John Trapp on Hosea 10:3

Verſe 3. For now they ſhall ſay, We have no king,] ſc. to do us good: he is no better to us now, then a king of clouts: he cannot protect us, or deliver us out of the hands of our enemies. If we crie unto him, as ſhe did, Help O king; he muſt needs anſwer as there, If the Lord do not help thee, whence I help thee? 2 King. 6.16, 27. Vain is the help of man now that God ſets againſt us. Feared him we have not, and now help us he will not. Eſt ergo interrogatio negantium & deſperantiuns, ſaith River. This is the queſtion, not of penitentiaries (as Lyra thinketh) but of ſuch as deſpair, and deny that help can be had, either from God, whom they have ſlighted, or from their king, who is over-matched; as Aſa was by the Ethiopians, when he came forth againſt them, with an Army of five hundred thouſand, but was encountred by an Army of a thouſand thouſand, the biggeſt, I think, that we read of in the book of God, 2 Chron. 14. and was therefore fain to crie, Help us O Lord our God, for we reſt in thee: and in they Name, not in our own ſtrength, we go againſt this multitude, ver. 11.

becauſe we feared not the Lord,] We trembled not at his word, as chap. 9.17. and now it hath taken hold of us, Zech. 1.6. See the Note. By our prophaneneſſe we have enraged God againſt us: by our creature-confidence, wee have made him our enemy: and now, all too late, we acknowledge our implety, we bewail our folly: for what ſhould a king do to us? what can he do for us? more then weep over us, as Xerxes did over his Army? cry Alas, Alas, that great city Babylon, &c. as thoſe kings her paramours, Rev. 18.9, 10. wiſh they had never raigned as Adrian, Felix ſi nan imperitaſſent. &c. Once the cry of this people was, Nay, but we will have a king, and they had him: but no ſuch great joy of him. After that again, they would have a king of their own chooſing, Ieroboam I mean; and he proved a ſingular miſchief to them, as did likewiſe all his Succeſſours. They doted upon a king, and put their truſt in Princes; but they ſoon found that in them there was no help, Pſal. 146.3. that they could not reſcue them out of the puniſhing hands of the king of kings, the living God.