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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
H O S E A.
CHAP. IX.
In this chapter,
I. God threatens to deprive this degenerate seed of Israel of all their
worldly enjoyments, because by sin they had forfeited their title to
them; so that they should have no comfort either in receiving them
themselves or in offering them to God,
II. He dooms them to utter ruin, for their own sins and the sins of
their prophets,
III. He upbraids them with the wickedness of their fathers before them,
whose steps they trod in,
IV. He threatens them with the destruction of their children and the
rooting out of their posterity,
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1 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou
hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon
every corn-floor.
2 The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new
wine shall fail in her.
3 They shall not dwell in the LORD‘s land; but Ephraim shall
return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.
4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither
shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto
them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be
polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the
house of the LORD.
5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the
feast of the LORD?
6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall
gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places
for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be
in their tabernacles.
Here,
I. The people of Israel are charged with spiritual adultery: O
Israel! thou hast gone a whoring from thy God,
v. 1.
Their covenant with God was a marriage-covenant, by which they were
joined to him as their God, renouncing all others. But when they set up
idols and worshipped them, when they fled to creatures for succour and
put a confidence in them, they went a whoring from God as their
God, and honoured the pretenders and rivals with the affection,
adoration, and confidence, which were due to God only. Other people
were idolaters, but that sin was not, in them, going a whoring from
God, as it was in Israel that had been married to him. Note, The sins
of those who have made a profession of religion and relation to God are
more provoking to him than the sins of others. As a proof of their
going a whoring from God, it is charged upon them that they loved a
reward upon every corn-floor.
1. They loved to give rewards to their idols, in the offerings and
first-fruits they presented to them out of every corn-floor. They took
a strange pleasure in serving their idols with that which they would
have grudged to consecrate to God and employ in his service. Note, It
is common for those that are niggardly in the expenses of their
religion to be very prodigal in spending upon their lusts. Or,
2. They loved to receive rewards from their idols; and such they
reckoned the fruits of the earth to be: These are my rewards, which
my lovers have given me,
ch. ii. 12.
Note, Those are directly disposed to spiritual idolatry that love a
reward in the corn-floor better than a reward in the favour of God and
eternal life.
II. They are forbidden to rejoice as other people do: “Rejoice not,
O Israel! for joy. Do not expect to rejoice. What peace,
what joy, what hast thou to do with either, while thy whoredoms and
witchcrafts are so many?”
Be not disposed to rejoice, for it does not become thee, but rather to
be afflicted, and mourn, and weep,
Jam. iv. 9.
Judah, that keeps close to the true God, nay, and other people that
never knew him nor could ever be charged with revolting from him, may
be allowed to rejoice, as not having so much cause to be ashamed as
Israel has, that has gone a whoring from him. Some think that they had
at this time particular occasions for joy, probably upon the account of
some losses recovered, or some advantages gained, or some league made
with a potent ally, for which they had public rejoicings, as other
people used to have upon such occasions; but God sends to them not to
rejoice. Note, Joy is forbidden fruit to wicked people. They must not
rejoice, because they have gone a whoring from their God; and
therefore,
1. Whatever it was that they rejoiced in, it would be no security nor
advantage to them, so long as they were at a distance from God and at
war with him. Note, We are likely to have small joy of any of our
creature-comforts if we make not God our chief joy.
2. The sense of sin and dread of wrath ought to be a damp upon their
joy and a strong alloy to all their comforts. Note, Those who by
departing from God have made work for repentance have thereby marred
their own mirth, till they return and make their peace with God.
III. They are threatened with destroying judgments for their spiritual
whoredoms, according to what was said long before.
Thou hast destroyed all those that go a whoring from thee. It is
here threatened,
1. That their land shall not yield its wonted increase. Canaan, that
fruitful land, shall be turned into barrenness for the
wickedness of those that dwell therein. They love the reward in
the corn-floor, and are so full of the joy of harvest that
they have no disposition at all to mourn for their sins; and therefore
God will, for their effectual humiliation, take away from them, not
only their delights and dainties, but even their necessary food
(v. 2):
The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, much less
feast them; they shall either be blasted by the hand of God or
plundered by the hand of man. The new wine with which they used
to make merry shall fail in her. Note, When we make the world,
and the things of it, our idol and portion, above what they were
designed for, it is just with God to deny us even support and
nourishment from them, according to that which they were designed for,
to show us our folly and correct us for it. Let those miss of their
food in the corn-floor that look for their reward in the corn-floor. We
forfeit the good things of this world if we love them as the best
things.
2. That their land shall not only cease to feed them, but cease to
lodge them and to be a habitation for them; it shall spue them
out, as it had done the Canaanites before them
(v. 3):
They shall not dwell any longer in the Lord’s land. The land of
Canaan was in a peculiar manner the Lord’s land, the land of the
Shechinah (so the Chaldee), the land of the Lord of the
world (so the Arabic); he whose all the earth is
took that for his demesne. The land is mine, says God,
They had used it, or abused it rather, as if it had been their own, had
not paid the rent, nor done the services, due to God as their landlord,
and therefore God justly enters, and takes possession of it,
they having forfeited their lease. “It is my land” (says God)
“and I will make it appear, for they shall be turned off, as bad
tenants, and be made to know that, though they thought themselves
freeholders, they were but tenants at will.” Note, It is for the honour
of God’s justice and holiness that those who go a whoring from God
should not be suffered to dwell upon his land; and therefore, sooner or
later, the wicked shall be chased out of the world. Or it is
called the Lord’s land because it was the holy land, Immanuel’s
land, the land that had peculiar tokens of God’s favour to it, and
presence in it, where God was known and his name was great, where God’s
prophets and oracles were; it was a kind of copy of the earthly
paradise, and a type of the heavenly one. It was a great privilege to
have a lot in such a land as this. It was a great sin and folly to
rebel against God, and go a whoring from him, in such a land as this,
to deal unjustly in a land of uprightness,
Isa. xxvi. 10.
And it was a sad and sore judgment to be driven out from such a land as
this; it was like driving our first parents out of the garden of Eden,
and almost amounted to an exclusion out of the heavenly Canaan. Note,
Those cannot expect to dwell in the Lord’s land that will not be
subject to the Lord’s laws, nor be influenced by his love. Those have
forfeited the privileges of the church that conform not to the rules of
it.
3. That, when they are turned out from the Lord’s land, they shall have
no rest nor satisfaction in any other land. When Cain was driven out
from the presence of the Lord he was a fugitive and a
vagabond ever after, and dwelt in the land of trembling. So
Israel here. Some shall return into Egypt, the old house of
bondage; thither they shall flee from the Assyrian
and they shall lose and ruin themselves where they thought to hide and
help themselves. Others shall be carried captives to Assyria and there
shall be forced to eat unclean things, either
(1.) Such things as were not fit for men to eat, that which is rotten
and putrefied, intimating that they shall be reduced to the utmost
poverty, as the prodigal that would fain have filled his belly with
the husks. Or,
(2.) Such things as were not fit for Jews to eat, being prohibited by
their law. It is probable that while they were in their own land,
however disobedient in other things, they kept up the distinction of
meats, and prided themselves in that; but, since they would not keep
the law of God in other things, they should not be suffered to keep it
in that, and it was a just punishment of their sin in eating things
offered to idols. Note, When at any time we suffer in our food, and
either through want or for our health are forced to eat or drink that
which is unpleasing, we must acknowledge that God is righteous, because
we have sinned about our food, and have indulged ourselves too much in
that which is pleasing.
4. That in the land of their enemies, to which they shall be driven,
they shall have no opportunity either of giving honour to God or
obtaining favour with God, by offering any acceptable sacrifice to him;
they should not be in a capacity of keeping up any face or show of
religion among them; “and so” (as Dr. Pocock expresses it) “should be
as it were quite cut off from any expression of relation to him, from
all signs of grace, and means of reconciliation with him, which would
be to them a token of their being rejected of God, estranged from him,
and no more owned by him as his people.”
(1.) They shall have no sacrifices to offer, nor any altar to offer
them on, nor priests to offer them; they shall not so much as offer
drink-offerings to the Lord, much less any other sacrifices.
(2.) If they should offer them, neither they nor their sacrifices shall
be pleasing to him, for they cannot have any legal offerings, nor are
their hearts humbled.
(3.) Instead of their sacrifices of joy and praise, they shall eat
the bread of mourners; they shall live desolate, and disconsolate,
mourning for the death of their relations and their own miseries, so
that if they had opportunity of sacrificing they should never be
themselves in a frame fit for it; for they were forbidden to eat of the
holy things in their mourning,
Deut. xxvi. 14
All that eat of the bread of mourners are polluted, and
incapacitated to partake of the altar.
(4.) Their bread for their soul, the bread which they must
either eat or starve, the bread which they shall have for the support
of their lives, shall not come into the house of the Lord; they
shall have no house of the Lord to bring it to, or, if they had, it is
such as is not fit to be brought, nor are they rightly disposed to
bring it.
(5.) The return of the days of their sacred and solemn feasts would
therefore be very melancholy and uncomfortable to them
(v. 5):
What will you do in the solemn day, in the sabbath, the
solemn day of every week, in the new moons, the solemn days
of every month, at the return of the times for keeping the passover,
pentecost, and feast of the tabernacles, the solemn days of every year,
the days of the feasts of the Lord? Note, The feasts of the Lord
are solemn days; and, when we are invited to those feasts, we ought to
consider seriously what we shall do. But the question is here put to
those who were to be deprived of the benefit and comfort of those
solemn feasts, “What will you do then? You will then spend those
days in sorrow and lamentation which, if it had not been your own
fault, you might have been spending in joy and praise. You will then be
made to know the worth of mercies by the want of them and to prize
spiritual bread by being made to feel a famine of it.” Note, When we
enjoy the means of grace we ought to consider what we shall do if ever
we should know the want of them, if either they should be taken from us
or we be disabled to attend upon them.
5. That they should perish in the land of their dispersion
(v. 6):
For, lo, they have gone out of the Lord’s land, where they might
have spent both their sabbath days and other days with comfort, gone
because of destruction, gone to Egypt because of the destruction of
their own country by the Assyrians, flattering themselves with hopes
that they shall return when the storm is over; but those hopes also
shall fail them; they shall find there are graves in Egypt, as
their murmuring ancestors said
graves for them; for Egypt shall gather them up, as dead men are
gathered up and carried forth to the grave, and Memphis (one of the
chief cities of Egypt) shall bury them. Gathering and
burying are put together,
Note, Those that think presumptuously to flee from the judgments of God
are likely enough to meet their death where they hoped to save their
lives.
6. That their land, which they left behind and to which they hoped to
return, should become a desolation: As for their tabernacles,
where they formerly dwelt and where they kept their stores, the
pleasant places for their silver, they shall be demolished and laid
in ruins, to such a degree that they shall be overgrown with
nettles; so that if they should survive the trouble, and return
to their own land again, they would find it neither fruitful nor
habitable; it would afford them neither food nor lodging. Note, Those
that make their money their god reckon the places of their
silver their pleasant places, as those that make the Lord
their God reckon his tabernacles amiable and his ordinances their
pleasant things,
But, while the pleasures of communion with God are out of the reach of
chance and change, the pleasant places of men’s silver, which
were purchased with silver, or in which they deposited their silver, or
which were beautified and adorned with silver, are liable to be laid in
ruins, in nettles, and therewith all the pleasure men took in them.
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7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are
come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the
spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and
the great hatred.
8 The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: but the prophet
is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the
house of his God.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of
Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will
visit their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your
fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time: but
they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that
shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.
For their further awakening, it is here threatened,
I. That the destruction spoken of shall come speedily. They shall have
no reason to hope for a long reprieve, for the judgment slumbers not;
it is at the door
(v. 7):
The days of visitation have come, and there shall be no more
delay; the days of recompence have come, which they have been so
often warned to expect; their prophets have told them that destruction
would come, and now it has come, and the time of the
divine patience has expired. Note,
1. The day of God’s judgments is both a day of visitation, in
which men’s sins are enquired into and brought to light, and a day
of recompence, in which men’s doom will be passed, and a reward
given to every man according to his work; the strict visitation is in
order to a just retribution.
2. This day of visitation and recompence is hastening on apace. It is
sure; it is near; as if it had already come.
II. That hereby they shall be made ashamed of their sentiments
concerning their prophets. When the day of visitation comes Israel
shall know it, shall be made to know that by sad experience which
they would not know by instruction. Israel shall know then what
an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from God, and
what a fearful thing it is to fall into his hands. When thy
hand is lifted up they will not see, but they shall see. Israel
shall know the difference between true prophets and false.
1. They shall know then that the pretenders to prophecy, who flattered
them in their sins, and rocked them asleep in their security, and told
them that they should have peace though they went on, however they
pretended to be spiritual men (as Ahab’s prophets did,
were fools and madmen, and not true prophets; they
deceived themselves and those to whom they prophesied. But why would
God suffer his people Israel to be imposed upon by those false
prophets? He answers, “It is for the multitude of thy iniquity
which, in contempt of the divine law, thou hast persisted in, and,
for the great hatred of the true prophets, that reproved thee, in
God’s name, for it.” Note, Because men receive not the love of the
truth, but conceive a hatred of it, and by the multitude of their
iniquities bid defiance to it, therefore God shall send them strong
delusions, to believe a lie, so strong that they shall not be
undeceived till the day of visitation and recompence comes, which will
convince them of the folly and madness of those that seduced them and
of their own folly and madness in suffering themselves to be seduced by
them.
2. They shall know then whether the true prophets, that were
really spiritual men, guided by the Spirit of God, were such as
they called and counted them, fools and madmen; and they shall
be convinced that they were so far from being so that they were the
wise men of their times, and God’s faithful ambassadors to them. When
Israel saw that none of Samuel’s words fell to the ground they
knew he was established to be a prophet
and so here, when God fulfils the word of his messengers, by bringing
the days of recompence they foretold, then those that despised and
ridiculed them, and thought Bedlam the fittest place for them, will be
ashamed of the multitude of their iniquities of that kind, and
of their great hatred, for which God brings upon them this swift
destruction. Mocking the messengers of the Lord was the sin they were
punished for, and so made ashamed of.
III. That hereby the wickedness of the false prophets themselves shall
be manifested to their shame
(v. 8):
“The watchman of Ephraim was with my God; he had been formerly.
They had a set of worthy good ministers, that kept close to God and
maintained communion with him; but now they have a race of corrupt,
malignant, persecuting prophets, that are the ring-leaders of all
mischief.” Or, “The watchman of Ephraim now pretends to have
been with my God, and prefaces his lies with, Thus saith the
Lord; but he is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and is
cunning to draw the simple into sin and the upright into trouble; and
he is so full of hatred and enmity to goodness and good men that he has
become hatred itself in the house of his God, or
against the house of his God.” Note, Wicked prophets are the
worst of men; their sins against God are most heinous, and their plots
against religion most dangerous. They may boast that they are
watchmen, speculators, and, as far as speculation goes, they may
be right, and with my God, may have their heads full of good
notions; but look into their lives, and they are the snare of a
fowler in all their ways, catching for themselves and making a prey
of others; look into their hearts, and they are hatred in the
house of my God, very malicious and spiteful against good ministers
and good people. Woe unto thee, O land! unto thee, O church! that hast
such watchmen, such prophets, that are seers, but not doers!
Corruptio optimi est pessima–The best things, when corrupted,
become the worst.
IV. That God will now reckon with them for the sins of their fathers,
which they have trod in the steps of,
1. They were as bad as their fathers: They have deeply corrupted
themselves; they are rooted and riveted in sin; they are far gone
in the depths of Satan
(Isa. xxxi. 6),
so that it is next to impossible that they should be recovered; the
stain of their corruption is deep, not to be got out; it is as scarlet
and crimson, or as the spots of the leopard: and it is their own fault;
they have corrupted themselves, have polluted and hardened their
own hearts, as in the days of Gibeah, when the Levite’s
concubine was abused to death by the men of Gibeah and the whole tribe
of Benjamin patronised the villany; that was a time of deep corruption
indeed, and such were the present days. Lewdness and wickedness were
as impudent and daring now as in the days of Gibeah; and therefore what
can be expected but such a vengeance as was then taken on Gibeah? Every
tribe is now as bad as the tribe of Benjamin then was, and therefore
may expect to be brought as low as that tribe then was.
2. They shall therefore be reckoned with for their fathers’ sins: He
will remember their iniquity and visit their sins, the iniquity
they have by kind and by entail, the sin that runs in the blood; the
sin of the father shall now be visited upon the children.
Hence God takes occasion to upbraid them with the degeneracy and
apostasy of their ancestors, their perfidiousness and base ingratitude,
Here observe,
(1.) The great honour God put upon Israel when he first formed them
into a people: I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. He
took as much delight and pleasure in them as a poor traveller would do
if he found grapes in a wilderness, where he most needed them and least
expected them. Or when they were in the wilderness he found
them as grapes, not precious in themselves, but precious to him,
and pleasant as the first-ripe grapes to the lord of the vineyard. They
were precious in his sight, and honourable
he planted them a choice vine, a right seed
(Jer. ii. 21),
and found them no better than he himself made them, good grapes at
first. I saw them with pleasure, as the first-ripe in the
fig-tree at the first time. Good people are compared to the good
things that are first ripe,
Jer. xxiv. 2.
One then is worth more than many afterwards. This intimates the delight
God took in them and in doing them good, not for their sakes, but
because he loved their fathers. He preserved them carefully, as a man
does the first and choicest fruits of his vineyard. Now when he put all
this honour upon them, and they stood so fair for preferment, one would
think they should have maintained their excellency; but,
(2.) See the great disgrace they put upon themselves. God set them
apart for himself as a peculiar people, but they went to Baal-peor,
joined with the Moabites in sacrificing to that dirty dunghill deity
and they separated themselves unto that shame, that shameful
idol, so Baal-peor was in a particular manner, if (as should seem) the
whoredom which the people committed with the daughters of
Moab was a part of the service done to Baal-peor. Note, Whatever
those separate themselves to that forsake God it will certainly be a
shame to them, first or last. Their abominations are here said
to be as they loved; their practices which were an abomination
to God were as the best-beloved of their souls. Or when they had once
forsaken God they multiplied their abominations, their idols and
abominable idolatries, at their pleasure. This was the way of their
fathers; God had done well for them, but they had acted ungratefully
towards him, and in the same manner had the present generation
deeply corrupted themselves.
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11 As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird,
from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.
12 Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave
them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to
them when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place:
but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.
14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a
miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them:
for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine
house, I will love them no more: all their princes are
revolters.
16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear
no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even
the beloved fruit of their womb.
17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken
unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
In the foregoing verses we saw the sin of Israel derived from their
fathers; here we see the punishment of Israel derived to their
children; for, as death entered by sin at first, so it is still
entailed with it. We may observe, in these verses,
I. The sin of Ephraim. Some expressions are here which describe that.
1. They did not hearken to God
(v. 17);
they did not give attention to the voice either of his word or of his
rod; they did not believe what he said, nor would they be ruled by him.
He told them their duty, their interest, their danger, but they
regarded him not; all he said to them by his words and by his prophets
was to them as a tale that is told; and then no wonder that we hear,
2. Of the wickedness of their doings
(v. 15),
the downright malice that was in their sins; they were not infirmities,
but daring presumptions. How can those but do wickedly who will not
hearken to the word of God, that would teach and persuade them to do
well? And no wonder that there were wicked doings among them when,
3. Their worship was corrupt
(v. 15):
All their wickedness is in Gilgal, which was a place infamous
for idolatry, as appears,
ch. iv. 15; xii. 11; Amos iv. 4; v. 5.
It is probable that the idolaters chose that place for their
head-quarters because it had been famous in other ages for solemn
transactions between God and Israel, as
Josh. v. 2, 10; 1 Sam. x. 8; xi. 15.
There, where the source of idolatry was, whence it spread through the
kingdom, there it might be said that all their wickedness was,
for all other wickedness owed its origin to that. Corruptions in
worship make way for corruptions in morals. The mother of
harlots is the mother of all other abominations,
Rev. xvii. 5.
The learned Grotius conjectures that there is a mystical sense here.
Golgotha in Syriac is the same with Gilgal in Hebrew, and therefore he
thinks this may have reference to the putting of Christ to death at
Golgotha, which was the greatest sin of the Jewish nation, and of which
it might truly be said, All their wickedness was summed up in
that. And no wonder that the people did wickedly, both in worship and
conversation, when
4. All their princes were revolters; the whole succession of the
kings of the ten tribes did evil in the sight of the Lord, or all the
set of judges and magistrates at this time were wicked; they turned
aside to sinful ways and persisted in those ways.
II. The displeasure of God against Ephraim for sin. This is variously
expressed here, to show what a provocation sin is to the pure eyes of
his glory, and how odious it makes the sinner to him.
1. He departs from them,
v. 12.
When they revolt from him, and withdraw from their allegiance to him,
how can they expect but that he should depart from them and withdraw
both his protection and his bounty? And well may his threatening be
enforced as it is, and made terrible: Woe also unto them when I
depart from them! Note, Those are in a woeful condition indeed whom
God has forsaken. Our weal or woe depends upon the gracious presence of
God with us; and, if he goes, all weal goes with him and all woes come
upon us. God has forsaken him; persecute and take him. Saul knew
this when he laid such an emphasis upon this part of his complaint,
The Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from
me. Nay, he does not only depart from them, but,
2. He hates them. In Gilgal, where all their wickedness is,
there I hated them. There, where the abominations of sin are
committed, there God abominates the sinners. In Gilgal he had bestowed
many tokens of his favour upon their ancestors, but now that is the
place where he hates them for their base ingratitude. Nay, he not only
hates them, but,
3. He will love them no more, will never take them into his
favour again; the breach between God and Israel is wide as the sea,
which cannot be healed. This agrees with what he had said,
(ch. i. 6, 7),
I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, the ten
tribes.
4. He will discard them, and have no more to do with them: For the
wickedness of their doings, I will drive them out of my house. He
will no longer own them as his, or as belonging to his family in the
world; he will turn them out of doors as unfaithful tenants that pay
him no rent, as unprofitable servants that do him neither credit nor
work. Note, Those that profane God’s house can expect no other than to
be expelled his house, and no longer suffered to be either lodgers in
it or retainers to it. Nay, he will not only drive them out of his
house, but,
5. He will drive them far enough
(v. 17):
My God will cast them away, not only out of his house, but out
of his sight; he will quite abandon and reject them; they shall be
cast-aways. God said that he would drive them out of his
house, and here the prophet seconds it, as one that knew his
Master’s mind very well: My God will cast them away. See with
what comfort and pleasure he calls God his God. Note, When others
disown God, and are disowned by him, it is a very great satisfaction to
good people that they can call God their God, can cheerfully own him
and see themselves owned by him–all revolters, all ruined, yet God is
my God.
III. The fruit of this displeasure, in the cutting off and abandoning
of their posterity, which is the judgment here threatened again and
again. Observe here,
1. How numerous Ephraim seemed likely to be. The name Ephraim is
derived from fruitfulness,
Gen. xli. 51.
Joseph is a fruitful bough,
Gen. xlix. 22.
And Moses’s blessing foretold the ten thousands of Ephraim,
Deut. xxxiii. 17.
This was his glory,
For this he seemed designed by him that appoints the bounds of men’s
habitation; for Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant
place, to encourage his increase, which one may expect as from a
tree planted by the river’s side. Ephraim is as strong and rich as ever
Tyre was, and as proud and secure. The Chaldee paraphrase gives this
sense of it, The congregation of Israel, while they observed the
law, was like to Tyrus in prosperity and security.
2. How few Ephraim should be
(v. 11):
Their glory shall fly away like a bird; their children shall be
taken away and the hopes of their families cut off. All their glory
shall fly as an eagle towards heaven, swiftly and irrecoverably.
Note, Worldly glory is glory that will fly away; but those that
have their God their glory have in him an unfading everlasting glory.
Ephraim has been as a fruitful tree. But now Ephraim is smitten,
is blasted; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit,
v. 16.
If the root be dried, the branch must wither of course. Observe,
(1.) God’s threatening this judgment of the destroying of their
children.
[1.] They shall perish of themselves by the immediate hand of God
(v. 11):
They shall fly away from the birth, and from the womb, and from the
conception. Some of their children shall die as soon as they are
born; the cradle shall be presently turned into a coffin. Others of
them shall be still-born, or the womb shall be their grave, and
their death there their mothers’ death too. Of others their mothers
shall miscarry almost as soon as they have conceived, and they shall be
as untimely fruit. See how easily God can, and how justly we are sure
he might, root out the whole race of mankind, that degenerate, guilty,
obnoxious race, and blot out the name of it from under heaven; it is
but doing as he does by Ephraim here, writing them all childless,
making all their glory to fly away from the birth, the womb, and the
conception, drying up their root, that they bear no fruit, and
their business is done in a few years.
[2.] They shall perish by the hand of their enemies; they shall die
violent deaths
(v. 12):
“Though they bring up their children to some maturity, though
they escape the diseases and deaths which the infant age is liable to,
and are thought to be reared past danger, yet will I bereave
them
(v. 12),
by one judgment or other, so that there shall not be a man left
to build up their families and bear up their name.” Again
(v. 13),
Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. The
mothers shall travail with pain to bear their children, and a great
deal of care, and pains, and cost shall be bestowed upon the nursing of
them, and when a cruel enemy comes and puts all to the word, young and
old, without mercy, then they seem but as lambs that were all this
while fed for the slaughter. Note, It is a great alloy to the comfort
parents have in their children that they know not what they have
brought them forth and brought them up for, perhaps for the
murderer, or, which is worse, to be themselves the plagues of their
generation. It is threatened again
(v. 16),
Though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of
their womb, those children that they are most fond of. Note, The
parents’ love is no security to the children’s lives; nay, sometimes
death is commissioned to take the darlings of the family and leave the
burdens of it. When sentence was passed upon Israel in the wilderness,
that they should all perish there, this mercy was mixed with the wrath,
that their children should nevertheless enter into that rest which they
through unbelief could not enter into. But this is a total and final
rejection; even their children shall be cut off, and the land shall
escheat to the crown, ob defectum sanguinis–shall be lost for want
of heirs. The Chaldee-paraphrase, and many of the rabbin, by the
murderers to whom the children were brought forth, understand
those that sacrificed their children to Moloch, a sin which was its own
punishment, which showed the parents void of bowels and justly left
them void of blessings.
[3.] Those few that escape and remain shall be dispersed
(v. 17):
They shall be wanderers among the nations; so the remains of the
Jews are at this day, and there is no place in the world where they are
a distinct nation.
(2.) The prophet’s prayer relating to it
(v. 14):
Give them, O Lord! what wilt thou give? What shall I ask for a
people thus doomed to destruction? It is this; since the decree has
gone forth, that they must either die from the womb or be brought forth
for the murderer, of the two let them rather die from the womb.
Rather let them have no children than have them to be made miserable;
for the same reason, when a total ruin was coming on the Jewish nation,
Christ said, Blessed is the womb that never bore and the paps that
never gave suck,
Luke xxiii. 29.
“Give therefore a miscarrying womb and dry breasts; for it is
better to fall into the hands of the Lord, whose mercies are great,
than into the hands of man.” Note, Those that are childless may with
this reconcile themselves to the will of God herein, that the time may
come when, if they were not so, they would wish they had been so.
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