1 When Ephraim spoke, people trembled;
he was exalted in Israel.
But he became guilty of Baal worship and died. 2 Now they sin more and more;
they make idols for themselves from their silver,
cleverly fashioned images,
all of them the work of craftsmen.
It is said of these people,
“They offer human sacrifices!
They kiss Or
“Men who sacrifice / kiss calf-idols!” 3 Therefore they will be like the morning mist,
like the early dew that disappears,
like chaff swirling from a threshing floor,
like smoke escaping through a window.
4 “But I have been the LORD your God
ever since you came out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
no Savior except me. 5 I cared for you in the wilderness,
in the land of burning heat. 6 When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me. 7 So I will be like a lion to them,
like a leopard I will lurk by the path. 8 Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
I will attack them and rip them open;
like a lion I will devour them—
a wild animal will tear them apart.
9 “You are destroyed, Israel,
because you are against me, against your helper. 10 Where is your king, that he may save you?
Where are your rulers in all your towns,
of whom you said,
‘Give me a king and princes’? 11 So in my anger I gave you a king,
and in my wrath I took him away. 12 The guilt of Ephraim is stored up,
his sins are kept on record. 13 Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him,
but he is a child without wisdom;
when the time arrives,
he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.
14 “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
Where, O grave, is your destruction?
“I will have no compassion,
15 even though he thrives among his brothers.
An east wind from the LORD will come,
blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
and his well dry up.
His storehouse will be plundered
of all its treasures. 16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.” In Hebrew texts this verse (13:16) is numbered 14:1.
The Prophet shows here that the people were in every way intractable. He has indeed handled this argument in other places; but the repetition is not superfluous. After he had said that the people were ungrateful in not continuing in the service of their Redeemer, by whom they had been so kindly and bountifully treated in the desert, where they must have perished through famine and want, had not the
Lord in an unwonted manner brought them help in their great necessity, he now adds, “The Lord would have also allured you by other means, had you not been of a wholly wild and barbarous disposition: but it is hence manifest, that you are utterly disobedient; for after you have been brought out of the desert, you came to rich pastures.” For the land of Israel is here compared to rich and fertile pastures; as though he said, “God has placed you in an inheritance where you might eat to the full,
as when a shepherd leads his sheep to a spot especially fertile.” What did take place? To their pastures they came, and were filled; they were filled, and elevated became their heart, and they forgat me
Since, then, the Israelites had extinguished the memory of their redemption, after the Lord had fed them when hungry in the desert, and since in their fulness they rejected God, and shook off his yoke, and, like ferocious horses, kicked against him, it became evident that their nature was so unnameable, that they could by no means be reduced to obedience or submission. We shall defer the rest till tomorrow.
