Hosea 5:11

‘Ephraim is oppressed,

He is crushed in judgment,

Because he was content to walk,

After man's command.'

The spotlight turns back on Ephraim (Israel). They are being oppressed, they are being crushed in judgment, and while the mills of God grind slowly, they are grinding exceeding small. Both expressions were often used of how the rulers oppressed and crushed the poor (compare Amos 4:1). Thus what they had done to others was now being done to them. And this was because Israel had listened to man rather than to God. They had walked in accordance with the commands (tsaw) and teaching of men, rather than obeying the commands and teaching of YHWH, by engaging in false worship and by setting aside His commandments. We might even translate as, ‘they walked after man's ‘blah, blah, blah'. (Compare the use of the word in Isaiah 28:10; Isaiah 28:13). Others relate the word tsaw to a verb meaning ‘to stink' and so translate the word tsaw here as ‘filth', but with the same connotations. They had followed after what was but filth. And not only had they done so, but they had been satisfied in their hearts while they did so. They had been ‘content'. Others consider that what they were being condemned for were their relations with Aram (Syria) and Assyria.