no longer. The riding upon horses refers partly to the military force of Egypt (Isa 31:1), and partly to their own (Hos 1:7; Isa 2:7). For the expression, “neither will we say to the work of our hands,” compare Isa 42:17; Isa 44:17. אשׁר בּך, not “Thou with whom,” but “for with Thee” (‘ăsher as in Deu 3:24). The thought, “with Thee the orphan findeth compassion,” as God promises in His word (Exo 22:22; Deu 10:18), serves not only as a reason for the resolution no longer to call the manufacture of their own hands God, but generally for the whole of the penitential prayer, which they are encouraged to offer by the compassionate nature of God. In response to such a penitential prayer, the Lord will heal all His people's wounds, and bestow upon them once more the fulness of the blessings of His grace. The prophet announces this in Isa 44:4-8 as the answer from the Lord.
Verses 4-8
Hos 14:4-8“I will heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. Hos 14:5. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Hos 14:6. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and its smell like Lebanon. Hos 14:7. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon. Hos 14:8. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: I, like a bursting cypress, in me is thy fruit found.” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, i.e., all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity (nedâbhâh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it (mimmennū, i.e., from Israel). The reading mimmennı̄ (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35. This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa 26:19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide. “Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5).
