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7. Israel Unrepentant

¹ whenever I would heal Israel,
the sins of Ephraim are exposed
   and the crimes of Samaria revealed.
They practice deceit,
   thieves break into houses,
   bandits rob in the streets;
² but they do not realize
   that I remember all their evil deeds.
Their sins engulf them;
   they are always before me.

    ³ “They delight the king with their wickedness,
   the princes with their lies.
⁴ They are all adulterers,
   burning like an oven
whose fire the baker need not stir
   from the kneading of the dough till it rises.
⁵ On the day of the festival of our king
   the princes become inflamed with wine,
   and he joins hands with the mockers.
⁶ Their hearts are like an oven;
   they approach him with intrigue.
Their passion smolders all night;
   in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
⁷ All of them are hot as an oven;
   they devour their rulers.
All their kings fall,
   and none of them calls on me.

    ⁸ “Ephraim mixes with the nations;
   Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.
⁹ Foreigners sap his strength,
   but he does not realize it.
His hair is sprinkled with gray,
   but he does not notice.
¹⁰ Israel’s arrogance testifies against him,
   but despite all this
he does not return to the LORD his God
   or search for him.

    ¹¹ “Ephraim is like a dove,
   easily deceived and senseless—
now calling to Egypt,
   now turning to Assyria.
¹² When they go, I will throw my net over them;
   I will pull them down like the birds in the sky.
When I hear them flocking together,
   I will catch them.
¹³ Woe to them,
   because they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
   because they have rebelled against me!
I long to redeem them
   but they speak about me falsely.
¹⁴ They do not cry out to me from their hearts
   but wail on their beds.
They slash themselves, Some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint; most Hebrew manuscripts They gather together appealing to their gods
   for grain and new wine,
   but they turn away from me.
¹⁵ I trained them and strengthened their arms,
   but they plot evil against me.
¹⁶ They do not turn to the Most High;
   they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
   because of their insolent words.
For this they will be ridiculed
   in the land of Egypt.

The Prophet now confirms his previous doctrine, and speaks generally, that the pride of Israel shall bear testimony to him to his face, or shall humble him to his face. The word ענה, one, means, in Hebrew, “to testify,” and often, also, “to humble,” or “to afflict,” as it was stated in the fifth chapter; and the words of the Prophet are now the same, and both senses are appropriate. I do not, however, make much of this, for the design of the Prophet is clear; what he means is, that God had so openly chastised the Israelites, that they must have perceived his hand, except they were blind indeed, and that, being at the same time warned, they ought to have suppliantly humbled themselves. Whether then we read, “to testify” or “to humble,” the sense will be the same, and the design of the Prophet will appear to be the same. “The pride, then, of Israel will humble him to his face,” or, “the pride of Israel will testify to his face:” for the Prophet means, that however fiercely the Israelites might rise up against God, and be uncourteous to his Prophets and however perversely they might reject all teaching, and also excuse their own sins, yet all this would avail them nothing, since they were so cast down by their pride, that the Lord regarded them as convicted as much so as if their crime had been proved by many witnesses, and their mask now taken away; in short, there was no longer any doubt: this is what the Prophet means.

The pride, then, of Israel testifies, or, humbles him to his face; that is, though Israel had appeared hitherto inflexible against all admonitions, against all punishments, they were yet held as convicted; and, at the same time, they return not, he says, to their God, and seek him not for all these things We now perceive what I have said, that the previous complaint respecting the diabolical perverseness which so reigned in the people is here confirmed, so that their salvation was now past hope. And he says that they returned not to Jehovah their God; for they were running constantly after their idols, as we have before seen; yea, they were possessed with that inordinate zeal of which the Prophet speaks in the beginning of the chapter; but they returned not to Jehovah; they were wholly taken up with the multitude of their deities, and at the same time had no regard for God.

And when he says, their God, he conveys a strong reprobation; for God had manifested himself to them; yea, he had made himself plainly known to them by his law. That they then did not return to him, was not simply through ignorance or error; but through a diabolical madness, as if they wished of their own accord and deliberately to perish. God then calls himself here the God of Israel, not for honour’s sake, but that he might the more expose their ingratitude, and enhance their perfidiousness, because they had fallen away from him, and would not seek him.

What he means, when he says, For all these things, is, that every kind of remedy had been tried, and hence that their disease was wholly incurable. When we can do nothing in one way, we often try another. Now God had not tried in one way only to bring Israel back to himself, but he had tried all remedies. When no good followed, what was to be said, but the people were lost, and past all hope? This then is what the Prophet means here. It now follows —