Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
Ephraim also is like a silly dove - a bird proverbial for simplicity: easily deceived.
Silly - lit, open, simple, easily persuaded, whether to good or bad х powtaah (H6601)].
Without heart - i:e., understanding.
They call to Egypt. Israel, lying between the two great rival empires, Egypt and Assyria, sought each by turns to help her against the other. Since this prophecy was written in the reign of Hoshea, the allusion is probably to the alliance with So or Sabacho II (of which a record has been found on the clay cylindrical seals in Kouyunjik), which ended in the overthrow of Hoshea and the deportation of Israel (2 Kings 17:3-6). As the dove betrays its silliness by fleeing in alarm from its nest, only to fall into the net of the fowler, so Israel, though warned that foreign alliances would be her ruin, rushed into them.