Hosea 6:4

"O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth early away."

An important witness to the unity of Hosea is evident in the comparisons (morning cloud ... dew), "for they correspond to those in Hosea 6:3"[8] (morning ... latter rain). Any genuine goodness on the part either of Ephraim or of Judah is but a vanishing trace, disappearing like the dew, or the morning cloud.

"What shall I do unto thee ...? This verse confirms what was said of the shallowness, inadequacy, and insincerity of the people's response (Hosea 6:1-3). "It implies the will of God to do something about the impossible religious situation into which the nation has maneuvered herself."[9]

There also appears in the plaintive words, "What shall I do unto thee?" a measure of frustration, even upon the part of God Himself in his long and fruitless efforts to produce any lasting goodness in the "chosen people." Isaiah also mentioned this same amazing truth:

"Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more (Hosea 1:5). What more could have been done in my vineyard that I have not done in it? (Hosea 4:4).

John Mauchline pointed out that the meaning of the double question directed to Ephraim and to Judah in this verse carries this message:

"The Lord had done everything possible in the way of training his people; now there was nothing more which he could do. What was the use of continuing to make endeavors to redeem a people whose love was a transient thing, like morning dew ...?"[10]

All of the sacred writers have recognized that God's efforts to save are ultimately discontinued in the face of persistent and willful disobedience. The first chapter of Romans relates how God hardened and rejected the entire pre-Christian Gentile world. "God gave them up" is the ominous refrain repeated three times in that chapter (Hosea 6:24,26,28). There comes a time in the affairs of God and men that there is not any more that even God can do. Such is the awesome corollary of that freedom of the will with which God has endowed his human children.

Note the mention of both Ephraim and Judah in this verse. Despite the rebellious division of God's people under Jeroboam I, the prophets, in their messages to either Judah or Ephraim never leave the whole people of Israel very far out of sight. It is not kingdoms, per se, that God addresses, but the whole covenant people. It is blindness to this fundamental truth that results in foolish and unprovable opinions to the effect that certain passages mentioning Judah are interpolations.