even the worst strife and unrest under the house of Ahab. Their rule reaped the whirlwind after more than two centuries of rulers sowing the wind, setting aside every principle of justice and dealing treacherously against the Lord and one another instead of standing before the nations as depositaries of divine grace.
Israel turned its silver and gold into idols. These choices were rebellion against God's law that brought the people toward destruction, that they might be cut off. The verse means no human leaders are to rule God's work as kings or control it by their own judgment; God alone is to direct and rule His people. The verse applies to setting human authority above God's law by rejecting God's Sabbath and refusing obedience to the fourth commandment while exalting human enactments and accepting a humanly established rival and false day of worship.