Hosea 13:3

3 Therefore they will be like a morning cloud, like the dew that disappears early, like chaff blown by wind from the threshing-floor, or like smoke that goes out the window.

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 Efrayim spoke, there was trembling; he was a power in Isra'el. But when he incurred guilt through Ba'al, he died.

2 So now they keep adding sin to sin, casting images from their silver; idols they invent for themselves, all of them the work of craftsmen. 'Sacrifice to them,' they say. Men give kisses to calves!

3 Therefore they will be like a morning cloud, like the dew that disappears early, like chaff blown by wind from the threshing-floor, or like smoke that goes out the window.

4 Still, I am ADONAI your God, from the land of Egypt; and you don't know any God but me or, other than me, any Savior.

5 I knew you in the desert, in a land of terrible drought.