(at her beginning) refers to תּאנה, the first-fruit, which the fig-tree bears in its first time, at the first shooting. But Israel no longer answered to the good pleasure of God. They came to Baal-peor. בּעל־פּעור without the preposition אל is not the idol of that name, but the place where it was worshipped, which was properly called Beth-peor or Peor (see at Num 23:28 and Num 25:3). ינּזרוּ is chosen instead of יצּמד (Num 23:3, Num 23:5), to show that Israel ought to have consecrated itself to Jehovah, to have been the nazir of Jehovah. Bōsheth (shame) is the name given to the idol of Baal-peor (cf. Jer 3:24), the worship of which was a shame to Israel. ‘Ohabh, the paramour, is also Baal-peor. Of all the different rebellions on the part of Israel against Jehovah, the prophet singles out only the idolatry with Baal-peor, because the principal sin of the ten tribes was Baal-worship in its coarser or more refined forms.
Verses 11-12
It is very evident that this is what he has in his mind, and that he regards the apostasy of the ten tribes as merely a continuation of that particular idolatry, from the punishment which is announced in Hos 9:11, Hos 9:12, as about to fall upon Ephraim in consequence. Hos 9:11. “Ephraim, its glory will fly away like a bird; no birth, and no pregnancy, and no conception. Hos 9:12. Yea, though they bring up their sons, I make them bereft, without a man; for woe to them when I depart from them!” The glory which God gave to His people through great multiplication, shall vanish away. The licentious worship of luxury will be punished by the diminution of the numbers of the people, by childlessness, and the destruction of the youth that may have grown up. מלּדה, so that there shall be no bearing. בּטן, the womb, for pregnancy or the fruit of the womb. Even (kı̄ emphatic) if the sons (the children) grow up, God will make them bereft, מאדם, so that there shall be no men there. The grown-up sons shall be swept away by death, by the sword (cf. Deu 32:25). The last clause gives the reason for the punishment threatened. גּם adds force; it usually stands at the head of the sentence, and here belongs to להם: Yea, woe to them, if I depart from them, or withdraw my favour from them! שׂוּר stands for סוּר, according to the interchangeableness of שׂ and ס (Aquila and Vulg.). This view has more to support it than the supposition that שׂוּר is an error of
