I have given you a king in my anger, And have taken him away in my wrath.
Hailey believed that Hosea was here speaking especially of the kings of Northern Israel because, "These all had been idolators; from Jeroboam to Hosea, the first to the last, there had not been a true worshipper of Jehovah among them."[24]  This, of course, is true; but had Judah's kings been any better?  Yes, in a relative sense; but even the best of them had fallen far short of perfection.  Saul's presumption led to his rejection; David corrupted the worship by the introduction of instruments of music, and his vanity led to the building of the temple and all the disasterous consequences that ensued from it; and Solomon sported a thousand wives and concubines and built shrines and memorials to all their pagan gods!  Go down the whole list and it becomes starkly apparent that God's disapproval of Israel's monarchy was no late thing, applicable to the phantom kings of Ephraim's final years alone, but had rested upon the whole institution of their monarchy from the very beginning.