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Relentless Judgment on Israel13 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel; but he incurred guilt through Baal and died. 2 And now they keep on sinning and make a cast image for themselves, idols of silver made according to their understanding, all of them the work of artisans. “Sacrifice to these,” they say. People are kissing calves! 3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes away early, like chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.
4 Yet I have been the L ord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. 5 It was I who fed you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. 6 When I fed them, they were satisfied; they were satisfied, and their heart was proud; therefore they forgot me. 7 So I will become like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. 8 I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them.
9 I will destroy you, O Israel; who can help you? 10 Where now is your king, that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, “Give me a king and rulers”? 11 I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.
12 Ephraim’s iniquity is bound up; his sin is kept in store. 13 The pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son; for at the proper time he does not present himself at the mouth of the womb.
14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
15 Although he may flourish among rushes, the east wind shall come, a blast from the L ord, rising from the wilderness; and his fountain shall dry up, his spring shall be parched. It shall strip his treasury of every precious thing. 16 Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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This is the conclusion of the discourse: this verse has then been improperly separated from the former chapter 9999 The fourteenth chapter begins in the original with this verse; but it has been thought better to retain the division of our own version. ; for the Prophet enters not here on a new subject, but only confirms what he had said of the ultimate destruction of Samaria and of the whole kingdom. Samaria then shall be desolated; as though he said “I have already often denounced on you what you believe not, that destruction is nigh at hand; of this be now persuaded; but if you believe not, God will yet execute what he has determined, and what he now pronounces by my mouth.” At the same time he adds the cause, For they have provoked their God That they might not complain that they were severely dealt with, he says, that they only suffered the punishment which they deserved. He also specifies the kind of destruction that was to be, They shall fall by the sword, their children shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women shall be torn asunder, that the child may be extracted from the womb. In saying that the citizens of Samaria, and the inhabitants of the whole country, shall fall by the sword, he doubtless intimates that God would make use of this kind of punishment by sending for enemies who would consign them to destruction. We now then see what is included in the words of the Prophet. He first shows that it was all over with Samaria and the whole kingdom of Israel; as God could by no means bring them to repentance, he would now take vengeance on so desperate an obstinacy. He afterwards shows that God would do this justly, because he had been provoked; and, lastly, he shows what kind their punishment would be. That they might not think that the Assyrians would come by chance, the Prophet says that this army, which was to invade and destroy the country of Samaria, would be, as it were, conducted by the hand of God; for though the Assyrians wished to extend their own borders, and were influenced by their own avarice and cupidity, yet God would use them as instruments to execute his own judgement; and that they might know how dreadful the vengeance would be, he relates two kinds of evils, — that their children would be dashed in pieces, and that their women would be rent asunder, and their offspring extracted from their wombs. Even to speak of this is horrible; and it is what never takes place, except when enemies are greatly enraged and extremely provoked. We now then comprehend the meaning of the Prophet. But if any one objects and says, that infants, and babes as yet concealed in the wombs of their mothers, deserve not such a grievous punishment, as they have not hitherto merited such a thing; it may be answered, that the whole human race are guilty before God, so that infants though not yet come forth to the light, are yet included as being under guilt; so that God cannot be charged with cruelty, though he may use his own right towards them. And further, we hear what he declares in many places, that he will devolve the sins of parents on their children. Since it is so, let us learn to acquiesce in these awful judgements of God, though very repugnant to our feelings; for we know that we must not contend with God, and that it would be extreme presumption to do so; nay, it would be impious audacity. Though then the reason for this punishment may not appear to us, we ought yet reverently to regard this judgement of God. We may moreover thus reason — If infants be not spared, even those as yet hid in the mother’s womb, what will become of adults? what will become of the old, who through their whole life have continued to provoke the vengeance of God? The Lord no doubt intended by these words to terrify those godless despisers of his word, with whom he had to do. “How great a judgement,” he says, “hangs over you, and how tremendous! since your infants shall not be exempted: for I shall involve you in the same judgement, when they shall be dashed against the stones, after having been drawn out of their mothers’ womb. When such a dreadful punishment shall be inflicted on them, what shall be done to you? for the cause of the evil exists in you.” We have now then explained this verse. Then follows an exhortation. |