vv.1-2 Jehovah’s Reproof of Ephraim, and Controversy with Judah and Jacob. The Lord continues His reproof of Ephraim. Spiritually, they fed on idolatry, taking a path that was foolish and self-destructive: “Ephraim feedeth on wind, and pursueth after the east wind.” Morally, they had multiplied “lies and desolation,” and were reaping the consequences of it. Politically, they tried to play the great powers against one another, making “a covenant with Assyria” while carrying oil to Egypt to gain its favor. This worldly scheming was far beneath the people of Jehovah, and it would backfire, and turn Assyria against them. But Ephraim was not alone in the path of evil: “Jehovah hath also a controversy with Judah.” Though Judah had not gone as far as Ephraim, both had come short. As descended from Jacob, He introduces Jacob’s personal history as a lesson for his children.

 

 

vv.3-6 Jacob’s History and Israel’s Call to Return to God. In these verses the Lord uses the history of their father Jacob as a lesson for Israel. From his very birth, “He took his brother by the heel in the womb,” displaying the character of a supplanter. From a baby he had the characteristic of trying to take what didn’t belong to him. But then He recalls what grace afterward accomplished in Jacob, when he found strength to wrestle with God at Peniel. This strength was given to Jacob: it was not of himself. This verse shows clearly that Jacob was wrestling with God Himself in the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah: “he wrestled with the Angel, and prevailed” (v.4). His victory was not through natural strength as if he could overpower the Lord, for “he wept, and made supplication unto him.” When God put his thigh out of joint, Jacob persisted. He prevailed by not giving up: he desperately wanted God’s blessing! He found, like Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Jacob found God at Bethel – a place he named, that now had become a center of Israel’s idolatry – and Jacob’s descendants were with him: “there he spoke with us” (plural). The God who had dealt in grace with their father was to be remembered as “Jehovah” and He was still “Jehovah, the God of hosts.” God’s reminiscing over Jacob’s experiences becomes the basis of the appeal to his children: “return unto thy God: keep loving-kindness and judgment, and wait on thy God continually” (v.6).

 

 

vv.7-8 Ephraim’s Dishonest Gain and False Confidence. Like Jacob, his descendants followed the pursuit of gain. Ephraim had become like “a merchant” with “balances of deceit” in his hand, loving to oppress and overreach others for gain (v.7). Yet prosperity had blinded Ephraim to his evil: the love of money being the root of every kind of evil (1 Tim. 6:10). They boasted, “I am become rich, I have found me out substance,” and asserted that nothing immoral could be attributed to them, but it was false (v.8).

 

 

vv.9-11 God’s Past Revelation and Israel’s Continuing Idolatry. Jehovah reminds Israel that He had been their God “from the land of Egypt” (v.9), and in His mercy He would “again make thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast.” This future blessing is connected with the feast of tabernacles or tents (Lev. 23:33-42). Jehovah had given them abundant revelations of Himself, having “spoken to the prophets,” multiplied visions, and “by means of the prophets” used similitudes (v.10). Yet despite this abundant revelation, Israel had forsaken Him and ruined themselves. Gilead and Gilgal were two places named as being notorious for idolatry. Their multiplied altars were as copious “as heaps in the furrows of the fields” (v.11).

 

 

vv.12-14 God’s Care for Israel Contrasted with Ephraim’s Provocation. Jacob’s personal history is again brought forward to rebuke his descendants. Their father “fled into the country of Syria” in weakness, yet faithfully served and “for a wife he kept sheep” (v.12). His faithful service stood in sad contrast with the conduct of his children, who had been unfaithful. Israel’s national history showed the Lord’s care for them. “By a prophet Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved” (v.13). The nation owed its deliverance and preservation to Jehovah’s intervention through prophets. Yet Ephraim responded to all this goodness by provoking Him “to anger most bitterly” (v.14). Consequently, their blood-guiltiness would remain upon them, and the Lord would recompense their reproach. “His blood” means Ephraim’s blood-guiltiness: guilt incurred through bloodshed, though not he blood of Messiah, which Judah alone is held responsible for elsewhere. Instead of removing their guilt, Jehovah would “leave” it upon Ephraim; they would bear its consequences. “His reproach” refers to the dishonor Ephraim had shown the Lord, and that would be recompensed in judgment.