When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was
discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood;
and (a) the thief cometh in, [and] the troop of robbers spoileth
without.
(a) Meaning that there was no one type of vice among them, but that
they were subject to... [ Continue Reading ]
They make the (b) king glad with their wickedness, and the princes
with their lies.
(b) They esteem their wicked king Jeroboam above God, and seek how to
flatter and please him.... [ Continue Reading ]
They [are] all adulterers, as an (c) oven heated by the baker, [who]
ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be
leavened.
(c) He compares the rage of the people to a burning oven which the
baker heats, until his dough is leavened and raised.... [ Continue Reading ]
In the (d) day of our king the princes have made [him] sick with
bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.
(d) They used all indulgence and excess in their feasts and
solemnities, by which their king was overcome with being fed too much,
and brought into diseases, and who delighted... [ Continue Reading ]
They are all hot as an oven, and have (e) devoured their judges; all
their kings are fallen: [there is] none among them that calleth unto
me.
(e) By their doing God has deprived them of all good rulers.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephraim, he hath (f) mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake
not turned.
(f) That is, he counterfeited the religion of the Gentiles, yet is but
as a cake baked on the one side, and raw on the other, that is,
neither thoroughly hot, nor thoroughly cold, but partly a Jew, and
partly a Genti... [ Continue Reading ]
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth [it] not: yea,
(g) gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.
(g) Which are a token of his manifold afflictions.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephraim also is like a silly dove without (h) heart: they call to
Egypt, they go to Assyria.
(h) That is, without all judgment, as those that cannot tell whether
it is better to cleave only to God, or to seek the help of man.... [ Continue Reading ]
When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them
down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their (i)
congregation hath heard.
(i) According to my curses made to the whole congregation of Israel.... [ Continue Reading ]
Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them!
because they have transgressed against me: though I have (k) redeemed
them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
(k) That is, at different times redeemed them, and delivered them from
death.... [ Continue Reading ]
And they have not cried unto me with their heart, (l) when they howled
upon their beds: (m) they assemble themselves for corn and wine, [and]
they rebel against me.
(l) When they were in affliction, and cried out in pain, they did not
seek me for help.
(m) They only seek their own benefit and weal... [ Continue Reading ]
They return, [but] not to the most High: they are like a deceitful
bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage (n) of their
tongue: this [shall be] their derision in the land of Egypt.
(n) Because they boast of their own strength, and do not care what
they speak against me and my servan... [ Continue Reading ]