Therefore, or And, Heb. I will be; I am; it is concise in the Hebrew, and might be thus expressed, But, or And, as for me, I am, and will be, to the ten tribes. As a moth: moths do leisurely eat up and mar our clothes; so God was then, and had been from Jeroboam's death to this day, weakening the ten tribes; their seditions did eat them up. And to the house of Judah; the two tribes, who now with Ahaz did, as Ephraim, cast God off. As rottenness; shall secretly consume and rot as wood doth by worms; so God will punish both Israel and Judah, these shall be forerunners and preparatories to the final desolation of both; of the one by Assyria, and of the other by Babylon.
Related Commentaries of Hosea 5:12
Hosea 5:12
12 Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.a