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12. Israel's Sin

¹ In Hebrew texts 12:1-14 is numbered 12:2-15. Ephraim feeds on the wind;
   he pursues the east wind all day
   and multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a treaty with Assyria
   and sends olive oil to Egypt.
² The LORD has a charge to bring against Judah;
   he will punish Jacob Jacob means he grasps the heel, a Hebrew idiom for he takes advantage of or he deceives. according to his ways
   and repay him according to his deeds.
³ In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
   as a man he struggled with God.
⁴ He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
   he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
   and talked with him there—
⁵ the LORD God Almighty,
   the LORD is his name!
⁶ But you must return to your God;
   maintain love and justice,
   and wait for your God always.

    ⁷ The merchant uses dishonest scales
   and loves to defraud.
⁸ Ephraim boasts,
   “I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
   any iniquity or sin.”

    ⁹ “I have been the LORD your God
   ever since you came out of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
   as in the days of your appointed festivals.
¹⁰ I spoke to the prophets,
   gave them many visions
   and told parables through them.”

    ¹¹ Is Gilead wicked?
   Its people are worthless!
Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal?
   Their altars will be like piles of stones
   on a plowed field.
¹² Jacob fled to the country of Aram That is, Northwest Mesopotamia;
   Israel served to get a wife,
   and to pay for her he tended sheep.
¹³ The LORD used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt,
   by a prophet he cared for him.
¹⁴ But Ephraim has aroused his bitter anger;
   his Lord will leave on him the guilt of his bloodshed
   and will repay him for his contempt.

The Prophet says first, that Ephraim had provoked God by his high places Some, however, take the word תמרורים, tamerurim, for bitternesses. Then it is, “Israel or Ephraim have provoked God to bitterness.” But since this word in other places as in the thirty-first of Jeremiah, is taken for high places and as it clearly appears that the Prophet here inveighs avowedly against Israel and their vicious worship, I doubt not but that he points out these high places in which the Israelites appointed their false and impious modes of worship. Ephraim then have provoked him with their high places: ⁸⁸⁸⁸ Calvin is not correct as to the meaning of this word. There is no instance in which it means “high places;” in Jeremiah 31:21, to which reference is made, it means obelisks or pillars set up as way-marks. There is no doubt but that the word signifies here what is expressed in our version. Gesenius says, that it is to be taken here adverbially, and with him Newcome and most critics agree. Horsley renders the clause thus, — “Ephraim has given bitterest provocation.” Ephraim having in so many ways immersed themselves in their superstitions, provoked God in their high places.

Then his blood shall remain on him. As the word נתש, nuthesh, signifies “to pour out,” and signifies also to “remain,” some render it, “His blood shall remain;” others “Shall be poured upon him.” But this makes but a little difference as to what is meant; for the Prophet intends to show, that Ephraim would have to suffer the punishment of their impiety; as though he said, “They shall not at last escape from the hand of God, they shall receive the wages of their iniquities.”

And his reproach shall his Lord return unto him Here he calls God himself the Lord of Israel, though Israel had shaken off the yoke, and alienated themselves from the service of God. They cannot, he says, escape the authority of God, though they have spurned his law; though they have become wanton in their superstitions, they shall yet know that they remain under the hand and power of God, they shall know that they effect nothing by this their petulance; though they thus wander after their abominations, yet the Lord will not lose his right, which he had obtained for himself by redeeming Israel. Their Lord then shall render to them their own reproach, of which they are worthy.