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Punishment for Israel’s Sin

Do not rejoice, O Israel!

Do not exult as other nations do;

for you have played the whore, departing from your God.

You have loved a prostitute’s pay

on all threshing floors.

Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and the new wine shall fail them.

They shall not remain in the land of the L ord;

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.

They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the L ord,

and their sacrifices shall not please him.

Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

it shall not come to the house of the L ord.

What will you do on the day of appointed festival,

and on the day of the festival of the L ord?

For even if they escape destruction,

Egypt shall gather them,

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;

thorns shall be in their tents.

The days of punishment have come,

the days of recompense have come;

Israel cries,

“The prophet is a fool,

the man of the spirit is mad!”

Because of your great iniquity,

your hostility is great.

The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,

yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,

and hostility in the house of his God.

They have deeply corrupted themselves

as in the days of Gibeah;

he will remember their iniquity,

he will punish their sins.

Like grapes in the wilderness,

I found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree,

in its first season,

I saw your ancestors.

But they came to Baal-peor,

and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame,

and became detestable like the thing they loved.

Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them until no one is left.

Woe to them indeed

when I depart from them!

Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,

but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.

Give them, O L ord—

what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;

there I came to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all their officials are rebels.

Ephraim is stricken,

their root is dried up,

they shall bear no fruit.

Even though they give birth,

I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.

Because they have not listened to him,

my God will reject them;

they shall become wanderers among the nations.

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.

The Prophet confirms here what is contained in the last verse, that is, that the Israelites would at length find that the Prophets had not in vain threatened them, though they at the time heedlessly despised the judgement of God. Lo, he says, they have departed: he speaks of the exile as if it had already taken place, when it was only nigh at hand. The Israelites were then dwelling in their own country, he yet speaks of them as having already gone away. But he sets forth the certainty of the prediction by this manner of speaking, that profane men might cease to promise themselves impunity when God summons them to his tribunal: yea, he shows that he was already armed to take vengeance: “They have gone away,” he says, “on account of desolation.” Then he adds, Egypt shall gather them To gather here is to be taken in a bad sense; for it means the same as trousser (to pack up, to bundle) in our language; and it is often taken in this sense by the Prophets, when mention is made of destruction: and this appears still clearer from the word, burying, which the Prophet immediately subjoins. Egypt shall gather them: He certainly speaks not of a kind retreat, but declares that Egypt would be a sepulchre to them, in which they should remain shut up: and thus he takes away from them any hope of deliverance. The Israelites expected that they should find shelter for a season in Egypt, when they bent their course there for fear of their enemies. The Prophet now shows that they would be disappointed in dreaming of a return, for they would remain there gathered up; that is, a free return, as they imagined, would not be allowed them, but a perpetual habitation, yea, a grave.

‘Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them.’ There is a striking correspondence between the words here used, קבר, kober, and קבף, kobets,. By the first the Prophet signifies that they should be shut up, so as to be, as it were, bound and fixed to a place; and then he adds that they should be buried.

He then says, The desirable place of their silver the nettle shall possess, as by hereditary right, and the thorn, etc.; some render it paliurus; but I follow what is more received, the thorn then shall be in their tabernacles The meaning is, that the Israelites would be exiles and sojourners, not for a short time, but that their exile would be so long that their land would become waste and uncultivated; for neither nettles nor thorns grow in an inhabited place. Hosea then declares that their land would be deserted and without inhabitants, for nettles and thorns would occupy it instead of men. Now it tended greatly to increase the sorrow of exile, that the hope of return was cut off from them; and God had also declared that Egypt, where they had promised a refuge for themselves, would be to them like a grave. And thus it happens for the most part to the ungodly, who retake themselves to vain solaces, that they may escape the vengeance of God; for they throw themselves into deep labyrinths; where they think to find a harbour of rest for a time, and a commodious habitation; but there they find either a gulf or a grave. This is the meaning. Let us proceed —