Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 9:16

"Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay the beloved fruit of their womb." — Hosea 9:16 (ASV)

Ephraim is smitten - The prophet, under the image of a tree, repeats the same sentence of God upon Israel. The word “smitten” is used of the smiting of the tree from above, especially by the visitation of God, as by blasting and mildew (Amos 4:9).

Yet such smiting, although it falls heavily for the time, leaves hope for the future. He adds then, their root is also withered, so that they should bear no fruit.

Or if, perhaps, while the root was still drying up and not quite dead, any fruit he yet found, yet will I slay, God says, the beloved, fruit of their womb, the desired fruit of their bodies, that which their souls longed for:

“So long as they have children and multiply the fruit of the womb, they think that they bear fruit; they do not consider that their root is dried, or that they have been severed by the axe of excision and rooted out of the land of the living; but, in the anguish at the slaying of those they most loved, they will say, it would have been better to have had no children.”