Charles Ellicott Commentary Hosea 14:5-6

"I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon." — Hosea 14:5-6 (ASV)

As the Dew. For this imagery, see Psalm 130:3. Properly, it is “a copious mist, shedding small invisible rain, that comes in rich abundance every night in the hot weather, when west or north-west winds blow, and which brings intense refreshment to all organised life” (Neil’s Palestine Explored, p. 136). The lily, which carpets the fields of Palestine (Matthew 6:29), has slender roots that might easily be uprooted; but under God’s protection, even these are to strike downward like the roots of the cedars. Branches are to grow like the banyan tree, until one tree becomes a forest, and the beauty of the olive in its dancing radiance is to cover all, while the fragrance will go abroad like the breezes from the forest of Lebanon.

The lily of the Bible is identified by some with the Lilium chalcedonicum, or Scarlet Martagon, which grows profusely in the Levant, and is said to abound in Galilee in April and May. Wetzstein, on the other hand, identifies it with a beautiful dark violet lily which grows in the large plain southeast of the Hauran range of mountains, and is called susân. The opinion of the Chaldee paraphrast and Rabbinical writers that the rose was really meant by the Hebrew term may safely be rejected.