Hosea 14:5,6 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

I will be as the dew, &c.— These verses contain gracious promises of God's favour upon Israel's conversion, represented by different metaphors. In the fifth verse, it is described by that refreshment, which copious dews give to the grass in the heat of summer. If we consider the nature of the climate, and the necessity of dews in so hot a country, not only to refresh, but likewise to preserve life; if we consider also the beauty of the oriental lilies, the fragrance of the cedars which grow upon Lebanon, the beauteous appearance which the spreading olive-trees afforded, the exhilarating coolness caused by the shade of such trees, and the aromatic smell exhaled by the cedars; we shall then partly understand the force of the metaphors here employed by the prophet; but their full energy no one can conceive, till he both feels the want and enjoys the advantage of the particulars referred to, in that climate wherein the prophet wrote. See Bishop Lowth's 12th and 19th Prelection, and Genesis 27:28. Instead of, His branches shall spread, in Hosea 14:6. Houbigant reads, His suckers shall go forth.