Ephraim, he mixes himself among the nations. Ephraim is a pancake not turned over.
Parallel Translations
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Ephraim, he mixes himself among the nations. Ephraim is a pancake not turned over.
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Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
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Ephraim, he mixeth himself with the peoples; Ephraim is become a cake not turned.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Hosea 7:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 106:35 but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works.
- Ezra 9:12 Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons. Don’t take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’
- Nehemiah 13:23-25 In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab; and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves.
- Ezra 9:1 Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
- Malachi 2:11 Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Yahweh which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.
- 1 Kings 18:21 Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.
- Hosea 5:7 They are unfaithful to Yahweh; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.
- Hosea 5:13 “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.
- Hosea 8:2-4 They cry to me, ‘My God, we Israel acknowledge you!’ Israel has cast off that which is good. The enemy will pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.
- Hosea 9:3 They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
- Zephaniah 1:5 those who worship the army of the sky on the housetops, those who worship and swear by Yahweh and also swear by Malcam,
- Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
- Ezekiel 23:4-11 Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. “Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. She gave herself as a prostitute to them, all of them the choicest men of Assyria. She defiled herself with the idols of whoever she lusted after. She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples; and they poured out their prostitution on her. “Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted. These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters; and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her. “Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister.
- Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain God now complains, that Ephraim, whom he had chosen…
God now complains, that Ephraim, whom he had chosen to be a peculiar possession to himself, differed nothing from other nations. The children of Abraham, we know, had been adopted by God for this end, that they might not be like the heathens: for the calling of God brings holiness with it. And we ought to remember that memorable sentence, which often occurs, ‘Be ye holy, for I am holy.’ The Israelites then ought to have been mindful of their calling, and to resolve to worship God purely, and not to pollute themselves with the defilements and filth of the Gentiles. But God says here that Ephraim differed now nothing from the uncircumcised nations. He mingles himself, he says, with the peoples And there is an emphasis to be noticed in the pronoun demonstrative, הוא, eva, Ephraim himself, he says: for surely this was unworthy and by no means to be endured, that Ephraim, on whom God had engraven the mark of his election, was now entangled in the superstitions of the Gentiles. We now then see the drift of the Prophet’s words, He, even Ephraim, mingles himself with the nations If the condition of Israel and of all the nations had been alike and equal, the Prophet would not have thus spoken; but as God had designed Ephraim to be holy to himself; the Prophet here amplifies his sin, when he says that even Ephraim had mingled himself with the nations.
He then adds, Ephraim is like bread baked under the ashes, which is not turned This metaphor most fitly suits the meaning of the Prophet and the circumstances of this passage, provided it be rightly understood. And I think the Prophet simply meant this, that Ephraim was in nothing fixed, but was inconstant and changeable; as, when we in vulgar language notify their changeableness who are not consistent with themselves, and in whom there is no sincerity, we say, Il n’est ne chair ne poisson, (It is neither flesh nor fish.) So also in this place the Prophet says, that Ephraim was like a cake burnt on one side, and was on the other doughy, or a crude and unbaked lump of paste. For Ephraim, we know, boasted themselves to be a people sacred to God; and since circumcision distinguished that people from other nations, there seemed to be some difference; but in the meantime the worship of God was corrupted; all the sacrifices were adulterated, as we have already seen and the whole of their religion was a confused mixture; yea, a chaos composed of Gentile superstitions and of something that resembled true and legitimate worship. When, therefore, the Israelites were thus perfidiously mocking God, they had nothing fixed: hence the Prophet compares them to a cake, which, being placed on the hearth, is not turned; for on one side it must be burnt, while on the other it remains unbaked.
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The Prophet here anticipates what the Israelites might object; for hypocrites, we know, never want pretenses. The Israelites might then bring forward this defense, “Thou sayest that we are now entangled in the pollutions of the heathens; but the heathens have no circumcision; among them the God of Israel is despised, there is no altar on which the people can sacrifice to the true God; we, on the contrary, are the children of Abraham, we have the God who stretched forth his hand to deliver us from Egypt, and the priesthood ever abides with us.” As then the Israelites might have introduced these pretenses for their superstitions, the Prophet says, by anticipation, that they were like bread baked under the ashes, which, being thrown on the hearth, is not turned, so that the baking might be equal; for then on the one side it would receive heat, and on the other there would be no proportionate temperature. “Ye are,” he says, “on one side burnt, but on the other crude; so that with you there is nothing but mere perfidiousness.” We now understand what the Prophet means.
But this similitude might also be referred to their punishment; for God had shown before in many places, that the Israelites were so perverse, that they could not be subdued nor brought to a sound mind by any distresses: and he again repeats this complaint. The meaning of the words may then be this, That Ephraim was like a cake, which was not turned on the hearth, because he had been sharply and severely chastised, but without any benefit; being like reprobates, who, though the Lord may bruise them, yet continue obstinate in their hardness. They are then on one side burnt, because they are nearly wasted away under their evils; but on the other side they are wholly unbaked, because the Lord had not softened their perverseness. But what I have adduced in the first place is more suitable to the context.
We now then understand what the Prophet says: in the first clause God accuses Ephraim, because he had made himself profane by receiving the rites and superstitions of heathens, so that there was, as I have said before, a confused mixture. In the second place, he answers the Israelites, in case they pleaded in their favor the name of God, for it was usual for them to make false pretenses. He therefore says, that they were in some things different from the uncircumcised nations, but that this difference was nothing before God, for they were like bread baked under the ashes, which is neither baked nor unbaked on either side; for on one side it is burnt, and on the other it remains unbaked. It now follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That is, he counterfeited the religion of the Gentiles,…
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 Gentile.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Hos 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the…
Hos 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
Ver. 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people] viz. in confederacies, marriages, manners, superstitions. They were conformed to those nations from whom God had separated them with a wonderful separation, Exo 33:16, and put them up by themselves from all the world in the promised land, as it were in an island, Isa 20:6. And this they had done not once, but often, as the conjugation importeth; and that wilfully, without any necessity; yea and that constantly and of custom, or desperate obstinace (Heb. יתבלל he will mingle himself). so that there was little difference to be discerned between Ephraim, the professed people of God: and profane heathens. Hence that, Amo 9:7. "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord." Hence Saul is called Cush, or an Ethiopian, fox his black and ill conditions, Psal. vii., title, as the Chaldee interpreteth it. Cast we may be upon bad company, but we must not mingle with them. The rivers of Peru, after they have run into the main sea, yea, some write twenty or thirty miles, they keep themselves unmixed with the salt water; so that a very great way within the sea men may take up as fresh water as if they were near the land. At Belgrad, in Hungary, where the Danube and Sava (two great rivers) meet, their waters mingle no more than water and oil (Abbat’s Geog.); not that either float above other: but join unmixed: so that near the middle of the river I have gone in a boat (saith mine author, Sir Henry Blount), and tasted of the Danube as clear and pure as a well; then putting mine hand not an inch farther, I have taken of the Sava as troubled as a street-channel, tasting the gravel in my teeth. Thus they run 60 miles together, and for a day’s journey I have been an eyewitness of it. To come nearer home, the river Dee, in Merionethshire, running through Pemblemere, remains entire, and mingleth not her streams with the water of the lake. Let not Ephraim mix himself among the people, but cry with David, "Gather not my soul with sinners," Psa 26:9, and Hos 7:5, "I have hated the congregration of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked,"
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Ephraim is a cake not turned] And so but half-baked, or dough-baked; neque crudus, neque coctus, neither hot nor cold, as Laodicea, Rev 3:15, halting between two, as 1Ki 18:21. Mongrels, as those 2Ki 17:33 Zep 1:5. Barnacles, that are neither fish nor flesh; Amphibians, that will conform to the world, and yet seem to be for the Lord. But he likes no such retainers, no such holy day servants; he requireth to be served truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving; he cannot away with dough baked duties. Men must be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," they must he "zealous of good works," if they look to be accepted, Rom 12:11 Tit 2:14. The "effectual fervent prayer," or the thorough wrought prayer, "of a righteous man availeth much," Jas 5:16, ενεργουμενη. A cake that is half baked, half burnt pleaseth not the palate; no more do customary, formal, bedulling performances please the Lord. It is Gualther’s note upon this text; As a cake, saith he, that is raw on the one side and scorched on the other is cast away; so hypocrites that are hot in their superstitions, but cold in their devotions, are rejected of God;
“ Introrsum turpes, speciosi pelle decora. ”
I know the words are otherwise interpreted by Luther, Mercer, Polanus, and others, with reference to the following words, thus: that Ephraim’s adversaries, even those strangers with whom he hath mixed himself, shall be so greedy to devour him, that they shall not stay till he be baked on both sides, but shall eat him raw. But I like the former better.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Ephraim; the kingdom of Israel.
Ephraim; the kingdom of Israel.
Hath mixed himself among the people, by leagues and commerce, by imitation of their manners, and by either entertaining their gods, and sacrificing to them, or at least worshipping idols as the nations about them did, directly contrary to the express law of God, Deu 7:2-4; 12:2,3. This was their sin, and the greater because voluntary: the expression seems to represent it as a thing of their own seeking, they did mix themselves with the heathen, whereas had the heathen sought it, it would in likelihood have been said that the nations mixed themselves with Ephraim; but this is in other words the same with Hos 2:5,7. Or this passage may be (as some conceive) a threat that the Ephraimites should be scattered among the nations, be captives to them, and dispersed amongst them, with whom, to ease their condition a little, they should endeavour to mix by friendship and alliances: if so, this is the punishment of their former sinful confederacies.
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Ephraim is a cake not turned: some interpret this of the particoloured temper of Ephraim, by such a proverb as ours, Is neither fish nor flesh; neither Israelite nor heathen, but a mongrel; neither a heathen idolater nor yet a worshipper of God, a hotch-potch of different religions and policies, like them, 1Ki 18:21; Zep 1:5; neither bread nor yet dough, but partly both, as the unturned cake on the coals is: but it better expresseth their danger and sudden ruin, whose hungry enemies will eat them up quickly, as men do who for haste will not stay the full baking of their cake.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Having seen how vicious and corrupt the court was,…
Having seen how vicious and corrupt the court was, we now come to enquire how it is with the country, and we find that to be no better; and no marvel if the distemper that has so seized the head affect the whole body, so that there is no soundness in it; the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered, as well as the sin of Samaria, of the people as well as the princes, of which here are divers instances.
I. They were not peculiar and entire for God, as they should have been, Hos 7:8. 1. They did not distinguish themselves from the heathen, as God had distinguished them: Ephraim, he has mingled himself among the people, has associated with them, and conformed himself to them, and has in a manner confounded himself with them and lost his character among them. God had said, The people shall dwell alone; but they mingled themselves with the heathen and learned their works, Psa 106:35. They went up and down among the heathen, to beg help of one of them against another (so some); whereas, if they had kept close to God, they would not have needed the help of any of them. 2. They were not entirely devoted to God: Ephraim is a cake not turned, and so is burnt on one side and dough on the other side, but good for nothing on either side. As in Ahab's time, so now, they halted between God and Baal; sometimes they seemed zealous for God, but at other times as hot for Baal. Note, It is sad to think how many, who, after a sort, profess religion, are made up of contraries and inconsistencies, as a cake not turned, a constant self-contradiction, and always in one extreme or the other.
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II. They were strangely insensible of the judgments of God, which they were under, and which threatened their ruin, Hos 7:9. Observe, 1. The condition they were in. God was not to them, in his judgments, as a moth and as rottenness; they were silently and slowly drawing towards the ruin of their state partly by the encroachments of foreigners upon them: Strangers have devoured his strength, and eaten him up; they have wasted his wealth and treasure, lessened his numbers, and consumed the fruits of the earth. Some devoured them by open wars (as Kg2 13:7, when the king of Syria made them like the dust by threshing), others by pretending treaties of peace and amity, in which they extorted abundance of wealth from them, and made them pay dearly for that which did them no good, but which afterwards they paid more dearly for, as Kg2 16:9. This Ephraim got by mingling with the heathen, and suffering them to mingle with him; they devoured that which he rested upon and supported himself with. Note, Those that make not God their strength (Psa 52:7) make that their strength which will soon be devoured by strangers. They were thus reduced partly by their own mal-administrations among themselves: Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him (are sprinkled upon him, so the word is), that is, the sad symptoms of a decaying declining state, which is waxing old and ready to vanish away, and the effects of trouble and vexation. Cura facit canos - Care turns gray. The almond-tree does not as yet flourish, but it begins to turn colour, which speaks aloud to him that the evil days are coming, and the years of which he shall say, I have no pleasure in them, Ecc 12:1, Ecc 12:5. 2. Their regardlessness of these warnings: He knows it not; he is not aware of the hand of God gone out against him; it is lifted up, but he will not see, Isa 26:11. He does not know how near his ruin is, and takes no care to prevent it. Note, Stupidity under less judgments is a presage of greater coming.
III. They went on frowardly in their wicked ways, and were not reclaimed by the rebukes they were under (Hos 7:10): The pride of Israel still testifies to his face, as it had done before (Hos 5:5); under humbling providences their hearts were still unhumbled, their lusts unmortified; and it is through the pride of their countenance that they will not seek after God (Psa 10:4); they do not return to the Lord their God by repentance and reformation, nor do they seek him by faith and prayer for all this; though they suffer for going astray from him, though it can never be well with them till they come back to him, and though they have in vain sought to others for relief, yet they think not of applying to God.
IV. They were infatuated in their counsels, and took very wrong methods when they were in distress (Hos 7:11, Hos 7:12): Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart. To be harmless as a dove, without gall, and not to hurt or injure others, is commendable; but to be sottish as a dove, without heart, that knows not how to defend herself and provide for her own safety, is a shame.
1. The silliness of this dove is, (1.) That she laments not the loss of her young that are taken from her, but will make her nest again in the same place; so they have their people carried away by the enemy, and are not affected with it, but continue their dealings with those that deal barbarously with them. (2.) That she is easily enticed by the bait into the net, and has no heart, no understanding, to discern her danger, as many other fowls do, Pro 1:17. She hastes to the snare, and knows not that it is for her life (Pro 7:23); so they were drawn into leagues with neighbouring nations that were their ruin. (3.) That, when she is frightened, she has not courage to stay in the dove-house, where she is safe, and under the careful protection of her owner, but flutters and hovers, seeking shelter first in one place, then in another, and thereby exposes herself so much the more; so this people, when they were in distress, sought not to God, did not fly like the doves to their windows where they might have been secured from all the birds of prey that struck at them, but threw themselves out of God's protection, and then called to Egypt to help them, and went in all haste to Assyria, to seek for that aid in vain which they might, by repentance and prayer, have found nearer home, in their God. Note, It is a silly senseless thing for those who have a God in heaven to trust to creatures for the refuge and relief which are to be had in him only; and those that do so are a people of no understanding, they are without heart. Now,
2. See what becomes of this silly dove (Hos 7:12): When they shall go to Egypt and Assyria, I will spread my net upon them. Note, Those that will not abide by the mercy of God must expect to be pursued by the justice of God. Here, (1.) They are ensnared: "I will spread my net upon them, bring them into straits, that they may see their folly and think of returning." Note, It is common for those that go away from God to find snares where they expected shelters. (2.) They are humbled; they soar upward, proud of their foreign alliances and confiding in them; but I will bring them down, let them fly ever so high, as the fowls of heaven, that are shot flying. Note, God can and will bring those down that exalt themselves as the eagle, Oba 1:3, Oba 1:4. (3.) They are made to smart for their folly: I will chastise them. Note, The disappointments we meet with in the creature, when we put a confidence in it, are a necessary chastisement, or discipline, that we may learn to be wiser another time. (4.) In all this the scripture is fulfilled. It is as their congregation has heard; they have been many a time told by the word of God, read, and preached, and sung, in their religious assemblies, that "vain is the help of man, that in the son of man there is no help; they have heard both from the law and from the prophets what judgments God would bring upon them for their wickedness; and as they have heard now they shall see, they shall feel." Note, It concerns us to take notice of the word of God which we hear from time to time in the congregation, and to be governed by it, for we must shortly be judged by it; and it will justify God in the condemnation of sinners, and aggravate it to them, that they have had plain public warning given them of it; it is what their congregation has heard many a time, but they would not take warning. "Son, remember thou wast told what would come of it; and now thou seest they were not vain words." See Zac 1:6.
V. They revolted from God and rebelled against him, notwithstanding the various methods he took to retain them in their allegiance, Hos 7:13-15. Here observe,
1. How kindly and tenderly God had dealt with them, as a gracious sovereign towards a people dear unto him, and whose prosperity he had much at heart. He had redeemed them (Hos 7:13), brought them, at first, out of the land of Egypt, and, since, delivered them out of many a distress. He had bound and strengthened their arms, Hos 7:15. When their power was weakened, like an arm broken or out of joint, God set it again, and bound it, as a surgeon does a broken bone, to make it knit. God had given Israel victories over the Syrians (Kg2 13:16, Kg2 13:17), had restored their coast (Kg2 14:25, Kg2 14:26), had girded them with strength for battle. "Though I have chastened them" (so the margin reads it), "sometimes corrected them for their faults and thereby taught them, at other times strengthened their arms and relieved them, though I have used both fair means and foul to work upon them, it was all to no purpose; they were mercy-proof and judgment-proof."
2. How impudent their conduct had been towards him notwithstanding, which is described here for the conviction and humiliation of all those who have gone on in any way of wickedness, that they may see how exceedingly sinful their sin is, how heinous, how the God of heaven interprets it, how he resents it. (1.) He had courted them to him, and taken them into covenant with himself; but they fled from him, as if he had been their dangerous enemy who had always approved himself their faithful friend. They wandered from him, as the silly dove from her nest, for those who forsake God will find no rest nor settlement in the creature, but wander endlessly. They fled from God when they forsook the worship of him, and ran away from his service, and withdrew themselves from their allegiance to him. (2.) He had given them his laws, which were all holy, just, and good, by which he designed to keep them in the right way; but they transgressed against him; they sinned with a high hand and a stiff neck, wilfully and presumptuously (so the words signifies); they broke through the fence of the divine law, and therein thwarted the design of the divine love. (3.) He had made known his truths to them, and given them all possible proofs of the sincerity of his good-will to them; and yet they spoke lies against him. They set up false gods in competition with him; they denied his providence and power; thus they belied the Lord, Jer 5:12. They rejected his messages sent them by his prophets, and said that they should have peace, though they went on in sin, directly against what he said. In their hypocritical professions of religion, shows of devotion, and promises of amendment, they lied to the Lord, which he took as lying against him. (4.) He was their rightful Lord and King, and had always ruled in Jacob with equity, and for the public good; and yet they rebelled against him, Hos 7:14. They not only went off from him, but took up arms against him, would have deposed him if they could and set up another. (5.) He designed well for them, but they imagined mischief against him, Hos 7:15. Sin is a mischievous thin; it is mischief against God, for it is treason against his crown and dignity; not that the sinners can do any thing to hurt their Creator (as one of the ancients observes on these words), but what they can they do; and it is so much the worse when it is not done by surprise, or through inadvertency, but designedly and with contrivance. The Jews have a saying, which Dr. Pocock quotes here, The thoughts of transgression are worse than the transgression. The designing of mischief is doing it, in God's account. Compassing and imagining the death of the king is treason by our law. Those that imagine an evil thing, though it prove a vain thing (Psa 2:1), will be reckoned with for the imagination.
3. How they shall be punished for this (Hos 7:13): Woe unto them! for they have fled from me. Note, Those who flee from God have woes sent after them, and are, without doubt, in a woeful case. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them; the word of God says, Woe to them! And observe what follows immediately, Destruction unto them! Note, The woes of God's word have real effects; destruction makes them good. The judgments of his hand shall verify the judgments of his mouth. Those whom he curses, and pronounces woeful, they are cursed, they are woeful indeed.
VI. Their shows of devotion and reformation were but shows, and in them they did but mock God.
1. They pretended devotion, but it was not sincere, Hos 7:14. When the hand of God had gone forth against them they made some sort of application to him. When he slew them, then they sought him. Lord, in trouble have they visited thee. But it was all in hypocrisy. (1.) When they were under personal troubles, and called upon God in secret, they were not sincere in that: They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. When they were chastened with pain upon their beds, and the multitude of their bones with strong pains, perhaps ill of the wounds they received in war, they cried, and groaned, and complained in the forms of devotion, and, it may be, they used many good words, proper enough for the circumstances they were in; they cried, God help us, and, Lord, look upon us. But they did not cry with their heart, and therefore God reckons it as no crying to him. Moses is said to cry unto God when he spoke not a word, only his heart prayed with faith and fervency, Exo 14:15. These made a great noise, and said a great deal, and yet did not cry to God, because their hearts were not right with him, not subjected to his will, devoted to his honour, nor employed in his service. To pray is to lift up the soul to God, this is the essence of prayer. If this be not done, words, though ever so well chosen, are but wind; but, if it be, it is an acceptable prayer, though the groanings cannot be uttered. Note, Those do not pray to God at all that do not pray in the spirit. Nay, God is so far from approving their prayer and accepting it that he calls it howling. Some think it intimates the noisiness of their prayers (they cried to God as they used to cry to Baal, when they thought he must be awakened), or the brutish violent passions which they vented in their prayers; they snarled at the stone, and howled under the whip, but regarded not the hand. Or it denotes that their hypocritical prayers were so far from being pleasing to God that they were offensive to him; he was angry at their prayers. The songs of the temple shall be howlings, Amo 8:3. God will be so far from pitying them that he will justly laugh at their calamity, who have so often laughed at his authority. (2.) When they were under public troubles, and met together to implore God's favour, in that also they were hypocritical; they assembled themselves, for fashion-sake, because it was usual to call a solemn assembly in times of general mourning, Zep 2:1. But it was only to pray for corn and wine that they came together, which were the things they wanted, and feared being deprived of by the want of rain, the judgment they now laboured under. They did not pray for the favour or grace of God, that God would give them repentance, pardon their sins, and turn away his wrath, but only that he would not take away from them their corn and wine. Note, Carnal hearts, in their prayers to God, covet temporal mercies only, and dread and deprecate no other but temporal judgments, for they have no sense of any other.
2. They pretended reformation, but neither was that sincere, Hos 7:16. Here is, (1.) The sin of Israel: They return, that is, they make as if they would return; they pretend to repent and amend their doings, but they make nothing of it; they do not come home to God nor return to their allegiance, whereas God says (Jer 4:1), If thou wilt return, O Israel! return to me; do not only turn towards me, but return to me. This dissimulation of theirs makes them like a deceitful bow, which looks as if it were fit for business, and is bent and drawn accordingly, but, when strength comes to be laid to it, either the bow or the string breaks, and the arrow, instead of flying to the mark, drops at the archer's foot. Such were their essays towards repentance and reformation. (2.) The sin of the princes of Israel. That which is charged upon them is the rage of their tongue, quarrelling with God and his providence and with all about them when they are crossed. Princes think they may say what they will, and that it is their prerogative to huff and bluster, to curse and rail, and to call names at their pleasure, but let them know there is a God above them that will call them to an account for the rage of their tongues and make their own tongues to fall upon them. (3.) The punishment of Israel and their princes for their sin. As for the princes, they shall fall by the sword either of their enemies or of their own people, some by one and some by the other; and this shall be their derision, this is that for which they shall be derided in the land of Egypt, when they flee to the Egyptians for succour, Hos 7:11. Their sin and punishment shall make them a laughing-stock to all about them. Note, Those that are treacherous and deceitful in their dealings with God, and passionate and outrageous in their conduct towards men, will justly be made a derision to their neighbours, for they make themselves ridiculous.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people,.... Either…
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people,.... Either locally, by dwelling among them, as some of them at least might do among the Syrians; or carnally, by intermarrying with them, contrary to the command of God; or civilly, by entering into alliances and confederacies with them, as Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel did with Rezin king of Syria, Isa 7:2; or by seeking to them for help, calling to Egypt, and going to Assyria, as in Hos 7:11; so Aben Ezra; or morally, by learning their manners, and conforming to their customs, especially in religious things: though some understand this as a punishment threatened them for their above sins, that they should be carried captive into foreign lands, and so be mixed among the people, and which is Jarchi's sense: but it is rather to be considered as their evil in joining with other nations in their superstition, idolatry, and other impieties; and it is highly offensive to God when his professing people mix themselves with the world, keep company with the men of it, fashion themselves according to them, do as they do, and wilfully go into their conversation, and repeat it, and continue therein, and resolve to do so: for so it may be rendered, "he will mix himself" (r); it denotes a voluntary act, repeated and persisted in with obstinacy;
Ephraim is a cake not turned; like a cake that is laid on coats, if it is not turned, the nether part will be burnt, and the upper part unbaked, and so be good for noticing; not fit to be eaten, being nothing indeed, neither bread nor dough; and so may signify, that Ephraim having introduced much of the superstition and idolatry of the Gentiles into religious worship, was nothing in religion, neither fish nor flesh, as is proverbially said of persons and things of which nothing can be made; they worshipped the calves at Dan and Bethel, and Yet swore by the name of the Lord; they halted between two opinions, and were of neither; they were like the hotch potch inhabitants of Samaria in later times, that came in their place, that feared the Lord, and served their own gods: and such professors of religion there are, who are nothing in religion; nothing in principle, they have no scheme of principles; they are neither one thing nor another; they are nothing in experience; if they have a form of godliness, they deny the power of it; they are nothing in practice, all they do is to be seen of men; they are neither hot nor cold, especially not throughout, or on both sides, like a cake unturned; but are lukewarm and indifferent, and therefore very disagreeable to the Lord. Some take this to be expressive of punishment, and not of fault; either of their partial captivity by Tiglathpileser, when only a part of them was carried captive; or of the swift and total destruction of them by their enemies, who would be like hungry and half starved persons, who meeting with a cake on the coals half baked, snatch it up, and eat it, not staying for the turning and baking it on the other side; and thus it should be with them. So the Targum,
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"the house of Ephraim is like to a cake baked on coals, which before it is turned is eaten.''
(r) "miscebit sese", Zanchius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Ephraim - The kingdom of Israel. Mixed himself -…
Ephraim - The kingdom of Israel. Mixed himself - With the Heathens by leagues and commerce and by imitation of their manners. Not turned - Burnt on one side, and dough on the other, and so good for nothing on either: always in one extreme or the other.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 8. A cake not turned.] In the East…
Verse 8. A cake not turned.] In the East having heated the hearth, they sweep one corner, put the cake upon it, and cover it with embers; in a short time they turn it, cover it again, and continue this several times, till they find it sufficiently baked. All travellers into Asiatic countries have noted this.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Hos 7:8-10. Ephraim, he hath mixed among the people…
Hos 7:8-10. Ephraim, he hath mixed among the people — By his alliances with the heathen, and by imitation of their manners, he is himself become one of them. He has thrown off all the distinctions, and forfeited the privileges of the chosen race. “The Hebrew word here rendered people,
עמים, is in the plural, and, when applied to bodies politic,” says Bishop Horsley, “always signifies the various nations of the earth, the unenlightened nations, in opposition to God’s peculiar people, the Israelites.” He therefore renders the word peoples here, “though,” as he observes, “not without some violation of the propriety of the English language, which disowns the word in the plural form.” Ephraim is a cake, or, like a cake, not turned — Burned on one side, and dough on the other, and so good for nothing on either; always in one extreme or the other. An apt image of a character that is all inconsistency. Such were the ten tribes of the prophet’s day; worshippers of Jehovah in profession, but adopting all the idolatries of the neighbouring nations, in addition to their own semi- idolatry of the calves. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not — His national strength is impaired and decaying, and he acts as if he were insensible of it. The Syrians, in the time of Jehoahaz, reduced them very low, 2Ki 13:7. Afterward they became tributaries to Pul, king of Assyria; and at length were carried captives by Shalmaneser, (chap. 17.,) and yet the afflictions that befell them did not make them sensible of the ill state of their affairs, and that the hand of God was against them. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him — The symptoms of decay. He declines in strength and power, like a man worn out with age. Rome, in the midst of great calamities, is thus described by Claudian:
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— — — Humeris vix sustinet ægris Squalentem clypeum; laxata casside, prodit Canitiem. — —
And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face — Or, witnesseth against him. Their insolent and obstinate behaviour, and continuance in sin, notwithstanding the warnings and admonitions they have had, sufficiently show how deserving they are of punishment; and they do not return, &c., nor seek him for all this — Notwithstanding such severe denunciations against them, and that they are forewarned of approaching calamities, yet they do not return to God in true repentance, nor make their supplication to him to avert his wrath.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people -…
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people - i. e., with the pagan; he “mixed” or “mingled” himself among or with them, so as to corrupt himself, as it is said, “they were mingled among the pagan and learned their works” Psa 106:35. God had forbidden all intermarriage with the pagan Exo 34:12-16, lest His people should corrupt themselves: they thought themselves wiser than He, intermarried, and were corrupted. Such are the ways of those who put themselves amid occasions of sin.
Ephraim is - (literally, “is become”) a cake (literally, “on the coals”) not turned The prophet continues the image . “Ephraim” had been “mingled,” steeped, kneaded up into one, as it were, “with the pagan,” their ways, their idolatries, their vices. God would amend them, and they, withholding themselves from His discipline, and not yielding themselves wholly to it, were but spoiled. The sort of cake, to which Ephraim is here likened, “uggah” literally, “circular,” was a thin pancake, to which a scorching heat was applied on one side; sometimes by means of hot charcoal heaped upon it; sometimes, (it is thought,) the fire was within the earthen jar, around which the thin dough was fitted. If it remained long “unturned,” it was burned on the one side; while it continued unbaked, doughy, recking, on the other; the fire spoiling, not penetrating it through. Such were the people; such are too many so-called Christians; they united in themselves hypocrisy and ungodliness, outward performance and inward lukewarmness; the one overdone, but without any wholesome effect on the other. The one was scorched and black; the other, steamed, damp, and lukewarm; the whole worthless, spoiled irremediably, fit only to be cast away. The fire of God’s judgment, with which the people should have been amended, made but an outward impression upon them, and reached not within, nor to any thorough change, so that they were the more hopelessly spoiled through the means which God used for their amendment.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Mixed, like oil and flour. (Hebrew) --- Ashes. Thin…
Mixed, like oil and flour. (Hebrew) --- Ashes. Thin cakes (Calmet) of this kind are used by the poor, in Spain, (Sanctius) and by the Arabs. (Thevenot. Levant. xxxii.) --- Turned. There was no time allowed by the enemy, who came and took the Israelites away. (Calmet) -- They became like other nations, and would not repent. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain mixed . . . among the people--by leagues with…
mixed . . . among the people--by leagues with idolaters, and the adoption of their idolatrous practices (Hos 7:9, Hos 7:11; Psa 106:35).
Ephraim . . . cake not turned--a cake burnt on one side and unbaked on the other, and so uneatable; an image of the worthlessness of Ephraim. The Easterners bake their bread on the ground, covering it with embers (Kg1 19:6), and turning it every ten minutes, to bake it thoroughly without burning it.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain ISRAEL, BLIND IN HER FOLLY, RUSHES HEADLONG TO DESTRUCTION,…
ISRAEL, BLIND IN HER FOLLY, RUSHES HEADLONG TO DESTRUCTION, Hos_7:8-16 a.
Hos_7:8-16 a connect very closely with the last clause of Hos_7:7, but these verses differ so much from the preceding in matter and form that they may be treated as a separate section. Instead of turning to Je-hovah the people mingled with the foreign nations, there to learn wisdom and to find help; unaware that by this policy they were courting certain destruction. What a disappointment the chosen nation has proved!
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8. Ephraim — As elsewhere, Israel.
Hath mixed himself among the people — R.V., following the Hebrew, “peoples,” that is, the surrounding nations. Israel has given up its divinely appointed seclusion and has mingled with the surrounding nations by (1) adopting their customs and (2) appealing to them for help. The two forms of apostasy were closely connected, the first being the inevitable result of the second. The people who had lost their faith in Jehovah, which would prompt reliance upon him in political matters, could not endure (compare Isaiah 7); their apostasy must be followed by doom (Isa_7:9).
A cake not turned — The cake alluded to here is round and flat, baked on a hot stone; if not turned it burns on the bottom while the top remains unbaked. A threefold interpretation of the figure is possible. It is either a picture of ruin — as a cake not turned is burned on the bottom, so Israel is already half ruined (Hos_7:9 would furnish the explanation); or a picture of folly and inconsistency, like as the modern colloquial “half baked,” “an apt emblem of a character full of inconsistencies” (to this Hos_7:11 would supply a commentary); or, in the third place, a picture of the internal condition of the people — “How better describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than by a half-baked scone?” Perhaps all three thoughts were in the mind of the prophet.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 8–16. The outward evidences of Israel’s decay
8–16. The outward evidences of Israel’s decay
8. he hath mixed himself among the people] Rather, he mixeth himself among the peoples. How? By courting the favour now of Egypt, now of Assyria (Hos_7:11).
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a cake not turned] Burnt to a coal at the bottom, raw dough at the top: an apt emblem of a character full of inconsistencies (Bishop Horsley). The explanation is plausible, as long as we look at the figure by itself. But the context, which refers only to Israel’s political decline, favours another view. ‘A brand snatched from the burning’ is a figure of a country, rescued only just in time from destruction. Hosea’s ‘cake not turned’ may equally well be an emblem of a country half ruined by calamities, and not rescued. The calamities of Israel, alas! are of his own making; by mingling with ‘the peoples’ he sought for warmth, but found a destroying conflagration (cf. Isa_47:14). The ‘cake’ is the round flat cake of bread which was baked on hot stones (1Ki_19:6) or on hot ashes, and required frequent turning, to prevent its being burned.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (8) Cake not turned.—Referring to the destructive effect of…
(8) Cake not turned.—Referring to the destructive effect of foreign influences. Ephraim was consumed by the unhallowed fire of Baal-worship, with all its passion and sensualism—a cake burnt on one side to a cinder, and on the other left in a condition utterly unfit for food. So the activity of foreign idolatries and foreign alliances, and the consequent unfaithfulness to Israel’s God, are the nation’s ruin.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim…
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. The people of the northern kingdom had fallen away from Jehovah, and mixed themselves with the heathen nationalities. They resembled a cake which, through neglect of turning, was burnt on the one side and raw on the other. The best commentary on the first clause of this verse is found in Psa_106:35, Psa_106:36, and Psa_106:39; they "were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.... Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a-whoring with their own inventions." The second clause is well explained by Bishop Horsley as follows: "One thing on one side, another on the other; burnt to a coal at bottom, raw dough at the top. An apt image of a character that is all inconsistencies. Such were the ten tribes of the prophet"s day; worshipers of Jehovah in profession, hut adopting all the idolatries of the neighboring nations, in addition to their own semi-idolatry of the calves." Similarly, the Geneva Bible has, "Baked on one side and raw on the ether, he is neither through hot nor through cold, but partly a Jew and partly a Gentile." Jehovah had chosen Israel out of the nations of the earth, and given them a special constitution. The object of this segregation was that Israel should be a peculiar people and a holy nation. Thus distinguished, they were to dwell alone; but, ungrateful for this high distinction, and unmindful of their high destiny, they mingled with the nations, learned their heathenish ways, and worshipped their hateful idols. Thus they forfeited their theocratic preeminence. While it was their privilege as well u duty to follow the precepts of Jehovah, and serve him with undivided affection, they fell away from his service and adopted the idolatries and habits of the heathen; it was only a just retribution, therefore, when God gave them ever into the hand of those heathen peoples to waste their resources and leave them shorn of their strength. The second clause is the counterpart of this; exactly like the peoples subsequently brought from Assyria, and planted in the lands of the dispossessed Israelites, they worshipped the Lord, but served their own gods they were neither true worshippers of Jehovah nor out-and-out followers of Baal. In religion they were mongrels inconsistent and worthless hybrids; they were, in fact, what Calvin in rather homely phrase says of them," neither flesh nor fish." The comment of Kimchi is concise as it is clear: "The prophet means to say, He (Israel) mixes himself among the peoples; though God blessed be he
(1) separated them from them, yet they mix them. selves among them and do according to their works." His explanation of the second clause is not so satisfactory when he says, As a cake which is baked upon the coals; if they do not turn it, it is burnt below and not baked above, so is the counsel that is not right when they do not turn it from side to side (sense to sense) until they bring it upon their wheels (into action). So (thoughtless and hasty) is Ephraim in his determination to serve the calves and other gods without proving and choosing what is good.
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(2) Other explanations need only be referred to in order to be rejected, as
(1) that of Rashi, who is followed by Grotius. He takes the verb in the future sense: Ephraim in exile shall be mixed among the peoples." But it is obviously the present, not the future time, that is intended the present sin, not its future punishment. There is
(2) the explanation of Aben Ezra, followed by Eichhorn and Maurer, referring to the alliances or treaties which the northern kingdom formed with their neighbors to repel their enemies, and by which the resources of the land were consumed; while the second clause,
(a) according to Aben Ezra, refers to the over-hastiness and thoughtlessness with which Israel proceeded in their resolutions; and,
(b) according to Maurer, Jerome, and Theodoret, it signifies what is spoiled, ill-advised, and worthless.
Vers. 8-11. The silly sinful pride and obduracy of Israel, in spite of many manifest tokens of decay, or their disastrous foreign policy.
The prophet had described the corruption; he now turns to the state of the country. From the iniquity of the princes he descends to the sin of the people. The figure of baking is still present to the prophet, as is evident from the metaphor of a cake.
I THE INCONSISTENCY AND WORTHLESSNESS OF DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE. God had intended to separate Israel from the rest of the nations, and by prohibiting intermarriages to keep them distinct.
1. The great purpose of this separation was to prevent their associating with their heathen neighbors, and conforming to their idolatries and immoralities. Thus they were to conserve the doctrines of the Divine unity, the knowledge of the true God, and the purity of his worship. But by intercourse with their neighbors, and forming alliances now with one then with another, in order to secure their help the help of one against another they got mixed up with them, and became like a cake in which two ingredients at least, Judaism and Gentilism, were kneaded together. The consequence of such admixture, as the word (llb) implies, was confusion.
2. But, in addition to baking the cake of such heterogeneous elements, there was the defective evening, or rather imperfect hardening of the cake by fire, so that one side was burnt and blackened, the other doughy and damp neither roast nor raw, and consequently useless. Thus Israel was often, as in the days of Ahab, halting between God and Baal; now zealous for the latter and indifferent to the former, or the converse; more commonly cold towards Jehovah and warm for Baal; frequently neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. They blended Gentile idolatry with the worship of the true God; they joined in the calf-worship at Dan and Bethel, while they swore by the Name of Jehovah. It is thus also with many professing Christians: they have a name to live, but are dead; they have a form of godliness, but want the power; they are hypocritical professors, but are devoid of real godliness. Whatever outward services they perform, it is for parade or to be seen of men, while they are strangers to the practice of piety and exercise of charity. The Targum explains this of punishment rather than of position. "The house of Ephraim is like to a cake baked on coals, which before it is turned is eaten;" that is, they are suddenly destroyed by their enemies, who are like hungry men that, without waiting for the turning and proper baking of a cake, snatch it up, though only half baked, and speedily devour it.
II TOKENS OF DIVINE DISPLEASURE. When God is displeased with a person or a people, one way in which he manifests such displeasure is by desertion. He leaves them in the hands of their enemies. On the contrary, when a man"s ways please the Lord, he makes his enemies to be at peace with him. When Israel, in consequence of sin, was thus deserted, strangers devoured his strength, that is to say, his substance; they robbed him of his wealth, they wasted the fruits of his field, they dismantled his fortresses, they destroyed the flower of the population, and they imposed oppressive tribute. The strangers referred to included several nationalities. The Syrians had so weakened and distressed Israel in the reign of Jehoahaz that they had made them like the dust by threshing." Then came the Assyrians under Pul in the days of Menahem King of Israel, and exacted a tribute of a thousand talents of silver, thus draining their resources and devouring their strength. Subsequently, Tiglath-pileser, monarch of Assyria, captured many of the Israelitish fortresses, and carried the inhabitants into captivity. By such exactions and devastations strangers exhausted the strength of Israel
III MARKS OF NATIONAL AND SPIRITUAL DECAY. Grey hairs, if plentiful, are a sign that old age has already arrived; grey hairs, when sprinkled here and there, are symptoms of its approach, and of life"s decline.
1. Grey hairs had at this time appeared here and there in Israel, and thus proved the kingdom to be in a weak and declining state; they were not only symptomatic of the present, but prognostic of the future. The afforded proof plain and palpable of national declension at present existing through the depredations and exactions of the enemy; they also foreboded the melancholy fact that utter decay was near at hand.
2. But there is also spiritual decay, and the life of the soul is subject to it. How many professing Christians members of the visible Church are in this sad condition of spiritual declension, and hardly conscious of it! Grey hairs are here and there upon them, and they know it not. The dwelling-place of God is not so lovely, nor the tabernacles of iris grace so amiable, as they once were; there is not the same relish for the Word of God as there once was; prayer is not so fervent or so frequent as formerly; prairies are not so hearty nor so heavenly as when the Christian life began; all such circumstances give evidence that grey hairs are here and thereupon persons in the condition indicated, whether they perceive them or not. But we cannot stay to dwell on the nature of spiritual decay and the marks thereof; we may, however, briefly sum them up. They are such as the following: diminished appreciation of the Divine Word, without self-application of it or growth in the knowledge of it; restraining prayer before God, without supplication for one"s self on special occasions and under particular circumstances, and without earnest intercession for others; less love to Christ and less leaning on him; less hatred of sin and less esteem for the righteous.
3. It is of prime importance to ascertain the causes of decay. What caused the national decay of Israel? There was the prevalence of lust: They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker;" this was one of the causes of Israel"s decline. Another cause was their intercourse with the ungodly: Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people." These may be taken as specimens of the causes which brought about the national decline of Israel. When lust prevailed, or when they associated freely among the nations instead of dwelling alone, grey hairs appeared here and there upon them. So is it with spiritual decay in the case of Christians. When sensual lust, or last for gold, or for pleasure, or for praise, overmasters a follower of Christ, decay has set in, grey hairs show themselves here and there upon him. Again, when worldly society is eagerly sought and keenly relished by Christians, forgetful that, like Israel of old, they are a peculiar people, as our Lord has said, "Ye are not of the world, as I am not of the world," then spiritual affections are decaying, grey hairs are here and there upon them.
4. The most surprising circumstance of all is the ignorance of those who are sufferers by this process of decay. Israel did not know because he did not wish to know, as if by ignoring it he could conceal it from himself or others. He knoweth not," says Pusey, the tokens of decay in himself, but hides them from himself; he knoweth not God, who is the Author of them; he knoweth net the cause of them, his sins; he knoweth not the end and object of them, his conversion; he knoweth not what, since he knoweth not any of these things, will be the issue of them, his destruction." Somehow thus it is with spiritual decay. Most persons dislike the idea of growing old, or even of being thought old. They care not to notice themselves, and they conceal from others as much as possible, the marks of age and the progress of decay. All the while grey hairs multiply, and old age creeps on apace, almost imperceptibly and without being observed, so that in a certain sense many persons become old without fully realizing the fact. Likewise in the decay of life in a Christian"s soul, it goes on secretly, and little, if at all, noticed, like the silent advance of age with its gradually increasing decrepitude and decay; grey hairs are here and there upon him, and he knows it not. Let us beware of the insidious approach of spiritual decay, and be on ore" guard against it.
IV PRIOR RAISES A GREAT BARRIER BETWEEN THE SOUL AND GOD, Notwithstanding Israel"s decline, pride attended them still; it remained unsubdued; it prevented their return to God; it stood in the way of their seeking him. Or, if the other translation be preferred, and if it be granted that Israel"s pride was humbled by the calamities that had come upon them, those calamities had not been sanctified, and so they returned not to nor sought the Lord. For all this, and in spite of all God"s merciful dealings with them, they persisted in their impenitence and stood out against the Most High. God had shown them his loving-kindness, and again he had visited them with severe corrections; he had almost exhausted the resources of his grace; and yet they were in no way bettered, but rather grew worse. So is it with many. God"s gracious dealings fail to draw them to God; his afflictive dispensations too often drive them away from God. And yet, when he sends affliction, it is a loud call on men, not only to seek relief from God, but also to seek God himself, his face and favor-free as well as that help which he alone can give; whereas obstinate impenitence frustrates the dispensations of Providence, and afflictions unsanctified in no way better men or improve their
V FOLLY THE CAUSE OF MEN NEGLECTING THE RIGHT, AND RESORTING TO WRONG SOURCES OF SUCCOR AND RELIEF.
1. Simplicity with godly sincerity, in accepting the Word of God and in obeying the will of God, is estimable and highly commendable; simplicity without a heart to love God, following his guidance, and delighting in his governance, is both wrong-headed and reprehensible. With regard to the former there is the promise, "The Lord preserveth the simple;" in relation to the latter the solemn question is asked, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?" The union of simplicity or ingenuousness of purpose with understanding of heart is commended by the exhortation of our Lord, Be ye wise as serpents, harmless or, "simple as doves.
2. The silliness of Israel was simplicity in its bad sense, as we learn from the specimen of their conduct which the prophet subjoins. The calamities which befell them were so many calls to them to return to God and seek his merciful interposition; but, instead of applying to God, they exhibited unspeakable folly in having recourse to one or other of the two great rival powers, Egypt and Assyria, of which the former was as unreliable as a broken reed, piercing the hand that leans on it, and the latter crushing and cruel as the king of foreign beasts in devouring his prey. "Egypt," it has been well said, "was a delusive promiser, not failing only, but piercing those who leant on it; Assyria was a powerful oppressor.
3. The miseries which Israel brought upon himself, and in which men frequently involve themselves by taking a similarly silly and simple course, were
(1) inescapable, and such as they could by no possibility extricate themselves from, for the net of God would ensnare and envelop them.
(2) They are unquestionably certain; for however high hopes men may entertain of their carnal confidences, to whatever height of temporary prosperity they may be elevated, God is sure to bring them down, and their fall will be disgraceful in proportion to the elevation they fancied themselves to have attained.
(3) They will consist of sore chastisements, and all the sorer from being so well deserved.
4. The folly of such conduct in the face of warnings so great and manifold is as inexcusable as undeserving of pity. Israel sent southward to Egypt or traveled northward to Assyria in search of human helps, all the time turning their back on God; while to all the exhortations and remonstrances addressed to the congregation of Israel they refused to lend an ear. Line upon line they had been favored with in the book of the Law in the blessings on obedience and the curses on disobedience which Ebal and Gerizim respectively re-echoed in the teachings of other prophets, in the appeals of Hosea himself; their heedlessness to all these disentitled them to sympathy from man or succor from God.
A cake not turned.
There are many striking sayings in Hosea. This one, in particular, has a quiet touch of humor in it, as well as a severe reproof. There is nothing conventional in the style of the Bible writers. When they have anything practical to say, they do not wrap it up in verbiage. The Book of Hosea contains strains of poetry of surpassing splendor; yet here is an illustration from the cottager"s kitchen. Let us look at this cake. It is burnt to a cinder on one side, and remains limp and doughy on the other. It is partly underdone, partly overdone; and thus, being neither dough nor bread, it is quite spoiled, and fit only to be thrown away. The metaphor reminds us of the English legend of good King Alfred, when a wanderer in the forest of Selwood: the royal fugitive kept mending his bow and arrows, and forgot to turn the cakes which the neat-herd"s wife had committed to his care. The first part of the verse helps us to understand the metaphor in its application to the kingdom of the ten tribes. Ephraim had "mixed himself among the people," i.e. entered into political alliances with the heathen round about, and conformed to their idolatrous usages. Yet he did not wish to break with Jehovah altogether; the Israelites continued to observe the sabbaths and the feast-days. (Hos_2:11) But the simile before us may be used with a still wider application. It describes
I THE NATURAL STATE OF MANKIND. Human nature since the Fall has been spoiled and worthless. There clings to it a radical defect Godward. Man is like a cake which has its warm side to the earth, and its cold side towards heaven. Some unrenewed men are very kindly in feeling and unselfish in action towards their fellow-men, but all the while their hearts remain cold and ungrateful towards God. We remember the young man who came to Christ, of whom it is said that "Jesus, beholding him, loved not turned." Low, but majestic, though most strangely formed Of contradictions and antitheses, With head of gold and feet of miry clay, One half of dust, one half of deity; Touching the angel here, and there the brute. Here, "thoughts that wander through eternity;" There, passions sounding all the sties of time; His rooted selfishness and lofty love, His little life, his princely intellect, His pure desires, his hateful selfishness, Deeds of darkness, and his thoughts of light. (Gilfillan.)
II THE CHARACTER OF MANY WHO MAKE A PROFESSION OF RELIGION.
1. In this connection various ideas are suggested.
1. Hypocrisy. Ephraim boasted that he was a nation sacred to Jehovah all the while that he addicted himself to the idolatry of Baal and Ashtaroth. So, still, the man who shags at meeting and swears at market is a hypocrite. It is in vain to call out "Lord, Lord," if we do not the things which Christ says. Obedience in the letter is valueless, when divorced from obedience in the spirit. The bottles of profession are of no use if we do not pour into them the wine of principle.
2. Inconsistency. The people of the northern kingdom betrayed this in "mixing themselves" spiritually with the uncircumcised and unclean Gentiles. And, in our own day, how many there are whose fixed resolve seems to be to wear the Christian name, and at the same time take care not to part from the world l Their business habits assume the form of an ingeniously adjusted compromise between the service of God and that of mammon. And in social and domestic life they try to retain some relish for the pleasures of religion, even amidst the pursuit of amusements that are distinctively worldly. But it is a wretched thing to be "neither fish nor flesh" as regards character. It is impossible to "run both with the hare and the hounds." Spiritually, each of us is really either one thing or the other, and we should seem to be what we are. The Lord"s command is," Be not conformed to this world"; (Rom_12:2) "Come out from among them, and be ye separate". (2Co_6:17)
3. Half-heartedness. There are many who name Christ"s Name by partaking of the Lord"s Supper, whose religion, as reflected in their daily lives, seems little more than nominal. You cannot say that they are wicked sinners, but neither dare you call them saints. They are too good to ban, and too bad to bless; too good for hell, but not nearly good enough for heaven. Their character is one of insipid negative respectability. Then there are those also who make only a half-and-half profession who confess Christ"s Name so far as to attend public worship, but stop short at the threshold of the guest-chamber, where the Lord"s Supper is spread. Perhaps they think that only conscientious scruples keep them back; but God, who knows the heart, may judge that it is rather half-heartedness. For, if Christianity be true, it is a tremendous verity. And if it be right to hear Christ"s gospel preached, it is dutiful also to obey his other precepts; as, e.g., to "do this in remembrance of him," and, "whatsoever we do, to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
III THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF MANY TRUE CHRISTIANS. Indeed, we might almost say, of all. For where is the believer whose spiritual condition satisfies his own enlightened convictions as to what he ought to be? Our personal deficiencies abound; and these are due either to our moral ignorance or to our moral supineness.
1. Our Christian character lacks thoroughness. The process of sanctification is designed to renew us "in the whole man," and yet we know that in fact a holy character is never perfected in this life. Every believer has within him a mixture of good and evil, and the purer he becomes he is the more ready to acknowledge the imperfection of his nature. Many true Christians, however, do not co-operate with God"s Spirit so earnestly as they might, in striving to rid themselves of indwelling sin. They carry with them that Laodicean lukewarmness which the Lord abhors; (Rev_3:16) their Christian character, in wanting thoroughness, is like "a cake not turned.
2. It also lacks all-sidedness. A man may be a true believer for a lifetime, and yet neglect entirely to bring some important departments of conduct into contact with the fire of Divine grace. He may try to regulate his domestic affairs by the law of Christ, and forget all the while to subject his business concerns to the same law. Some good men trust God absolutely about their souls, but only partially about their temporal affairs. Some are zealous workers in the cause of Christ, but would rather avoid putting money into his treasury; while others seldom refuse to give a subscription, but give it on the understanding that they are not to be expected to take any personal trouble. Now, if we distinguish in this way between one duty and another, both of which are equally binding, what are we but "a cake not turned"? To avoid such defects, we must enlighten conscience and strengthen its authority; and expose our whole nature, in spirit and soul and body, to the fire of gospel truth and grace. C.J.
The sin of half-heartedness.
When the discipline which God sends to arouse men to thought fails of its purpose, it cannot but harm the nation or the individual receiving it. There is a light from heaven which ushers in the new day, and wakes the world to life and joy; but there is also a light from heaven, seen in the lightning-flash, which serves only to make the darkness visible; and this, not that, was the emblem of the light shed upon Israel by exhortation and discipline in Hosea"s times. They were scorched, not blessed, because they refused to turn to the Lord. Subject The sin of half-heartedness is set before us in the graphic imagery of our text.
I THE CAUSE OF THIS SIN. Doubtless it varies according to the circumstances and the character of each one who is guilty of it. Sometimes the sin results from weakness of character and vacillation of purpose, and sometimes from want of earnest consideration. But the cause mentioned in our text is by no means infrequent. "Ephraim hath mixed himself among the people," i.e. the heathen. Israel was ordained to be a separated people. (Exo_34:12, 13 Lev_20:24) Balaam was shrewd enough to see that their strength lay in their separateness. (Num_23:9) He knew that the curse Balak sought against them would fall, if only they could be blended with the idolatrous people around. Partakers in guilt, they would be partakers in punishment. To us the restrictions placed on their marriage and their commerce appear illiberal; but he who imposed them understood the weakness of this people, and estimated rightly the universality and intensity of idolatry. Results justified God"s ordinance. Jeroboam"s residence in Egypt brought calf-worship into Israeli Ahab"s marriage with Jezebel introduced the rites of Baal and Ashtaroth. In Hosea"s time the people were leavened by idolatry, and the allusion here is to this fact, and not to the political alliances formed with heathen empires, or to the conquest of parts of Israel"s territory by idolatrous kings. To him loss of character was more ominous than loss of territory. Israel was no longer worth preserving. The object of their existence, to witness to the one living and true God, could no longer be attained. The salt had lost its savor, and was henceforth good for nothing. With their remembrance of Mosaic Law and their practice of idolatrous rites, they were like "a cake not turned irremediably spoilt. Show from this the importance of right companionship, especially to those whose characters are in the formative stage. Jealously as parents watch against the intrusion of one who is suffering from infectious disease, how much less watchful and firm are they against the introduction to their homes of those whose presence cannot fail to be a source of moral infection! When the result of such association is not seen in outward depravity, it is often seen in a wasted and frivolous life. The effect is gradually produced. The Rhine and the Arno flow side by side in the same channel without mingling their waters; but though the swifter stream keeps clear for a while, at last it is defiled; and it is the turbid stream that conquers. "Gather not my soul with sinners;" "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
II THE NATURE OF THIS SIN. The cake (uggah) was a thin circular pancake, exposed to the scorching heat of red-hot stones, and of necessity must be quickly turned, or it would be burnt on one side and moist dough on the other: spoilt, because not penetrated. A good figure to represent this people, who knew God"s Law, remembered his worship, but were in practice idolaters. They refused to turn to God the other half, the practical part of their being. Give examples of those who have served God by halves; belonging neither to the world nor to the Church. In Elijah"s days the people were impressed by the power of Jehovah, yet loved the pleasures of idolatry; hence the question of the prophet, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" Christ Jesus had around him those who admired his teaching; but they would not risk being put out of the synagogue, nor associate with illiterate peasants, nor follow One who would lead them to the cross; so to them he said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." See also the condition of Laodicea. (Rev_3:14-18) Such a character is discoverable still, in those who join in worship, though in heart they neither pray nor praise; in those conscious of sin, yet not justified by faith; in those using the words of prayer, without any speaking to the Father who seeth in secret, etc. God seeks not for such. We are to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; whole-hearted in all we offer to him not as Ephraim, the cake not turned.
III THE EFFECTS OF THIS SIN. We are responsible for our unconscious influence over others. Our Lord condemned the scribes and Pharisees; "for," said he, ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." Better far would it have been had they been openly irreligious. Picture a man standing near the door of the ark a wise and prominent man in antediluvian society, hesitating whether to believe Noah or the skeptics; while others wait to see his decision. How deep and loud their curses afterwards if he decided not to enter, or if he hesitated so long that it was too late for him and them! Apply this to modern life. A father has children whose characters are rapidly forming; and he is not in the kingdom, though not far from it. They naturally say, "We are waiting for father; he is a hearer of the truth; he knows more than we; he is an upright man; if it be right to be wholly on Christ"s side he will be, so let us wait for his decision." For the sake of others let procrastination come to an end, and be it yours to say with Joshua, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
IV THE PERILS OF THIS SIN.
1. You strengthen temptations against yourself. You say in effect to influences for evil," Don"t give me up yet, for I am not decided." A candidate, who in canvassing finds one voter who has not made up his mind, will call again with others who have more influence than himself, and the waverer is won ever. In the counsels of the wicked concerning one who is half-hearted it is said, "We will ask him again; his answer was not decided; he is not an avowedly Christian man; by a little pressure we can bring him over." How can such a man pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"?
2. You weaken porters for good, and lessen beige of the future. There is a blossoming time for every tree, a flowering time for every corn-field, and then the future is decided, for fruit or for barrenness. Our Lord comes down to listen at every heart for prayer, to see the effect of all he has done for each. He looks and feels for fruit amidst the leaves of the fig tree, and finding none he finally utters the word, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. A.R.
Vers. 8, 9. Sad aspects of character.
"Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." The primary application of these words to Ephraim is obvious from the context, anti from the history of Israel at the time. We shall use them as indicating certain bad aspects of human character.
I WRONG COMPANIONSHIP. "Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people." The reference is here not to the punishment or dispersion of the Israelites among the nations, but to the state in which Israel was at the time. Heaven"s plan was that the Hebrew people should separate from the nations, and be holy to him; (Lev_20:24-26) to be as Balaam predicted, "a people dwelling alone". (Num_23:9) But in opposition to this the ten tribes had mingled with the heathen, learned their works and served their idols. Now, what is a wrong mixing with the people? Not inter mixture in marriages. It appears to us that the mingling of the different tribes of mankind in matrimonial alliances is, according to the plan of the Creator, highly promotive of the good of the entire race. Not intercourse in business. Such is the state of human society that good men are bound in worldly affairs to have dealings with the irreligious and depraved. Not associating with them for spiritual usefulness. Those who think that the saints of God should shut themselves up from the world, dwell in monasteries, and live as hermits, make a great mistake. The more Divine love and truth a man has in him, the more bound is he to be out in the world, and to let the light of his doctrines and his character flash widely and strongly upon the heart of his compeers. The man who has "mixed himself with others" does as did the ten tribes now; for worldly advantage and unholy gratifications make bad people companions. It is said that Pythagoras, before he admitted any one into his school, inquired who were his intimates, justly concluding that they who could choose immoral companions would not be much profited by his instructions.
II MORAL WORTHLESSNESS. "Ephraim is a cake not turned." The Easterns hake their bread on the ground, covering it with embers, and turn it every ten minutes to bake it thoroughly without burning it. (1Ki_19:6) Without the turning it would be charcoal on one side and dough on the other, and the bread would be worthless. Worthlessness is the idea. Ephraim or Israel for the words seem to be used convertibly had become utterly useless in a spiritual sense. It no longer fulfilled its Divine mission maintaining and promoting the worship of the one true and living God. As the unturned cake would be thrown away as utterly unfit for human food, Israel was to be thrown away by God as utterly unfit to fulfill its mission. What a sad thing to be utterly worthless in a moral sense! salt that has lost its savor, only fit to be trodden underfoot; trees that have lost their fruit, only fit for the fire! Usefulness is the grand purpose of our being. The man who does not make the world better than he found it, must be accursed.
III SOCIAL DESPOILMENT. "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not." The reference probably here is to the fact that Shalmaneser King of Assyria finally carried away Israel captive because of the defection of Hoshea King of Israel to So King of Egypt. (see 2Ki_13:7 2Ki_15:19, 20 17:3, 6) In consequence of their unholy mingling with idolatrous people and their dependence upon foreign nations, they got rifled of their property, their power, and their influence. Thus strangers devoured their strength. How many souls in all ages lose their "strength" under the influence in which they mingle! Their intellectual power, social sympathies, moral sensibilities, get used up, and they become the mere creatures of others and of circumstances. The man of society "has his strength devoured;" he loses freedom and force and manhood.
IV UNCONSCIOUS DECAY. "Yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not." Moral strength goes so slowly from men that they are often not conscious of its loss until they are reduced to the utmost prostration. Thus with Samson, "He wist not that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him." Nations have their grey hairs, and they don"t know it; Churches have their grey hairs, and are unconscious of them. So also with individuals; decay is so gradual that the subject is unconscious that death is working its ruin.
CONCLUSION. Let us look at these aspects of character and learn practical wisdom. Form no friendship with sinners; come out from amongst theme "the companion of fools shall be destroyed." Avoid a worthless life. Be not like the unturned cake; render some service to the universe. Allow not the social influences of your sphere to steal away your strength, to eat up your manhood; conclude not that decay is not working within you because you are unconscious of it. Wake up to the great realities of your spiritual being, and be strong in the Lord. D.T.
Vers. 8-10. Mixing with the ungodly.
"Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people had adopted heathenish ways, had sot at naught the command of God requiring separation from the ungodly, had intimately associated himself with the idolatrous nations around. The mixing, as Keil well points out, was an inward one before it became an outward one. There is first a mixing in the heart with the spirit of the world, then comes outward worldly conformity. It is this which Christians have constantly to guard against. (Rom_12:2) Their calling is to be separate. (2Co_6:14-18) They need to remember that "the friendship of the world is enmity with God" (Jam_4:4) and that "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him". (1Jn_2:15) Mixing with the world the sin of the Church today, as it was the sin of Israel of old has its effects.
I SPIRITUAL INCONSISTENCY. "Ephraim is a cake not turned overdone on the one side, underdone on the other; not of a piece throughout; one side "scorched and black, the other steamed, damp, and lukewarm; the whole worthless, spoiled irremediably, but only to be cast away" (Pusey). The unturned cake is an emblem:
1. Of partial conversion. We have this where the Divine life has not penetrated the nature, but affects only parts and sides of it. The conscience is sensitive on some points, but not on others. Favorite duties are attended to, while others not less important are neglected. The conduct in some things shows the power of religion, in others it appears untouched by its influence. There is a want of pervasion, of through-and-throughness in the character. An illustration is afforded in what Stanley says of Saul: "He became " another man," yet not entirely. He was, as is so often the case, half converted, half roused. His mind moved unequally and disproportionately in its new sphere. Backwards and forwards in the names of his children we see alternately the signs of the old heathenish superstition, and of the new purified religion of Jehovah.... His religion was never blended with his moral nature. It broke out in wild ungovernable acts of zeal and superstition, and then left him more a prey than ever to his own savage disposition.
2. Of zeal for the forms of religion combined with denial of its power. Pharisaism was an instance of this. We have other examples in Judah and Israel. The people of the two kingdoms seem never to have failed in their zeal for the outward services of religion. They kept up sacrifices and offerings; (Hos_6:6) observed the feast days; (Hos_2:11 Isa_1:11-14 Amo_5:21, Amo_5:22) were unusually attentive to these forms when trouble seemed impending. With all this they were iniquitous in heart and life. They neglected the weightier matters of the Law judgment, mercy, and faith. (Mat_23:23) With excess of zeal for the forms, there was no zeal at all for the reality. For this, God likens them to an unturned cake.
3. Generally, of religious profession, with inconsistency of conduct. Religion is intended to pervade the life. It should be as manifest on weekdays as on Sundays; in the ordinary business of life as in the devotions of the sanctuary. Yet how many fail in thus carrying out the life of the gospel! What grievous inconsistencies are seen in their conduct I They maintain their profession, yet "mix with the people," and fall in freely with the world"s ungodly ways. Surely this is to be "a cake not turned.
II SPIRITUAL DECAY. "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, grey hairs," etc. Ephraim had already suffered much from the people among whom he had chosen to mix himself. But even he was not aware of the amount of harm they had done him. He did not perceive how this intercourse with the heathen had sapped the moral strength of the nation; had deteriorated its politics; had beguiled it into a false dependence on foreign helpers; had given a mighty impetus to every disintegrating force already at work in the kingdom. The grey hairs significant of decay were thickly strewn upon him, but he perceived it not. Deterioration inevitably results from the mixing of Christians with the world.
1. Worldly conformity leads to a decay of inward religious earnestness. The diversion of thought and affection from spiritual things to the objects about which alone the world cares necessarily brings about this result. The temperature of the spiritual life fails in conformity with its environment. Interest in religion gives place to interest in the things which are the constant subjects of thought, talk, and concern in the circles in which we move. It is, besides, soon found that participation in the world"s pleasures and follies is incompatible with serious attention to the things of the soul, and the latter, accordingly, is soon abandoned.
2. Inward spiritual decay reveals itself by various outward tokens. As grey hairs upon the head reveal the gradual approach of age. Among the indications of decay of piety we may notice neglect of prayer, and of the reading of God"s Word; aversion to religious conversation; the preference of the society of the worldly to the society of God"s people; neglect of the sanctuary; a light, depreciating way in speaking of religious earnestness, etc.
3. The progress of spiritual decay is often not noticed by the sinner himself. It comes on gradually. There is an unwillingness to look closely into the spiritual state. The power of spiritual perception gets lost.
III SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. Ephraim did not know, and would not be warned. Darkness had blinded his eyes. "The pride of Israel" testified to his face, but Ephraim understood neither
(1) the plain speaking of the prophets;
(2) the signs of internal decay;
(3) the voice of external judgments.
"For all this" he would not return to God. Sin is blindness, fatuity, folly. The worldly conformist speedily becomes blinded. The god of this world blinds him, and he is willing to be blinded. (2Co_4:4) He cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old. (2Pe_1:9) "He knoweth nothing," says Pusey.
(1) "He knoweth not the tokens of decay in himself, but hides them from himself;
(2) he knoweth not God, who is the Author of them;
(3) he knoweth not the cause of them, his sins;
(4) he knoweth not the end and object of them, his conversion;
(5) he knoweth not what, since he knoweth not any of these things, will be the issue of them, his destruction. J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim…
Hos_7:8
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
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Moral declension
Much real pain is caused, to a rightly constituted mind, by the failure of fondly cherished anticipations. To trace the causes of moral declensions is a most important exercise. As these are discovered, we are put on our guard.
I. The conduct of ephraim.
1. The persons with whom he associated. Described as the people, that is, the idolatrous remnants of the nations originally possessing the land. The separation of Israel from other nations was a type of the separation into which God has ever called His believing people from persons of sinful and worldly principles and character. Scripture injunctions, in relation to this, are far from being regarded by professed Christians as they should.
2. The character of Ephraims association with these parties. Mixed himself among them. Friendly and intimate association. It is such intercourse the Christian ought to avoid. We are not required to abstain from all intercourse, but from such intimacy as would bring us into evil influence. In unrestrained intercourse with the world, a Christian is often led to go farther than consistency sanctions. A Christian too much mixes himself with the world--
(1) When his chosen associates and most intimate friends are selected from the world.
(2) When he allows himself to participate in the dishonourable principles or pursuits of worldly men.
(3) When he is found frequently mingling in the pleasures of the world.
3. The voluntary and spontaneous nature of this association. Ephraim was not forced into, but he mixed himself among them. To a certain extent, the Christian not only may but must mingle with the world. That is a very different thing from courting the society of men of the world.
II. The character of ephraim, as the result of his conduct, A cake not turned. The figure intimates--
1. The undecided character of his religion.
2. The worthlessness of such religion.
(1) As the ground of personal safety.
(2) As a source of personal enjoyment, and as the means of support and consolation under trial.
(3) As a means of security against danger and temptation.
(4) In exerting a beneficial influence on the minds of worldly men.
III. The personal instruction which the consideration of such a character may supply.
1. How important that worldly minded men and undecided persons should correctly understand their real position.
2. How needful that they who have any regard to their spiritual interests should exercise great circumspection as to the characters and habits of those with whom they familiarly associate.
3. How desirable that Christians, by a more decided and elevated tone of spirituality in feeling and conduct, should make the line of separation between the Church and the world more apparent. This is required in view of your own spiritual well-being, and in order to the graciousness of your influence on others. (H. Bromley.)
The sin of Ephraim
I. Ephraims unhappy mixture. He hath joined himself with the nations in their idolatrous and profane conversation. There was a threefold mixture. A local mixture, of place and company. A civil mixture, of affinity and alliance. A moral mixture, in regard of manners, religion, and conversation. For Gods people to comply with those who are wicked and ungodly in their practices, and to conform themselves to their customs and manners, is a thing very grievous and insufferable. The conformity of Gods people to the world is contrary to their election, and Gods special designation of their persons to eternal life. It is also opposed to their redemption. We are redeemed for another purpose than this. We are called out of the world, and God has thereby distinguished us from other men who are in the world. Our sanctification too is an argument against conformity to the world. It engages us to self-mortification and to spiritual quickening.
II. Ephraims indifferent temper. A cake not turned. Take the figure as an amplification of their sin. They were only baked on one side, that is, they were of an imperfect and indifferent temper in religion. This may be an expression of hypocrisy and false-heartedness in religion; of neutrality and indifferency in religion; of deficiency and imperfection in religion. Cakes not turned are mere notion and speculation in religion, which proceed not to practice and operation: purposes and resolution without practice; the practice of some things, but omission of others; extravagance and the following of two extremes. Take the figure as an amplification of their punishment. As a hungry man catches the cake from the hearth before it is baked, so the enemies of Ephraim were hurrying to devour her. There was no respite for repentance and turning to God. No opportunity for escape. (T. Herren, D. D.)
Half-baked
A strange text, but there are so many strange people in the world that odd words are sometimes needed to reach them. All can understand about a cake. One that was only half-baked you would say was a deceit. There are people like such a cake. They look beautiful and good when in church, but when you come to try them, they are anything but pleasant. They are cakes not turned. Jesus was once speaking of this kind of thing, and took cups and saucers for His text. He said, Do not wash the outside only, and make believe about the inside. Do the same with your characters. If you pretend to be good, then be good, inside and out, in your heart and thoughts as well as in your appearance. That is what this cake is meant to teach. Be thorough; do not try to appear what you are not. The best way to seem good is by being good. What is the good of seeming good if your thoughts are bad? God can see when you are only aa a cake not turned. No one ever yet lost by obeying God. Be thorough, honest, and God-fearing in and out; do not have a religion like a weathercock that shifts with the wind, or one that can be broken with an if or a but. God sees you altogether. A great sculptor in Greece, long ago, made a statue that was to be set on a high column, yet he was as particular about the hair on the top of the statues head as about all the rest. Why take so much pains about that? some one said. Nobody will ever see it. No, replied the sculptor, but God will see it. Then be true in heart if you would be true in life. (J. Reid Howat.)
One-sidedness in religion
The figures of Scripture are less ornate than homely and expressive. Even a child knows what will happen if the cake be not turned. It will be ruined on both sides, and be wholly unfit for use. Such a cake denotes a type of character at once distempered and untempered, a character that lacks unity, that is spoiled by defect and damaged by excess, an inconsistent whole.
I. The grounds of this impeachment.
1. Ephraim has mixed himself among the people; he has missed the practical design, of religion, which is entire separation unto God. Many persons seek to combine in themselves contradictory qualities. They would be spiritual on one side and carnal on the other. They have a side that is religiously baked, and a side that is carnally crude. They are religiously blistered and carnally sodden.
2. Ephraim was indisposed to look to God, to call upon Him, to count on Him as the unit of power against the enemy. Religion was kept for ceremonies and state occasions; it was not an everyday working religion. They had a notional knowledge of God, but they did not seek after an experimental knowledge of Him. Jehovah was in their notions, He was not in their trust. Had He been in their trust they would have turned round to Him in their trouble. The cake would have been browned on both sides. And how many now have a name to live and are dead! To a certain extent they have the right notion, but it does not determine their practice, nor lead them to seek the confirmation of experience. Hence the cake is done only on one side. Better never to have known the truth at all, than for the truth never to influence the practice and issue in experience.
3. Ephraim was proud (Hos_7:10). Pride is always a one-sided and therefore spiritually false thing. Pride is based on fleshly comparison. No one could be proud who saw himself in the Divine light. If self-complacence creeps into our hearts, it is quite time the cake was turned.
4. Ephraim used temporal things inordinately and licentiously. They were carried into intemperate excesses. There is a possibility of ruining the cake through self-indulgence.
II. The teachings that underlie Ephraims impeachment. These teachings strongly emphasise--
1. The need of a proper balance of character. Zeal is only one side of the cake. Zeal without knowledge, or contrary to knowledge, is a cake unturned. The like applies to fidelity and love, knowing and doing, energy and repose. Faith itself is a cake of two sides; because faith has its waiting as well as its working sides.
2. The need of a proper balance of truth.
3. The general drift of the whole subject suggests to our mind the need of a correspondence between what Christ has done for us, and what He-is doing in us by His Spirit. To be well baked we need the Cross of Christ translated into experience. Paul knew Christs Cross as a means of experimental crucifixion. To him it meant a death experienced within, in which the world became dead to him and he to it. (James Douglas, M. A.)
The crude cake
In the East it is the custom to heat the hearth, then sweep carefully the portion heated, put the cake upon it, and cover it with ashes and embers. In a little time the cake is turned. It is then covered again, and this process is continued several times, until the cake is found to be sufficiently baked. Ephraim has many representatives at this hour.
1. The man who lives for pleasure alone is a cake not turned. One side of his nature is unduly baked, the other is entirely neglected. Pleasure has its uses, but pleasure as a business is a very poor business indeed. There are many such persons, both in the lower and in the higher grades of society. The man who lives for pleasure is dead while he liveth. He is a wretched parasite; he is a reproach to his species. One side of his nature is burnt to a crust by the fires of unholy desire; the other side of his nature is raw dough. Both are worthless.
2. The man who lives for business alone is a cake not turned Business is good. Even though it be honourable, and the methods of its pursuit unobjectionable, the man who lives for this life alone loses this life as well as the life that is to come. The man to whom this world is a god is a wretched idolater. This life is never truly lived except it is used for the good of others and for the glory of God. If a man lives for business alone, one side of his nature is scorched by the friction of the worlds cares, and the other is raw dough.
3. A man who lives for culture alone is a cake not turned. No man can claim the honours of culture, portions of whose nature lie fallow. A true culture sweeps across every faculty. Man has earthward, manward, and Godward relations. If lacking in any of these directions, it is a partial, defective, and unauthoritative culture. Tried by this true standard many claimants for the honour of culture will be found wanting. That is not true culture which fails to cultivate the nobler, the Diviner elements of the soul.
4. A man who is half-hearted in religion is a cake not turned. Ephraim, though proud and haughty as a tribe, had been lacking in moral back bone, in loyalty, in consecration, in the service of God. There are such professors of religion to-day. A half and half man is a failure always and everywhere. To-day Jesus Christ calls for men with one heart, and that heart on fire with His love. We want no unturned cakes. We want men with convictions. It is said Of some men that they are very pious Godward, and very crooked manward. That is a severe criticism when it is true. That is not Christs model man. He is symmetrical: he is baked through and through. Christ alone can make such men. (R. S. MArthur, D. D.)
Modern Ephraism
Hosea was a shew herd and hewer of wood. There is nothing conventional in his style. His similes are quaint and abrupt. They show that their author was possessed of a quiet vein of broad humour. Ephraim is a cake not turned may be said of most men in their relation--
I. To the social circle. Too often we have--
1. Courtesy minus friendship.
2. Appearance of wealth minus money.
3. Claims to family and learning.
The amount of goods in the shop window is generally in inverse ratio to the amount in stock. This comparison may be applied--
II. To men in their relation to commerce. Too often we have--
1. Better goods than any other house.
2. Tradesmen retiring from business. The words from this place being purposely omitted.
3. Sales at a-tremendous sacrifice.
There is ever a-connection between demand and supply. Half-baked customers create Ephraimitish tradesmen. This comparison may be applied--
III. To men in their relation to religion. Too often we have--
1. Profession without practice.
2. Letter without spirit.
Profession is valueless without practice. So also is letter without spirit. So far as we have either without the other, we are as cakes not turned. Christ ruling in our hearts adjusts all human relations. (J. S. Swan.)
The spoiled cake
Hoseas composition epigrammatic and figurative. He compares Ephraim to a silly dove, easily enticed into the net. When frightened, will not stay in the cot where she is safe. To a wild ass alone--foolish, headstrong, wilful An empty vine--fruitless and useless. A child tenderly brought up, who turns pout rebellious. A merchant, deceitful m his balances. A cake not turned, which, for want of turning is burnt on one side, and dough on the other side, but good for nothing on either side. Israel was not completely consecrated to God.
I. God demands the consecration of mans entire being. The cake should have been baked on both sides. Body, soul, time, possessions, should all be devoted to God. He claims it. The claim is based on--
1. What God is in Himself.
2. What He is relatively to us.
3. Our highest interests. The example of the best beings.
II. Some consecrate to God only a portion of their being. Baked on one side only. This indicates--
1. Self-will.
2. Lack of supreme love to God.
3. Aversion to submission.
4. Love of present pleasure.
5. Ignorance of the ease of religious service.
6. Indecision of character.
III. The consecration of only a portion of our being to God will end in destruction. It is destructive of--
1. Complete devotion.
2. Force of character.
3. True usefulness.
4. Thorough enjoyment.
5. Final perseverance.
6. Future glory. (B. D, Johns.)
The unturned cake
The text forms part of the energetic remonstrance addressed by the Spirit of God to Israel at a period of national degeneracy. They embody a reproof; but the homely figure must be deemed most appropriate in the circumstances of the case. What is the exact point of resemblance betwixt Ephraim and the unturned cake? At what stage in the process of baking, or in what circumstances are we to contemplate the cake? Is it when but for a while exposed to the heat of the oven, and therefore when the cake is partly cold and partly hot--exhibiting a vivid representation of that religious lukewarmness and indifferency which is so distasteful to God? Or is the allusion to the cake removed from the oven while yet only partially baked, the lower portions, or the outside, having been converted into bread, while the remainder, or the interior, is still dough, thereby pointing to persons who seek to make a composition betwixt their inclinations and sense of duty, by sometimes yielding to the one, and sometimes striving to fulfil the other? Or is the allusion to the position of the cake, and its state as thence to be inferred--cold upwardly and warm beneath--betokening coldness or disregard to things above, and warmth of affection exclusively to things below? Or is the allusion to a cake left behind in the oven till it is scorched, blackened, and altogether destroyed; representing the condition of those who, being given up and let alone of God, gradually become worse and worse?
I. A rebuke to lukewarmness and indifferency with regard to the things of God and eternity. In the Christian community there are numbers who are neither bread nor dough. They have enough of Christian profession to exclude them from the designation of heathen, not enough of heartfelt godliness to entitle them to the name of disciples indeed. They have the name, but want the reality. The Christians of the unturned cake are very skilful in evading all impressions of sacredness. It is not enough to profess Christianity, we must also feel and live it.
II. A rebuke to those who vainly imagine that it is possible to secure the souls salvation and yet gratify to the uttermost the sinful propensities of the flesh. There are some who occasionally feel, and that profoundly, the claims of Gospel truth and righteousness. But Wait a little. Swiftly passes the morning cloud. The world and the flesh soon resume their ascendency. There are some whose entire life is a uniform and sustained effort to keep up an alliance betwixt the spirit and the flesh; betwixt God and the world; betwixt duty and carnal inclination. They will not follow the Lord fully. God will not tolerate a rival. We must either serve Him altogether or not at all.
III. A rebuke to the coldness and unspirituality of professed believers. A cake cold upwards and warm underneath. Its baking may be so conducted that while the under side is intensely heated, the upper part is as cold as when first placed over a fire. So many professors. To the heavens they are cold, to the earth only are they warm.
IV. An intimation of the condition and destiny of those who are given up and forsaken of God. Cakes left in the oven to be burnt and destroyed there. (James Cochrane, M. A.)
Religious indecision
I. Who are Ephraimites? Three classes. Real Christians, who are entirely for God. The profligate, who make no pretension to religion. Some stand between both, and seem to partake of each. These are the characters we search for.
II. Expose their conduct and their condition.
1. This indecision is unreasonable.
2. It is dishonourable.
3. It is wretched.
4. It is peculiarly dangerous.
III. Endeavour to bring men to decision. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. (William Jay.)
Half-hearted religion
I. Half-hearted men never attain to loftiness of character.
II. Half-hearted men never accomplish any great work.
III. Half-hearted men fail to secure lifes greatest blessing. (A. Hampden Lee.)
Inconsisteney and incompleteness
The description is applicable--
I. to men whose consciences are thus constituted. Scrupulous in some things, they are frequently overscrupulous, and sometimes unscrupulous. The evil is aggravated when little things are its subjects, and when the weightier matters of the law are omitted, or when others sins and not our own are considered.
II. To those whose zeal is peculiar. Like thorns under a pot, it smokes and crackles to-day and to-morrow is extinct. The religion of those who blaze forth with transcendent glow, for a time, and then disappear, is a cake not turned.
III. To those who carry their religion only to certain places. To the sanctuary, the prayer-meeting, and the communion-table, but not into the family, the store, the bank, the senate. Or they may be outwardly consistent amidst home environments, but abroad, or at fashionable watering-places, they follow the multitude to do evil. (Homiletic Review.)
The unturned cake
Ephraim had been mingled, steeped, kneaded up into a cake, as it were, with the heathen, their ways, their idolatries, their vices. God would amend them, and they withholding themselves from His discipline, and not yielding themselves wholly to it, were spoiled. The fire of Gods judgment, with which the people should have been amended, made but an outward impression upon them, and reached not within, nor to any thorough change, so that they were but the more hopelessly spoiled through the means which God used for their amendment. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Unturned cakes
Ephraim is a cake not turned; that is, overdone on one side, and undone on the other. Excellent and apt symbol of much which we now see all about us!
I. Orthodoxy without life. It is the most serious temptation to which Christians are exposed to substitute creed for conduct. If one is sensibly weak in his spirituality, he will try to make up for it by redoubled emphasis laid upon his orthodoxy. It is as though a soldier should plant his flag upon a high position, and then go to sleep under its folds, trusting to his standard to win the battle, instead of to his own viligant and energetic fighting. Creeds are the flags of the Church--very necessary as symbols and summaries of faith, but worthless as a substitute for Christian living. When I see a Christian growing more and more zealous for every punctilio of his creed, while he is growing more and more selfish and worldly in his life, I say he is going forward by the wind, and going backward by the tide; when I see a Christian very unctuous in his prayers and exhortations in the Church, and very bitter and harsh in his conduct in the family, I say he is going forward by the wind and going backward by the tide. There is a constant need that we re-adjust our conduct to our creeds, not that we should believe less, but that we should live more. To avoid inconstancy, some people contract their belief to the size of the life, as a tailor takes in the seams of a coat which is too large, in order to make it fit the wearer. This is a bad method. Most of the heresies and false doctrines which have sprung up in the Church have resulted from the fitting over of theology to conform to a shrunken spirituality.
II. Piety without principle. It is a fearful proof of the deceitfulness of sin, that one may be at the same time very zealous for God and very dishonest towards men, lifting up hands of prayer and exhortation on Sundays and stretching out hands of fraud and peculation on week.days.
III. Morality without religion. It is a saying very hard to be received that morality and holiness are entirely different qualities. Morality is the religion of the natural man; holiness is the religion of the renewed man. The one grows on the stock of Adam; the other grows on the stock of Christ. Morality, even at its highest pitch, is not holiness; for holiness is something of God, wherever found, like the sunbeams which inhere in the sun and are inseparable from it, even while resting on the earth. Honesty, sobriety, purity,--these are the highest qualities of morality; and noble qualities they are. But love to God, communion with God, consecration to God,--these are the attributes of true religion. Let us look to it that our cake is evenly done; that our orthodoxy has life as well as soundness; that our piety has principle, honest and square and straightforward, as well as unction; that our morality has holiness as well as uprightness. (J. A. Garden, D. D.)
Sad aspects of character
I. Wrong companionship. What is a wrong mixing with people? Not intermixture in marriages. Not intercourse in business. Not associating with men for spiritual usefulness. It is doing as the Ten Tribes did, mixing with others for worldly advantage and unholy gratification. It is said that Pythagoras, before he admitted any one to his school, inquired who were his intimates, justly concluding that they who could choose immoral companions would not be much profited by his instructions.
II. Moral worthlessness. Ephraim had become as useless, in a spiritual sense, as a half-baked cake. It no longer fulfilled its Divine mission, maintaining and promoting the worship of the one true and living God. Usefulness is the grand purpose of our being. The man who does not make the world better than he found it, must be accursed.
III. Social despoilment. Strangers devoured his strength. How many souls lose their strength under the influence in which they mingle! Their intellectual power, social sympathies, moral sensibilities get used up, and they become the mere, creatures of circles and circumstances.
IV. Unconscious decay. Moral strength goes so slowly from men that they are often not conscious of its loss until they are reduced to the utmost prostration, Look at these aspects of character, and learn practical wisdom. Form no friendship with sinners. Avoid a worthless life. Allow not the social influences of your sphere to steal away your strength, to eat up your manhood. Do not think that decay cannot be working in you merely because you are unconscious of it. (Homilist.)
The evil of a one-sided character
The Sierra Nevada Mountains condense the cloudy moisture upon their slopes, and leave the plains beyond them arid deserts. So some great passion or ambition absorbs into itself all the force of the soul, and leaves us without any energy or inclination for other and equally important things. This will account for the moral sterility of many of us. Says Cicero to a young man: Hold off from sensuality or soon you will be unable to think of anything else. Vicious thinking seems to rot the tissue of the brain itself. It is so also with less degrading traits of disposition. Thus the passion for money-getting dries out from the soul the more gracious impulse of helpfulness toward others and even the desire for self-culture. Under the spell of greed a man possessed of really brilliant talents becomes content to be a mere grind in the counting-house or factory. Similarly, the passion for repute prevents many from obtaining that celebrity which their natural talents might otherwise readily win for them; their souls are so intent on listening for outer applause that they do not concentrate their attention upon the work that is to win the reward. Scores of literary reputations are thus annually wrecked through over-haste in the making. (J. M. Ludlow, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain MORAL decay means political decay. Sins like these are…
A PEOPLE IN DECAY: 2. POLITICALLY
Hos_7:8-10
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MORAL decay means political decay. Sins like these are the gangrene of nations. It is part of Hoseas greatness to have traced this, a proof of that versatility which distinguishes him above other prophets. The most spiritual of them all, he is at the same time the most political. We owe him an analysis of repentance to which the New Testament has little to add; but he has also left us a criticism of society and of polities in Israel, unrivalled except by Isaiah. We owe him an intellectual conception of God, which for the first time in Israel exploded idolatry; yet he also is the first to define Israels position in the politics of Western Asia. With the single courage of conscience Amos had said to the people: You are bad, therefore you must perish. But Hoseas is the insight to follow the processes by which sin brings forth death-to trace, for instance, the effects of impurity upon a nations powers of reproduction, as well as upon its intellectual vigor.
So intimate are these two faculties of Hosea that in chapters devoted chiefly to the sins of Israel we have already seen him expose the political disasters that follow. But from the point we have now reached- Hos_7:8 -the proportion of his prophesying is reversed: he gives us less of the sin and more of the social decay and political folly of his age.
1. THE CONFUSION OF THE NATION
Hos_7:8-16; Hos_8:1-3
Hosea begins by summing up the public aspect of Israel in two epigrams, short but of marvelous adequacy:-{Hos_7:8}
"Ephraim-among the nations he mixeth himself:
Ephraim has become a cake not turned."
It is a great crisis for any nation to pass from the seclusion of its youth and become a factor in the main history of the world. But for Israel the crisis was trebly great. Their difference from all other tribes about them had struck the Canaanites on their first entry to the land; {Num_23:9 b; Jos_2:8} their own earliest writers had emphasized their seclusion as their strength; {Deu_33:27} and their first prophets consistently deprecated every overture made by them either to Egypt or to Assyria. We feel the force of the prophets policy when we remember what happened to the Philistines. These were a people as strong and as distinctive as Israel, with whom at one time they disputed possession of the whole land. But their position as traders in the main line of traffic between Asia and Africa rendered the Philistines peculiarly open to foreign influence. They were now Egyptian vassals, now Assyrian victims; and after the invasion of Alexander the Great their cities became centers of Hellenism, while the Jews upon their secluded hills still stubbornly held unmixed their race and their religion. This contrast, so remarkably developed in later centuries, has justified the prophets of the eighth in their anxiety that Israel should not annul the advantages of her geographical seclusion by trade or treaties with the Gentiles. But it was easier for Judaea to take heed to the warning than for Ephraim. The latter lies as open and fertile as her sister province is barren and aloof. She has many gates into the world, and they open upon many markets. Nobler opportunities there could not be for a nation in the maturity of its genius and loyal to its vocation:-
"Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thine outgoings:
They shall call the nations to the mountain;
They shall suck of the abundance of the seas
And of the treasure that is stored in the sands." {Deu_33:18-19}
But in the time of his outgoings Ephraim was not sure of himself nor true to his God, the one secret and strength of the national distinctiveness. So he met the world weak and unformed, and, instead of impressing it, was by it dissipated and confused. The tides of a lavish commerce scattered abroad the faculties of the people, and swept back upon their life alien fashions and tempers, to subdue which there was neither native strength nor definiteness of national purpose. All this is what Hosea means by the first of his epigrams: "Ephraim-among the nations he lets himself be poured out," or "mixed up." The form of the verb does not elsewhere occur; but it is reflexive, and the meaning of the root is certain. "Balal" is to "pour out," or "mingle," as of oil in the sacrificial flour. Yet it is sometimes used of a mixing which is not sacred, but profane and hopeless. It is applied to the first great confusion of mankind, to which a popular etymology has traced the name Babel, as if for Balbel. Derivatives of the stem bear the additional ideas of staining and impurity. The alternative renderings which have been proposed, "lets himself be soaked" and "scatters himself" abroad like wheat among tares, are not so probable, yet hardly change the meaning.
Ephraim wastes and confuses himself among the Gentiles. The nations character is so disguised that Hosea afterwards nicknames him Canaan {Hos_12:8} their religion so filled with foreign influences that he calls the people the harlot of the Baalim.
If the first of Hoseas epigrams satirizes Israels foreign relations, the second, with equal brevity and wit, hits off the temper and constitution of society at home. For the metaphor of which this epigram is composed Hosea has gone to the baker. Among all classes in the East, especially under conditions requiring haste, there is in demand a round flat scone, which is baked by being laid on hot stones or attached to the wall of a heated oven. The whole art of baking consists in turning the scone over at the proper moment. If this be mismanaged it does not need a baker to tell us that one side may be burnt to a cinder, while the other remains raw. "Ephraim," says Hosea, "is an unturned cake."
By this he may mean one of several things, or all of them together, for they are infectious of each other. There was, for instance, the social conditions of the people. What can better be described as an unturned scone than a community one half of whose number are too rich, and the other too poor? Or Hosea may refer to that unequal distribution of religion through life with which in other parts of his prophecy he reproaches Israel. They keep their religion, as Amos more fully tells us, for their temples, and neglect to carry its spirit into their daily business. Or he may refer to Israels politics, which were equally in want of thoroughness. They rushed hotly at an enterprise, but having expended so much fire in the beginning of it, they let the end drop cold and dead. Or he may wish to satirize, like Amos, Israels imperfect culture-the pretentious and overdone arts, stuck excrescence-wise upon the unrefined bulk of the nation, just as in many German principalities last century society took on a few French fashions in rough and exaggerated forms, while at heart still brutal and coarse. Hosea may mean any one of these things, for the figure suits all, and all spring from the same defect. Want of thoroughness and equable effort was Israels besetting sin, and it told on all sides of his life. How better describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than by a half-baked scone?
We who are so proud of our political bakers, we who scorn the rapid revolutions of our neighbors and complacently dwell upon our equable ovens, those slow and cautious centuries of political development which lie behind us-have we anything better than our neighbors, anything better than Israel, to show in our civilization? Hoseas epigram fits us to the letter. After all those ages of baking, society is still with us "an unturned scone": one end of the nation with the strength burnt out of it by too much enjoyment of life, the other with not enough of warmth to be quickened into anything like adequate vitality. No man can deny that this is so; we are able to live only by shutting our hearts to the fact. Or is religion equally distributed through the lives of the religious portion of our nation? Of late years religion has spread, and spread wonderfully, but of how many Christians is it still true that they are but half-baked-living a life one side of which is reeking with the smoke of sacrifice, while the other is never warmed by one religious thought. We may have too much religion if we confine it to one day or one department of life: our worship overdone, with the sap and the freshness burnt out of it, cindery, dusty, unattractive, fit only for crumbling; our conduct cold, damp, and heavy, like dough the fire has never reached.
Upon the theme of these two epigrams the other verses of this chapter are variations. Has Ephraim mixed himself among the peoples? "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not," senselessly congratulating himself upon the increase of his trade and wealth, while he does not feel that these have sucked from him all his distinctive virtue. "Yea, grey hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knoweth it not." He makes his energy the measure of his life, as Isaiah also marked, {Hos_9:9 f.} but sees not that it all means waste and decay. "The pride of Israel testifieth to his face, yet"-even when the pride of the nation is touched to the quick by such humiliating overtures as they make to both Assyria and Egypt-"they do not return to Jehovah their God, nor seek Him for all this."
With virtue and single-hearted faith have disappeared intellect and the capacity for affairs. "Ephraim is become like a silly dove-a dove without heart," to the Hebrews the organ of the wits of a man-"they cry to Egypt, they go off to Assyria." Poor pigeon of a people, fluttering from one refuge to another! But "as they go I will throw over them My net, like a bird of the air I will bring them down. I will punish them as their congregation have heard"-this text as it stands: can only mean "in the manner I have publicly proclaimed in Israel." "Woe to them that they have strayed from Me! Damnation to them that they have rebelled against Me! While I would have redeemed them they spoke lies about Me. And they have never cried unto Me with their heart, but they keep howling from their beds for corn and new wine." No real repentance theirs, but some fear of drought and miscarriage of the harvests, a sensual and servile sorrow in which they wallow. They seek God with no heart, no true appreciation of what He is, but use the senseless means by which the heathen invoke their gods: "they cut themselves, and "so "apostatize from Me! And yet it was I who disciplined them, I strengthened their arm, but with regard to Me they kept thinking" only "evil!" So fickle and sensitive to fear, "they turn" indeed "but not upwards"; no Godward conversion theirs. In their repentance "they are like a bow which swerves" off upon some impulse of their ill-balanced natures. "Their princes must fall by the sword because of the bitterness"-we should have expected "falseness"-"of their tongue: this is their scorn in the land of Egypt!" To the allusion we have no key.
With so false a people nothing can be done. Their doom is inevitable. So
"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."
"To thy mouth with the trumpet! The Eagle is down upon the house of Jehovah!" Where the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered together. "For"-to sum up the whole crisis-"they have transgressed My covenant, and against My law have they rebelled. To Me they cry, My God, we know Thee, we Israeli" What does it matter? "Israel hath spurned the good: the Foe must pursue him."
It is the same climax of inevitable war to which Amos led up his periods; and a new subject is now introduced.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Hos_7:8. Mixed] by leagues and adoption of idolatrous customs.…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_7:8. Mixed] by leagues and adoption of idolatrous customs. The Heb. indicates a mixing which disorders and involves confusion. A cake] burned at the bottom and sad at the top,—an image of worthlessness. One side scorched and black, the other unbaked and doughy; the whole spoiled and only fit to cast away.
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Hos_7:9. Gray hairs] Symptoms of age and declining strength. “Thy gray hairs are thy passing bell” [Pusey]. Wisdom is not always found with age (Job_32:7; Pro_23:35). Israel indifferent, though ripe for destruction.
HOMILETICS
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ENDANGERED AND INJURED BY WORLDLY ASSOCIATION.—Hos_7:8-9
From the internal corruption, the prophet passes on to the foreign policy of Israel, and unfolds its disastrous effects. God separated the nation to be his peculiar people; to train them up in virtue; and make them a blessing to the world. But they mixed themselves with other nations in social customs and political leagues. In the application of these words learn—
I. That the Christian Church is in danger of unlawful association with the world. “Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people.” We are not to shut ourselves out from all intercourse and innocent association with the world. Family ties, business and spiritual engagements, bind us to it. But we must not “be conformed to this world,” in its evil customs and pursuits, its principles and spirit. We have no need to go out of the world literally; but keep ourselves from its evil; separate ourselves from its frivolities, and be Christians entirely.
1. The Christian Church is endangered by outward proximity to the world. The world is near, present with us, and appeals to our senses. It influences more than things spiritual and unseen. Its wondrous forms and fair pretences gradually get hold upon and eventually overcome the careless professor. Demas-like, he forsakes God, having loved this present world. Its pursuits and demands engross our attention. Before we are aware we are brought under its spell; walking according to rules, and governed by “the prince of this world.”
2. The Christian Church is endangered by the inward tendency to love the world. There are snares and dangers within us, from natural cravings and corrupt desires. We are fond of its company and eager for its rewards. Its attractions are strong, because resistance is weak; its trifles realities, because we prefer toys to eternal treasures. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
II. The Christian Church is injured by association with the world. Contact with it wears away seriousness of mind, indisposes for religious duties, neutralizes religious influence, and expels religious sentiment. Professors who needlessly mix up with sinful practices and company are sure to suffer in their character and condition. The text specifies—
1. Moral deterioration. “Ephraim is a cake not turned.” They had been mixed up and steeped with heathen idolatries and vices, and had become worthless. The fire of Divine judgment made only an outward impression upon them, and they were more hopelessly spoiled by their conduct. Burned on one side and dough on the other, perfectly useless. Many Christians now are utterly worthless in their lives and examples. Many societies have lost their prominence and savour; sunk into degradation, and do not answer the end for which they were created. Inward corruption will never overcome outward temptation. If individuals, churches, and nations do not contain power to prevent deterioration and impart life, they will become morally insipid, and fit for nothing but the fate which history and Scripture declare awaits them.
2. Social injury. “Strangers have devoured his strength.” Foreign powers, Assyria and Egypt, whose aid Israel had invoked, robbed them of money, wasted their treasures, and diminished their numbers. Like Samson, bereft of his strength by sensual pleasure, Israel was stripped of social privilege and power. Sad to think of many socially and individually ruined by unlawful connections and sinful lusts: Intellect and memory, dignity and manhood: the health of the body and the happiness of the soul “devoured” by strangers to God and his people! “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
3. Unnatural decay. “Gray hairs are here and there upon him.” Loss of inward strength and outward beauty will soon bring age and decay. “Men get old before they are young.” A general laxity of morals may sap and undermine our commerce. The body politic may be covered with marks of hoary age and ripening for destruction. Christian churches may decay through discord, worldliness, and pride. Families and individuals may fall by sin and die while young. Gray hairs are forerunners and forewarners of death.
4. Religious insensibility. “Yet he knoweth it not.” To be insensible of disease and decay is the worst symptom of all. Men hide from themselve tokens of death, and it comes upon them unawares. They think that outward forms, orthodox creeds, and the course of time will recover their strength. They are insensible and stupefied in sin, and sleep quietly amid dangers and death. “They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick: they have beaten me, and I felt it not; when shall I awake?” (Pro_23:35; Isa_42:25.)
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hos_7:8. A cake not turned. Soft and pliable under Divine chastisement, hardened and cold in sin—half-heartedness, half-baked and half-burned, displeasing to God—hypocrisy, hot in forms, dead in spirit, rejected by God. “Such were the people; such are too many so-called Christians; they united in themselves hypocrisy and ungodliness, outward performance and inward lukewarmness; the one overdone, but without any wholesome effect on the other. The one was scorched and black; the other, steamed, damp, and lukewarm; the whole worthless, spoiled irremediably, fit only to be cast away.” “Thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Hos_7:9. Gray hairs. I. Gray hairs are a sign of decay. God for wise purposes gives distinctive features to human life. Nature teaches us to reverence age in the pages of an old book; in the leafless branches of an old tree; in the silent, deserted halls of an old roofless ruin; still more in one whose head is white with the snows of fourscore or a hundred winters. Gray hairs are associated with—
(1) Parental honours,
(2) the ripe wisdom of age, and
(3) the piety of venerable men. II. But in the text they are signs of decay, premonitory symptoms of dissolution: and teach that men live in ignorance and act in disregard of signs that should warn and alarm them.
1. This appears in the history of States. In the kingdom of Israel, in England, illegitimacy, drunkenness, continental morality, Sabbath-breaking, and irreligious customs are signs of national decay; which, but for thousands of good and earnest men, who know it, would bring death upon us.
2. This applies to the false security of sinners.
3. This appears in men’s insensibility to the lapse and lessons of time [From Dr. Guthrie].
I. Explain the ignorance here mentioned, or show how it is that many a man is backsliding and declining in grace, and yet knows it not. This is often caused by a want of acquaintance with one’s own soul. Some there are who do not want to know any evil thing of themselves. Many see not the gray hairs because they do not look into the glass to see them. There are some who look into the glass to see whether there are gray hairs coming, but they use a false mirror, one which does not truly reflect the image. II. I am to hold up the looking-glass. One of the gray hairs which marks decay is a want of holy grief for daily sin. A second gray hair is the absence of lamentation in the soul when Jesus Christ is dishonoured. A third gray hair in the Christian, a very plain one, and marking that the disease is gone far, is the indulgence of certain minor sins. Covetousness is a very common gray hair upon the heads of professors. With some it is not quite covetousness, but worldliness. Another gray hair is pride. Neglect of prayer another. It is a gray hair when we have no delight in listening to the word. And another is, want of love to God. Want of love to perishing sinners is a sad gray hair to be found, I fear, in some ministers, as well as in the people. Another is the suspension of communion with God. III. Recommend certain remedies for this decay. Inquire whether you be a child of God or not. Next remember what will be the result of decays in grace. I recommend to every believer a daily self-examination. Then with repentance join much supplication and renewed faith and daily watchful activity [Spurgeon].
Hos_7:10. Pride prevented humility and confession.
2. Return to God, who had afflicted them.
3. Testified against them in their stupidity and rebellion against God. “Men complain of their ‘fortune,’ or ‘fate,’ or ‘stars,’ and go on the more obstinately to build up what God destroys, to prop up by human means or human aid what, by God’s providence, is failing; they venture more desperately, in order to recover past losses, until the crash at last becomes hopeless and final” [Pusey].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7
Hos_7:8. The World and The Church. Companions may be compared to the river Thames, which is a sweet and pretty river enough near its source; but in the great metropolis it has kept company with drains and sewers, under the belief that its current was too powerful and pure to be injured by them. It was meant that the river should purify the sewer, but, instead of that, the sewer has corrupted the river [Union Magazine].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is speaking.
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Ephraim mixes himself among the peoples
This is probably a reference to the efforts made by the northern kingdom's kings to ally themselves with other nations for protection against attack.
Ephraim is a flat cake that has not been turned over
This can be stated in active form. Here "Ephraim" refers to the northern kingdom of Israel. The nation is weak, as flat bread that has not been doubled over in the oven by the baker for more strength. AT: "The people of Ephraim are like a cake that no one has turned over" (See: Synecdoche and Metaphor and Active or Passive)
Gray hairs are sprinkled on him
Here "gray hairs" represent old age. (See: Metonymy)
but he does not know it
However, this "old age" is clearly a way of saying that the northern kingdom is getting weaker and weaker, because the nation does not know it is "old." (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Ephraim
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 7:8-12 Israel ignored the Lord in their international politics…
7:8-12 Israel ignored the Lord in their international politics as well as in their domestic policies. Like silly, witless doves, they had flown in a frenzy between Assyria and Egypt, the major powers of their day, vainly trying to make treaties and alliances that would save their land.
7:8 The people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners: By relying upon foreign nations rather than God for security, the Israelites were no longer a pure, holy nation, set apart for the Lord. • Flatbread must be turned over at the proper time to ensure that it is baked on both sides rather than burned on one side and raw on the other. Israel was a half-baked cake and was therefore worthless.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.