Hosea 5:11 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment - Literally, “crushed in judgment.” Holy Scripture, elsewhere also, “combines” these same two words, rendered “oppressed” and “crushed,” in speaking of man’s oppression by man. Ephraim preferred man’s commands and laws to God’s; they obeyed man and set God at nought; therefore they should suffer at man’s hands, who, while he equally neglected God’s will, enforced his own. The “commandment,” which “Ephraim willingly went after,” was doubtless that of Jeroboam; “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egypt; and Jeroboam ordained a feast unto the children of Israel” 1 Kings 12:28, 1 Kings 12:32-33. Through this “commandment,” Jeroboam earned the dreadful title, “who made Israel to sin.” And Israel “went willingly after it,” for it is said; “This thing became a sin; and the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan:” i. e., while they readily accepted Jeroboam’s plea. It “is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem,” they “went willingly” to the Northernmost point of Palestine, “even to Dan.” For this sin, God judged them justly, even through the unjust judgment of man. God mostly punishes, through their own choice, those who choose against His. The Jews said, “we have no king but Caesar,” and Caesar destroyed them.