For Israel slideth, &c.— Houbigant renders it, As an untamed heifer, when the Lord would have fed them, &c. Dr. Chandler observes, that the word סררה sorerah, rendered backsliding, properly signifies an untamed, refractory, mischievous heifer, wantonly running and frisking about, or stung by the gad-bee, and vexed by it almost to madness. The LXX render the words emphatically, As a stung heifer madly leaps about, so hath Israel grown mad, refractory, and obstinate. See Chandler's Life of David, vol. 2: p. 59.
In a large place— That is to say, in an uninclosed place, a wide common. They shall no longer be fed with care in the rich inclosures of God's cultivated farm; but be turned out to browse the scanty herbage of the waste. That is, they shall be driven into exile among the heathen, freed from what they thought the restraints, and of consequence deprived of all the blessings and benefits, of religion. This dreadful menace is delivered in the form of severe derision: a figure much used by the prophets, especially by Hosea. Sheep love to feed at large. The sheep of Ephraim shall presently have room enough. They shall be scattered over the whole surface of the vast Assyrian empire, where they will be at liberty to turn very heathen.