Hosea 11:5

‘Will they not return into the land of Egypt?

And Assyria be their king?

Because they refused to return to me?'

But having failed to recognise that it was He Who had healed them (Hosea 11:3), they had refused to return to Him. Their hearts had remained in Egypt. Thus the inevitable consequence was that they would ‘return to Egypt' and let the king of Assyria be their king. In other words their seeming hankering after being subject to, and in bondage to, Assyria was the consequence of their hearts being ‘still in Egypt', still dominated by idolatry and foreign ideas. Of course many of the people, in order to avoid Assyrian domination, did flee to Egypt, and thus the exiles would be divided between Egypt and Assyria. That was the beginning of the build up of the huge number of ‘Jews' in what would become Alexandria. In Hosea's eyes Israel had never really left Egypt, for their hearts were still there.

Note the fact that they would ‘return to Egypt' because they did not ‘return to Him'. That was the choice with which they were faced. God or Egypt. And they chose Egypt. That was why, when Jesus Christ came as their Redeemer and Representative in order to bear their sins, He had to come out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15).