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Israel’s Apostasy

Set the trumpet to your lips!

One like a vulture is over the house of the L ord,

because they have broken my covenant,

and transgressed my law.

Israel cries to me,

“My God, we—Israel—know you!”

Israel has spurned the good;

the enemy shall pursue him.

They made kings, but not through me;

they set up princes, but without my knowledge.

With their silver and gold they made idols

for their own destruction.

Your calf is rejected, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For it is from Israel,

an artisan made it;

it is not God.

The calf of Samaria

shall be broken to pieces.

For they sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no heads,

it shall yield no meal;

if it were to yield,

foreigners would devour it.

Israel is swallowed up;

now they are among the nations

as a useless vessel.

For they have gone up to Assyria,

a wild ass wandering alone;

Ephraim has bargained for lovers.

Though they bargain with the nations,

I will now gather them up.

They shall soon writhe

under the burden of kings and princes.

When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin,

they became to him altars for sinning.

Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions,

they are regarded as a strange thing.

Though they offer choice sacrifices,

though they eat flesh,

the L ord does not accept them.

Now he will remember their iniquity,

and punish their sins;

they shall return to Egypt.

Israel has forgotten his Maker,

and built palaces;

and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;

but I will send a fire upon his cities,

and it shall devour his strongholds.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet here shows by another figure how unprofitably the Israelites exercised themselves in their perverted worship, and then how vainly they excused their superstitions. And this reproof is very necessary also in the present day. For we see that hypocrites, a hundred times convicted, will not yet cease to clamour something: in short, they cannot bear to be conquered; even when their conscience reproves them, they will still dare to vomit forth their virulence against God. They will also dare to bring forward vain pretences: hence the Prophet says, that they have sown the wind, and that they shall reap the whirlwind. It is an appropriate metaphor; for they shall receive a harvest suitable to the sowing. The seed is cast on the earth, and afterwards the harvest is gathered: They have sown, he says, the wind, they shall then gather the whirlwind, or, the tempest. To sow the wind is nothing else than to put on some appearance to dazzle the eyes of the simple, and by craft and guise of words to cover their own impiety. When one then casts his hand, he seems to throw seed on the earth, but yet he sows the wind. So also hypocrites have their displays, and set themselves in order, that they may appear wholly like the pious worshipers of God.

We hence see that the design of the Prophet’s metaphor, when he says that they sow the wind, is to show this, that though they differ nothing from the true worshippers of God in outward appearance, they yet sow nothing but wind; for when the Israelites offered their sacrifices in the temple, they no doubt conformed to the rule of the law, but at the same time came short of obedience to God. There was no faith in their services: it was then wind; that is, they had nothing but a windy and an empty show, though the outward aspect of their service differed nothing from the true and legitimate worship of God. They then sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. But we cannot finish to-day.