Hosea 13:3

“Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, etc.] Which, however promising it is, soon disappears when the sun is risen; signifying that the idolatrous Israelites, king, priests, and people, should be no more; their kingdom would cease, all their riches and wealth would depart from them, and they and their children be carried captive into a strange land: and as the early dew it passeth away; as soon as the heat of the sun is felt, when the earth is left dry; so these people, though they seemed to be in great prosperity, and to be very fruitful in children, and in substance, and promised themselves much more; yet in a little time their land would become desolate, and they stripped of all…”

“they shall be as the morning cloud . . . dew-- (Hos 6:4). As their "goodness" soon vanished like the morning cloud and dew, so they shall perish like them. the floor--the threshing-floor, generally an open area, on a height, exposed to the winds. chimney--generally in the East an orifice in the wall, at once admitting the light, and giving egress to the smoke.”

“Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud - There is often a fair show of prosperity, out of God; but it is short-lived. “The third generation,” says the pagan proverb, “never enjoys the ill-gotten gain.” The highest prosperity of an ungodly state is often the next to its fall. Israel never so flourished, as under Jeroboam II. Bright and glistening with light is “the early dew;” in an hour it is gone, as if it had never been. Glowing and gilded by the sun is “the morning cloud;” while you admire its beauty, its hues have vanished. “The chaff” lay in one heap “on the floor” with the wheat. Its owner casts the mingled chaff and wheat against the strong wind; in a moment, it is “driven by…”

“13:3 God’s judgment on idolatrous Ephraim was that they would disappear (cp. 6:4). • Mist . . . dew . . . chaff and smoke signify impermanence.”

“as the morning: Hos 6:4 as the chaff: Psa 1:4, Psa 68:2, Psa 83:12-17; Isa 17:13, Isa 41:15, Isa 41:16; Dan 2:35 Hosea 13:4”

“They prepare for themselves swift destruction in consequence. Hos 13:3. "Therefore will they be like the morning cloud, and like the dew that passes early away, as chaff blows away from the threshing-floor, and as smoke out of the window." Lâkhēn, therefore, viz., because they would not let their irrational idolatry go, they would quickly perish. On the figures of the morning cloud and dew, see at Hos 6:4. The figure of the chaff occurs more frequently (vid., Isa 17:13; Isa 41:15-16; Psa 1:4; Psa 35:5, etc.). יס'ער is used relatively: which is stormed away, i.e., blown away from the threshing-floor by a violent wind. The threshing-floors were situated upon eminences (compare my Bibl.…”