Yahweh would consume the Northern Kingdom as a moth eats cloth or as rot causes bones to decay. He was behind the enemy invasion. [source][source][source]
Context Summary
Hosea 5:1-15 - God's Rebuke Of Apostasy
The prophet continues his grave indictment of his people. The court and the priesthood were chiefly responsible for the awful degeneracy that was eating out the national heart. The seductions of idolatry that abounded everywhere resembled the snares and nets set by hunters on the wooded heights of Gilead and Tabor.
Suddenly, within a month, Hosea 5:7, an alarm sounds from hill to hill. The foreign invader has entered the country and is slowly marching southward. Even Benjamin is threatened. Ephraim must suffer because of the institutions of Omri and Ahab, Hosea 5:11; and Judah, because her princes were grasping and fraudulent. Though message after message was sent to procure the help of Jareb-a symbolical name for Assyria, "the warlike," he would not be able to avert the approaching dissolution of the Jewish state. You cannot stop the dry-rot by grand alliances. Nothing can save a nation in whose heart the worst forms of corruption are being nourished, except a wholesale return of God and a seeking of His face. It is certain that if this lesson were profoundly learned and then practiced, the horrors of a world in arms would come to a speedy and a blessed end. [source]
Chapter Summary: Hosea 5
1The judgments of God are denounced against the priests, people, and princes, 9both of Israel and Judah, for their manifold sins 15An intimation is given of mercy on their repentance
What do the individual words in Hosea 5:12 mean?
Therefore I [will be]like a mothto Ephraimand like rottennessto the houseof Judah
Parse: Preposition-l, Proper Noun, masculine singular
Root: אֶפְרַיִם
Sense: second son of Joseph, blessed by him and given preference over first son, Manasseh.