Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 7:11

"And Ephraim is like a silly dove, without understanding: they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria." — Hosea 7:11 (ASV)

Ephraim is—that is, has become—like a silly dove. “There is nothing more simple than a dove,” says the Eastern proverb.

Simplicity is good or bad, not in itself, but according to other qualities of the soul—good or evil—with which it is united, to which it opens the mind, and which lead it to good or mislead it to evil.

The word describes one who is easily persuaded, open, and thus, one who takes God’s word simply and obeys His will without refinement, subtlety, or explaining it away. In this sense, it is said, The Lord preserveth the simple (Psalms 116:6).

On the other hand, it can describe one who easily allows himself to be led to evil, as the pagan said of youth, that they were “like wax to be bent to evil.” In this way, it is said, How long, you simple one, will you love simplicity? (Proverbs 1:22).

Our Lord uses this likeness of the dove for good: be wise as serpents, simple, or harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16). Hosea speaks of simplicity without wisdom, for he adds, a silly dove without understanding (literally, “without a heart”), by which they should love God’s will, and so should understand it.

Ephraim “became,” he says, like a silly dove. Neglecting God’s calls, unmoved by calamity or sufferings, and not seeking God for all this which He has done to recall them, they grew in folly.

Man is always growing in wisdom or in folly, in grace or in gracelessness. This new stage of folly lay in their flying to Assyria to help them—in fact, against God—as it follows.

They call to Egypt—Instead of calling to God who could and would help, they called to Egypt who could not, and went to Assyria who would not.

So God complains by Isaiah, To Me, you have not called, O Jacob (Isaiah 43:22). This was their folly: they did not call to God, who had delivered them out of Egypt, but alternately to their two powerful neighbors.

Of these, Egypt was a delusive promiser, not only failing but also piercing those who leaned on it; Assyria was a powerful oppressor. Yet what else is almost the whole history of Christian states?

Consider the balance of power. This concept has been the pride of the later policy of Europe and has been idolized as a god. Statesmen have looked to it as a deliverance from all their troubles, as if it were a kind of divine providence, regulating human affairs and dispensing with God’s interference.

What is this, however, but the very same wisdom that balanced Egypt against Assyria?