Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 4:16

"For Israel hath behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer: now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a large place." — Hosea 4:16 (ASV)

For Israel slides back, as a backsliding heifer — The calves which Israel worshiped were pictures of itself. They represented natural, untamed strength, which, when put to service, started back and shrank from the yoke. “Untractable, petulant, unruly, wanton, it withdrew from the yoke when it could; if it could not, it drew aside or backward, instead of forward.” So it is rare, exceedingly rare, for man to walk straight on in God’s ways; he jerks, writhes, twists, darts aside here and there, hating nothing so much as one straight, even, narrow tenor of his ways.

Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place — The punishment of Israel was close at hand, “now.” It would not have the narrowness of God’s commandments; it should have the wideness of a desert. God would withdraw His protecting providence from them: He would rule them, although unfelt in His mercy. At “large,” they wished to be; at large they should be; but it should be the largeness of a wilderness where is no way. There, like a lamb, they should go astray, wandering up and down, unprotected, a prey to wild beasts. Woe to that man, whom, when he withdraws from Christ’s easy yoke, God permits to take unhindered the broad road which leads to destruction. To Israel, this “wide place” was the wide realms of the Medes, where they were withdrawn from God’s worship and deprived of His protection.