The interpretation timeline

Hos 4:16

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Hos 4:16 · Douay-Rheims
“For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer: now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
407
A.D.
John Chrysostom Patristic
A.D. 347–407
“But what is the source of this hardness? It comes from gluttony and drunkenness. Who says so? Moses himself. "Israel ate and was filled, and the darling grew fat and frisky." When brute animals feed from a full manger, they grow plump and become more obstinate and hard to hold in check; they endure neither the yoke, the reins, nor the hand of the charioteer. Just so, the Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to ultimate evil. They kicked about and failed to accept the yoke of Christ. And they failed to pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said, "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer." And still another called the Jews "an untamed calf."”
Source
523
A.D.
Philoxenus of Mabbug Patristic
c. A.D. 450–523
“In another place, the prophet heapeth contumely upon Israel who had slipped his shoulder from [under] the yoke of the divine commandments: "As an ox which hath escaped from the yoke, so have the children of Israel escaped, they and their kings and their nobles." Now Israel became rebels because there was no fear [in them]; and they trod under foot the commandments because they were not mindful of what was threatened; and they despised the law because they remembered not the penalty of Him that ordained it.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.