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Commentary on the Book of Hosea, Chapter 13: 

God’s judgment against His people draws to a close with a recap of key points. God reminds them of what He has done to save them and the fact He is the only savior doing what the human kings they idolized cannot do. He has given the people food in the wilderness, yet the people forgot Him once their bellies were full. God will respond by letting His people experience the worst of life without Him: death through disaster because of their guilt. He explains his people will be like mist or dew that goes away early in the day, which recalls God’s description of their love as a cloud or dew that goes away early (6:4). God will let them become what their love is – ephemeral, short-lived, lacking in substance.

The Book of Hosea, Chapter 13:

God the Savior and Judge of Israel

1 When Ephraim spoke, men trembled;
he was exalted in Israel; but he incurred guilt
through Baal and died.
2 And now they sin more and more,
and make for themselves molten images,
idols skilfully made of their silver,
all of them the work of craftsmen.
Sacrifice to these, they say.
Men kiss calves!
3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist
or like the dew that goes early away,
like the chaff that swirls from
the threshing floor
or like smoke from a window.
4 I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me, and besides me there is no
savior.
5 It was I who knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought;
6 but when they had fed to the full,
they were filled, and their
heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me.
7 So I will be to them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk
beside the way.
8 I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs,
I will tear open their breast, and there I will devour them
like a lion,
as a wild beast would tear them.
9 I will destroy you, O Israel; who can help you?
10 Where now is your king, to save you;
where are all your princes, to defend you—
those of whom you said, “Give me a king and
princes”?
11 I have given you kings in my anger,
and I have taken them away in my wrath.
12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up,
his sin is kept in store.
13 The pangs of childbirth come for him,
but he is an unwise son; for now he does not present
himself
at the mouth of the womb.
14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
15 Though he may flourish as the
reed plant,
the east wind, the wind of the Lord, shall come, rising from the wilderness;
and his fountain shall dry up, his spring shall be parched;
it shall strip his treasury of every precious thing.
16 Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled
against her God;
they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be
dashed in pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.
 

*Daily Lectio Divina Question:

God is angry because he has been rejected by His people. With that in mind, when God asks this question in verse 14--"Shall I redeem them from Death?"--we know the answer. Jesus redeemed us from death by his death and Resurrection, so that St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, and speaking of Christ's victory, can refer back to this Old Testament passage: "O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction?" (v.14) Meditate on the tension between what we deserve and what God is offering to us through His mercy.

Biblical Commentary provided by the Catholic Biblical School of Michigan. Join a Catholic Biblical School of Michigan class this September at Holy Family in Grand Blanc, or online.

Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).
Permission to use the RSV-2CE given for Bishop's Year of the Bible by Ignatius Press. Many thanks to Ignatius for this.
If you're looking for a good Catholic edition of the Bible, look no further.