Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 9:13

"Ephraim, like as I have seen Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer." — Hosea 9:13 (ASV)

Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place - Or (better) “as I saw her toward Tyre,” or “as I saw concerning Tyre.” Ephraim stretched out, in her dependent tribes, “toward” or “to” Tyre itself. Like Tyrus she was, “in her riches, her glory, her pleasantness, her strength, her pride,” and in the end, her fall. The picture is that of a beautiful tree, not sown by chance, but “planted” carefully by hand in a pleasant place. Beauty and strength were blended in her.

On the tribe of Joseph especially, Moses had pronounced the blessing: “Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep which coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moons (i.e., month by month), and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and the fulness thereof, and for the good pleasure of Him who dwelt in the bush” (Deuteronomy 33:13–16).

Beautiful are the mountains of Ephraim, and the rich valleys or plains that break them. Chief in beauty and in strength was the valley whose central hill its capital, Samaria, crowned: “the crown of pride to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower which is on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine” (Isaiah 28:1).

The blessing of Moses pointed perhaps to the time when Shiloh was the tabernacle of Him who once dwelt and revealed Himself in the bush. Now that Ephraim had exchanged its God for the calves, the blessings it still retained only created a more dreadful contrast with its future.

But Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer - Literally, “and Ephraim is to bring forth etc.” i.e., proud though her wealth, and high her state, pleasantly situated and firmly rooted, one thing lay before her, one destiny: she “was to bring forth children only for the murderer.”

Childlessness in God’s providence is the appropriate and frequent punishment of sins of the flesh. Pride also brought Peninnah, Hannah’s adversary, low, even concerning that which was the ground of her pride—her children. “The barren hath born seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble” (1 Samuel 2:5). So it is with the soul: “pride deprives of grace.”