John Gill Commentary Hosea 4:19

"The wind hath wrapped her up in its wings; and they shall be put to shame because of their sacrifices." — Hosea 4:19 (ASV)

The wind has bound her up in her wings
That is, the wind in its wings has bound up Ephraim, Israel, or the ten tribes, compared to a heifer; meaning, that the wind of God's wrath and vengeance, or the enemy, the Assyrian, should come like a whirlwind, and carry them swiftly, suddenly, and irresistibly, out of their own land, into a foreign country: the past tense for the future, as is common in prophecy, because of the certainty of it; so Jarchi and Joseph Kimchi: but Aben Ezra, David Kimchi, Abarbinel, and Abendana, render it "she", that is, Israel, "has bound up the wind in her wings" ^{b}; meaning that they had laboured in vain in their idolatrous worship; and it was all one as if a man should attempt to gather the wind, and bind it up in the skirts of his garment, and when before he opens them there is nothing to be found: and to this sense is the Targum,``the works of their great men are not right, as it is impossible to bind the wind in a wing;'' referring to the sins of their rulers, as before:

or rather the sense is, the wind shall get into the loose skirts of the garments of the Israelites, which shall be as a sail to it, as Schmidt observes, and shall carry them into distant lands; which falls in with the first sense of the words, and is best: and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices :
they of the ten tribes, the people of Israel; or their shields, their rulers, as Aben Ezra, shall be filled with shame, being disappointed of the help they expected from their idols, to whom they offered sacrifices; and the more, inasmuch as they will find that these idolatrous sacrifices are the cause of their ruin and destruction. The Targum is, ``because of the altars of their idols;'' and so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, "because of their altars".

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (hypnkb htwa xwr rru) "ligavit illa ventum in alis suis", Munster, Calvin, Tigurine version.