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13. The Lord's Anger Against Israel

¹ When Ephraim spoke, people trembled;
   he was exalted in Israel.
   But he became guilty of Baal worship and died.
² Now they sin more and more;
   they make idols for themselves from their silver,
cleverly fashioned images,
   all of them the work of craftsmen.
It is said of these people,
   “They offer human sacrifices!
   They kiss Or “Men who sacrifice / kiss calf-idols!”
³ Therefore they will be like the morning mist,
   like the early dew that disappears,
   like chaff swirling from a threshing floor,
   like smoke escaping through a window.

    ⁴ “But I have been the LORD your God
   ever since you came out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
   no Savior except me.
⁵ I cared for you in the wilderness,
   in the land of burning heat.
⁶ When I fed them, they were satisfied;
   when they were satisfied, they became proud;
   then they forgot me.
⁷ So I will be like a lion to them,
   like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
⁸ Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
   I will attack them and rip them open;
like a lion I will devour them—
   a wild animal will tear them apart.

    ⁹ “You are destroyed, Israel,
   because you are against me, against your helper.
¹⁰ Where is your king, that he may save you?
   Where are your rulers in all your towns,
of whom you said,
   ‘Give me a king and princes’?
¹¹ So in my anger I gave you a king,
   and in my wrath I took him away.
¹² The guilt of Ephraim is stored up,
   his sins are kept on record.
¹³ Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him,
   but he is a child without wisdom;
when the time arrives,
   he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.

    ¹⁴ “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
   I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
   Where, O grave, is your destruction?

   “I will have no compassion,
    ¹⁵ even though he thrives among his brothers.
An east wind from the LORD will come,
   blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
   and his well dry up.
His storehouse will be plundered
   of all its treasures.
¹⁶ The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
   because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
   their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
   their pregnant women ripped open.” In Hebrew texts this verse (13:16) is numbered 14:1.

He afterwards adds Thee I knew in the desert, in the land of droughts God here confirms the truth that the Israelites had acted very absurdly in having turned their minds to other gods, for he himself had known them. The knowledge here mentioned is twofold, that of men, and that of God. God declares that he had a care for the people when they were in the desert; and he designates his paternal solicitude by the term, knowledge: I knew thee; that is, “I then chose thee a people for myself, and familiarly manifested myself to thee, as if thou were a near friend to me. But then it was necessary that I should have been also known by thee.” This is the knowledge of men. Now when men are known by God, why do they not apply all their faculties, so that they may remain fixed on him? For when they divert them to other objects, they extinguish, as much as they can, this benefit of God. So also Paul speaks to the Galatians,

‘After ye have known God, or rather after ye are known by him,’ (Galatians 4:9.)

In the first clause, he shows that they had done very wickedly in retaking themselves to various devices after the light of the gospel had been offered to them: but he increases their sin by the next clause, when he says, ‘Rather after ye are known by him;’ as though he said, “God has anticipated you by his gratuitous goodness. Since, then, God has thus first known you, and first favoured you with his grace, how great and how shameful is now your ingratitude in not seeking to know him in return?” We now then see why the Prophet added that the Israelites had been known by God in the desert, in the land of droughts

And there is an express mention made of the desert: for it was then necessary for the people to be sustained miraculously by the Lord; for except God had rained manna from heaven, and had also given water for drink, the people must have miserably perished. Since, then God had thus supported the people contrary to the usual course of nature, so that without his paternal care there could have been no hope of life, the Prophet now rightly adds, In the desert, in the land of droughts; that is, in that dry solitude, where not a grain of corn grew, so that the people could not live except God had, as it were, with his own hand, given them meat, and put it in their mouth. We now see that the extreme impiety of the people is here manifestly proved; for having been taught in God’s law, and been encouraged by so many benefits, they yet went astray after profane superstitions. And the Prophet, at the same time, adds —