‘When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling,
He exalted himself in Israel,
But when he offended in Baal,
He died.
In a play on the use of the term Ephraim which can signify 1) Joseph's Song of Solomon, 2 the tribe of Ephraim, 3) the whole of Israel, and 4) the rump of Israel left in the days of Hoshea, Hosea describes how Ephraim had previously been ‘feared' and exalted in Israel. When he spoke (as the son of Joseph) men had trembled before him, and it was because YHWH had lifted him up. And later they had trembled before the powerful tribe of Ephraim in the land. Initially this was because Ephraim, as Joseph's son, was a prince of Egypt, and then it was because the tribe of Ephraim had become the most influential in northern Israel (compare Judges 3:27; Judges 5:14; Judges 8:1). Furthermore from Ephraim had come both Joshua, the Servant of God (Joshua 24:30), and King Jeroboam I (1 Kings 11:26; 1 Kings 12:20) and his descendants. They were rivalled only by Judah.
But now Ephraim had sunk to the depths. They had offended through their worship of Baal. And that meant that in YHWH's eyes they had ‘died'. They were as good as dead in His eyes. Initially their offence had been when Israel worshipped the golden calf in the wilderness, and subsequently it had been (a) at Baal-peor (Numbers 25); (b) through Baal worship in Judges 2:11-12; Judges 2:19, (c) as a result of the worship of the golden calves of Jeroboam, and (d) the consequence of the dedicated Baal worship under Ahab and Jezebel. And while Jehu had expunged the worship of the Tyrian Baal from Israel he had still not discouraged the worship of the golden calves, which were inevitably linked with Baal worship.