Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 13:8

"I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart; and there will I devour them like a lioness; the wild beast shall tear them." — Hosea 13:8 (ASV)

As a bear bereaved of her whelps - The Syrian bear is fiercer than the brown bears to which we are accustomed. It attacks flocks (1 Samuel 17:34) and even oxen. The fierceness of the she-bear, “bereaved of her whelps,” became a proverb (2 Samuel 17:8; Proverbs 17:12; and here): “Those who have written on the nature of wild beasts say that none is more savage than the she-bear when she has lost her whelps or lacks food.”

It blends wonderfully most touching love and fierceness. It tenderly protects its wounded whelps, reckless of its life, so that it may rescue them, and it turns fiercely on their destroyer.

Its love for them becomes fury against the one who injures them. Much more will God avenge those who destroy His sons and daughters, leading and enticing them into sin and destruction of body and soul.

Rend the caul of - (what encloses) their heart, that is, the pericardium. They had closed their hearts against God. Their punishment is pictured by the rending open of the closed heart by the lion, which is said to go instinctively straight to the heart, tear it out, and suck the blood. Fearful will it be in the Day of Judgment, when the sinner’s heart is laid open, with all the foul, cruel, malicious, defiled thoughts which it harbored and concealed, against the will of God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).

And there will I devour them - “There,” where they sinned, they will be punished. The wild beast shall tear them. What God does, He does mostly through instruments; and what His instruments do, they do by fulfilling His will through their own blind will or appetite. Until now, He had spoken as if He Himself were their punisher, laying aside, as it were, all His tenderness; now, lest the thought that it was still He, the God of love, who punished should give them hope, He says, the wild beast shall devour them. He gives them up, as it were, out of His own hands to the destroyer.