For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the LORD; what then should a king do to us?
For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? - rather, 'for us.' Soon they, deprived of their king, shall be reduced to say, We have no king (Hosea 10:7; Hosea 10:15), for Yahweh deprived us of him, because of our not fearing God. What then (seeing God is against us) should a king be able to do for us, if we had one? Since they rejected the heavenly King, they were deprived of their earthly king.