Hosea 12:7-8

He is a merchant, &c. Bishop Horsley renders this verse thus: Canaan the trafficker! The cheating balances in his hand! He has set his heart upon over-reaching! On which the bishop observes, “God says to the prophet, Instead of turning to me, and keeping to works of charity and justice, he is a mere heathen huckster. Thou hast miscalled him Jacob: he is Canaan. Not Jacob the god1y, the heir of the promise: Canaan the cheat, the son of the curse.” The Hebrew word כנען, rendered merchant, is both a proper name and an appellative. And to preserve the ambiguity in his translation, the bishop joins the appellative and the proper name together. Without this, as he justly observes, the whole spirit of the original would be lost to the English reader. All the ancient versions, except the Chaldee, give the proper name. The first words of the verse, He is, not being in the Hebrew, some interpreters, without supplying any thing, render the clause, The balances of deceit are in the hand of the merchant; that is, instead of practising just and fair dealing, which was the way to please God, they made use of unjust weights and measures, and practised frauds, deceits, and cunning, in buying and selling; depreciating those things they wanted to buy, below what they knew they were really worth; and setting a greater value on, and saying more in praise of, those things they wanted to sell, than they really deserved. These deceits in buying and selling are but too much used among us now, though God has so strongly declared his abhorrence of them in the Scriptures. He loveth to oppress The Hebrew rather signifies, He loveth to defraud; to use the arts of cozenage. And Ephraim said Rather, Nevertheless Ephraim said, I am become rich

I have gotten riches, however, by my cunning and deceit, and as that is the case, I have no need to concern myself; for, so I have but riches, none will ask how I came by them. In this description of Ephraim, we may see but too like a picture of many in our times; for riches are too generally and too much the pursuit of mankind, and are generally too much prized; so that if men have but riches, they think they have every thing that is to be desired. Bishop Horsley presents us with a different interpretation of this verse, thus: Nevertheless, Ephraim shall say, that is, the time will come when Ephraim will repent, and say, Although I became rich, I acquired to myself [ only] sorrow; all my labours procured not for me what may expiate iniquity. Thus interpreted, the words contain the penitent confession of the Ephraimites in the latter days, wrought upon at last by God's judgments and mercies.