When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel. But he incurred guilt through Baal, and he died.
Interpreters agree not in their view of this verse. Some say that trembling was excited in Israel when Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, who was born of that tribe, exhorted the people to worship the calves. By the word רתת, retat, “trembling,” they understand, that the people were so astonished, that they without thought immediately obeyed the will, or rather the humour, of their impious king.
Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset the Jewish nation till after the captivity; the ten tribes from the first were guilty of it, but especially after the days of Ahab; and this is the sin which, in these verses, they are charged with. Observe, I. The provision that God made to prevent their falling into idolatry. This we have, Hos 13:4.
Commenting on Hosea 13:1-4
When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel,.... Or, with trembling, as Jarchi: so Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, spake before Solomon, a great king, as he observes. R. Moses the priest interprets it of Jeroboam; but it may be understood of the tribe in general, and especially of the heads of it, at anytime before it fell into idolatry; when...