Book of Hosea Chapter 4 Vs. 19

 The Lord Accuses Israel

The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. Hos. 4:19

wind hath bound... The spirit of whoredoms has bound her up in her wings (skirts), which has hindered her race; so they will be ashamed of the idol worship. That is, the wind in its wings hath bound up Ephraim, Israel, or the ten tribes. Compared to a heifer; meaning, that the wind of God's wrath and vengeance, or the enemy, the Assyrian, should come like a whirlwind, and carry them swiftly, suddenly, and irresistibly, out of their own land, into a foreign country.

they shall be... They of the ten tribes, the people of Israel; or their magen's, their rulers, as Aben Ezra, shall be filled with shame, being disappointed of the help they expected from their idols, to whom they offered sacrifices; and the more, inasmuch as they will find that these idolatrous sacrifices are the cause of their ruin and destruction.

The most ridiculous thing of all was the fact that they were still going through the formality of worshipping God. The wind, spoken of here, has to do with the wind of God's wrath. This type of sin leads nowhere, but to shame and disgrace.

The expression is doubly appropriate here, since Hosea used marriage as the figure of the relation of a deity to his worshippers. Leave him alone-he must go from bad to worse. Their drunkenness over, they take to harlotry: her rulers have fallen in love with shame, or they love shame more than their pride. But in spite of all their servile worship the Assyrian tempest shall sweep them away in its trail. A wind hath wrapt them up in her skirts; and they shall be put to shame by their sacrifices.

The result of Israel’s sin would be judgment. The first line of this verse reads literally, the wind has enveloped her with its wings, suggesting that she soon would be swept away. At that time the idolatrous sacrifices (or, perhaps, altars, following the LXX) would prove to be only a source of disappointment and shame (cf. Hos. 10:5-6).

This brings the passage to such a climax as Amos loved to crown his periods. And the opening of the next chapter offers a new exordium.