Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 11:3

"Yet I taught Ephraim to walk; I took them on my arms; but they knew not that I healed them." — Hosea 11:3 (ASV)

I taught Ephraim also to go – Literally, “and I set Ephraim on his feet;” that is, while they were rebelling, I was helping and supporting them, as a nurse does her child, teaching it to go with little steps, step by step, “accustoming it to go by little and little without weariness;” and not only so, but “taking them by their arms;” or it may be equally translated, “He took them in His arms,” that is, God not only gently “taught” them “to walk,” but when they were weary, “He took them up in His arms,” as a nurse does a child when tired with its little attempts to walk. Such was the love and tender care of God, guiding and upholding Israel in His ways which He taught him, guarding him from weariness, or, if weary, taking him in the arms of His mercy and refreshing him.

So Moses says, “In the wilderness you have seen, how that the Lord your God bore you, as a man does bear his son, in all the way that you went, until you came unto this place” (Deuteronomy 1:31); and he expostulates with God, “Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that You should say unto me, Carry them in your bosom, as a nursing father bears his sucking child, unto the land which You swore unto their fathers?” (Numbers 11:12). “Briefly yet magnificently does this place hint at the wondrous patience of God, of which Paul also speaks, “for forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness” (Acts 13:18).

For as a nursing father bears patiently with a child who has not yet come to years of discretion, and, although at times he is moved to strike it in return, yet mostly he soothes its childish follies with blandishments, and, ungrateful though it is, carries it in his arms, so the Lord God, whose words these are, patiently bore with the unformed people, ignorant of the spiritual mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And although He killed the bodies of many of them in the wilderness, yet the rest He soothed with many and great miracles, “leading them about, and instructing them, (as Moses says) keeping them as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10).

But they knew not that I healed them – They did not lay it to heart, and therefore what they knew with their understanding was worse than ignorance. “I who was a Father, became a nurse, and Myself carried My little one in My arms, that he should not be hurt in the wilderness, or scared by heat or darkness. By day I was a cloud; by night, a column of fire, that I might by My light illuminate and heal those whom I had protected. And when they had sinned and had made the calf, I gave them place for repentance, and they knew not that I healed them, so as, for forty years, to close the wound of idolatry, restore them to their former health.”

“The Son of God carried us in His arms to the Father, when He went forth carrying His Cross, and on the wood of the Cross stretched out His arms for our redemption. Those too does Christ carry daily in His arms, whom He continually entreats, comforts, preserves, so gently, that with much alacrity and without any grievous hindrance they perform every work of God, and with heart enlarged run, rather than walk, the way of God’s commandments. Yet these need great caution, that they be clothed with great circumspection and humility, and not despise others. Else Christ would say of them, “They knew not that I healed them.”