Matthew Henry Commentary Hosea 9:7-10

"The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the man that hath the spirit is mad, for the abundance of thine iniquity, and because the enmity is great. Ephraim [was] a watchman with my God: as for the prophet, a fowler`s snare is in all his ways, [and] enmity in the house of his God. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins. I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first-ripe in the fig-tree at its first season: but they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves unto the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved." — Hosea 9:7-10 (ASV)

There was a time when the spiritual watchmen of Israel were with the Lord, but now they were like the snare of a fowler to entangle people to their ruin. The people had become as corrupt as those of Gibeah (Judges 19); and their crimes would be punished in the same way. At first, God had found Israel pleasing to Him as grapes to a traveler in the wilderness. He saw them with pleasure as the first ripe figs. This shows the delight God took in them; yet they pursued idolatry.

Hosea 9:11–17. God departs from a people, or from a person, when He withdraws His goodness and mercy from them. And when the Lord has departed, what can the creature do? Even though, for the present, good things seem to remain, the blessing is gone if God is gone. Even the children would perish with the parents. The divine wrath dries up the root and withers the fruit of all comforts; and the scattered Jews daily warn us to beware, lest we neglect or abuse the gospel. Yet every smiting is not a drying up of the root. It may be that God intends only to smite so that the sap may be returned to the root, so that there may be more root graces: more humility, patience, faith, and self-denial. It is very just that God brings judgments on those who slight His offered mercy.