Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 10:9

"O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood; the battle against the children of iniquity doth not overtake them in Gibeah." — Hosea 10:9 (ASV)

O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah—There must have been great sin on both sides, of Israel as well as Benjamin, when Israel punished the atrocity of Gibeah, since God caused Israel to be so struck by Benjamin. Such sin had continued ever since, so that, although God, in His long-suffering, had until now spared them, “it was not of late only that they had deserved those judgments, although now at last only, God inflicted them.”

There in Gibeah, they stood. Although struck twice at Gibeah and heavily chastened, there they were avengers of the sacredness of God’s law, and, in the end, “they stood; chastened but not killed.” But now, none of the ten tribes took God’s side.

Neither zeal for God, nor the greatness of the guilt, nor fear of judgment, nor the peril of utter ruin, induced any to set themselves against such great sin. The sin, devised by one and diffused among the many, was burnt and branded into them, so that they never parted with it.

Therefore, the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them; that is, it did not overtake them then, but it will overtake them now.

Or if we interpret (as is more probable) shall not overtake them, it will mean that not a battle like that in Gibeah, terrible as that was, “shall” now “overtake them”; but one far worse. For, although the tribe of Benjamin was then reduced to six hundred men, the tribe still survived and flourished again; now the kingdom of the ten tribes, and the name of Ephraim, would be utterly blotted out.