Where is your king now, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, 'Give me a king and princes?'
Now, here he's using these animals, talking about how he's gonna destroy Ephraim and all. But it brings to mind the prophecy of Daniel where the lion is Babylon, the bear is the Medo-Persian Empire, the leopard is Greece, and the wild animal is the Roman Empire. So here again these nations God is going to use as instruments of judgment against Ephraim. And so they were, first they were subjected by the Babylonians. Of course with Israel, the Assyrians, then the Babylonians and then the Medo-Persians and then the Greeks conquered them, and then conquered and subjugated by the Roman Empire, the wild beast. And so these very animals that are used in Daniel to represent these kingdoms are used also in Hosea representing the kingdoms that God would use as instruments of judgment against His people who would turn their backs on Him.