Hosea 13:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The sorrows of a travailing woman: by this simile, well known in Scripture, the prophet assures Ephraim that the punishment of his sins will overtake him suddenly, with very great anguish, and with as great certainty, Micah 5:3. Shall come upon him; as suddenly, inevitably, and with as much danger too, if he be not the wiser, and return to his God. He, i.e. Ephraim, is an unwise son; a very foolish son, an inconsiderate child, who endangers himself and his mother. For he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children: as a child that sticks in the birth, so Ephraim, just at the birth, hesitateth, one while will, another while will not, return to God; thus dieth under the delay.