Hosea 13:3

3 So they will be like the morning cloud, like the dew which goes early away, like the dust of the grain which the wind is driving out of the crushing-floor, like smoke going up from the fireplace.

Hosea 13:3 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 13:3

Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud
Which, however promising it is, soon disappears when the sun is risen; signifying that the idolatrous Israelites, king, priests, and people, should be no more; their kingdom would cease, all their riches and wealth would depart from them, and they and their children be carried captive into a strange land: and as the early dew it passeth away;
as soon as the heat of the sun is felt, when the earth is left dry; so these people, though they seemed to be in great prosperity, and to be very fruitful in children, and in substance, and promised themselves much more; yet in a little time their land would become desolate, and they stripped of all that was dear and valuable to them these metaphors are used in ( Hosea 6:4 ) ; as the chaff [that] is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor;
signifying that these idolatrous people were like chaff, fight and empty, useless and unprofitable, fit for nothing but burning; and that they would be driven out of their own land through the Assyrian, that should come like a whirlwind with great three and power, as easily and as quickly as chaff is drove out of a threshing floor of corn with a strong blast of wind; see ( Psalms 1:5 ) ( Jeremiah 4:11-13 ) ( Daniel 2:35 ) ; and as the smoke out of the chimney;
which rises up in a pillar, and is so on dissipated by the wind, or dissolved into air; and is no sooner seen but it disappears; see ( Psalms 68:2 ) . All these similes show how easily, suddenly, and quickly, the destruction of this idolatrous nation would be brought about.

Hosea 13:3 In-Context

1 When the words of my law came from Ephraim, he was lifted up in Israel; but when he did evil through the Baal, death overtook him.

2 And now their sins are increased; they have made themselves a metal image, false gods from their silver, after their designs, all of them the work of the metal-workers; they say of them, Let them give offerings, let men give kisses to the oxen.

3 So they will be like the morning cloud, like the dew which goes early away, like the dust of the grain which the wind is driving out of the crushing-floor, like smoke going up from the fireplace.

4 But I am the Lord your God, from the land of Egypt; you have knowledge of no other God and there is no saviour but me.

5 I had knowledge of you in the waste land where no water was.