Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.
Egypt is like as very fair heifer - wanton, like a fat untamed heifer (Hosea 10:11). Appropriate to Egypt, where Apis was worshipped under the form of a fair bull marked with spots.
But destruction - i:e., a destroyer "cometh:" Nebuchadnezzar. The Vulgate translates 'a goader,' answering to the metaphor, 'one who will goad the heifer' and tame her. The Arabian idiom favours this (Rosenmuller).
Cometh ... cometh - the repetition implies, it cometh surety and quickly (Psalms 96:13).
Out of the north - (note, Jeremiah 1:14; Jeremiah 47:2).