John Calvin Commentary Hosea 10:7

"[As for] Samaria, her king is cut off, as foam upon the water." — Hosea 10:7 (ASV)

The Prophet proceeds with the same subject, and this should not be considered useless verbosity. It would indeed have been sufficient to threaten the Israelites with one word, if they had been pliable and obedient; but as they were stubborn in their perversity, it was necessary to stun their ears with continuous threats, so that they might be at least less excusable before God.

Therefore, the Prophet now says that the king of Samaria shall be cut off like the foam: and he speaks of the king in this way because the Israelites, next to their idols, thought their king to be an invincible fortress for them. For in this way, ungodly men, as has been mentioned before, always imagine their stronghold to be in the world and in earthly things.

Therefore, the Lord denounces a just punishment by saying that He would cut off the king, for the ungodly confidence of which I have spoken could not be corrected in any other way. Therefore, the king of Samaria shall be cut off—in what manner? Like a foam. It is a very fitting comparison, for the Prophet shows that the condition of the kingdom, which they imagined to be firm and perpetual, had nothing in it but an empty appearance, like the foam, which has nothing substantial.

Furthermore, it seems to me that he points out another thing: namely, that the kingdom, though it presented itself as superior to other kingdoms, was nevertheless only an excrement. The foam floats above the waters of the sea, and by its height seems prominent; but what is the foam if not the excrement of the water?

For whatever is decayed in the waters turns into foam. So Israel thought that, as they were endowed with power and in every way surpassed the tribe of Judah, they could, so to speak, ride over their heads.

The Prophet, on the contrary, says that they were foam, and their king also. “Your king,” he says, “though the king of Judah cannot be compared with him, is nevertheless a foam. By his height he seems indeed wonderful, and from this your pride has arisen, for you have now become hardened against God; but the Lord will cut him off like a foam.”

The Prophet, then, not only compares the king of Israel to a bubble or to foaming waters, but he also says that, in comparison to the king of Judah, he is an excrement. So now we understand the Prophet's meaning.