8Ephraim mixes himself with the nations;
         Ephraim has become a cake not turned.

9Strangers devour his strength,
         Yet he does not know it;
         Gray hairs also are sprinkled on him,
         Yet he does not know it.

10Though the pride of Israel testifies against him,
         Yet they have not returned to the LORD their God,
         Nor have they sought Him, for all this.

11So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without sense;
         They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

12When they go, I will spread My net over them;
         I will bring them down like the birds of the sky.
         I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation to their assembly.

13Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me!
         Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against Me!
         I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me.

14And they do not cry to Me from their heart
         When they wail on their beds;
         For the sake of grain and new wine they assemble themselves,
         They turn away from Me.

15Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
         Yet they devise evil against Me.

16They turn, but not upward,
         They are like a deceitful bow;
         Their princes will fall by the sword
         Because of the insolence of their tongue.
         This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
All of them are hot like an oven, And they consume their rulers; All their kings have fallen. None of them calls on Me.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
They are all as hot as an oven. They consume their judges like a fire. All their kings die in battle, and none of them calls to me.

King James Bible
They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

Douay-Rheims Bible
They were all heated like an oven, and have devoured their judges : all their kings have fallen: there is none amongst them that calleth unto me.

Darby Bible Translation
They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

English Revised Version
They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

Webster's Bible Translation
They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth to me.

World English Bible
They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.

Young's Literal Translation
All of them are warm as an oven, And they have devoured their judges, All their kings have fallen, There is none calling unto Me among them.

Cross References

Isaiah 64:7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.

Hosea 13:10 Where now is your king That he may save you in all your cities, And your judges of whom you requested, "Give me a king and princes "?

Micah 2:1 Woe to those who scheme iniquity, Who work out evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, For it is in the power of their hands.

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Chapter 7

In this chapter we have, I. A general charge drawn up against Israel for those high crimes and misdemeanors by which they had obstructed the course of God's favours to them (v. 1, 2). II. A particular accusation, 1. Of the court-the king, princes, and judges (v. 3-7). 2. Of the country. Ephraim is here charged with conforming to the nations (v. 8), senselessness and stupidity under the judgments of God (v. 9-11), ingratitude to God for his mercies (v. 13), incorrigibleness under his judgments (v. 14), contempt of God (v. 15), and hypocrisy in their pretences to return to him (v. 16). They are also threatened with a severe chastisement, which shall humble them (v. 12), and, if that prevail not, then with an utter destruction (v. 13), particularly their princes (v. 16).

Verses 1-7

Some take away the last words of the foregoing chapter, and make them the beginning of this: "When I returned, or would have returned, the captivity of my people, when I was about to come towards them in ways of mercy, even when I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim (the country and common people) was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, the court and the chief city." Now, in these verses, we may observe,

I. A general idea given of the present state of Israel, v. 1, 2. See how the case now stood with them.

1. God graciously designed to do well for them: I would have healed Israel. Israel were sick and wounded; their disease was dangerous and malignant, and likely to be fatal, Isa. 1:6. But God offered to be their physician, to undertake the cure, and there was balm in Gilead sufficient to recover the health of the daughter of his people; their case was bad, but it was not desperate, nay, it was hopeful, when God would have healed Israel. (1.) He would have reformed them, would have separated between them and their sins, would have purged out the corruptions that were among them, by his laws and prophets. (2.) He would have delivered them out of their troubles, and restored to them their peace and prosperity. Several healing attempts were made, and their declining state seemed sometimes to be in a hopeful way of recovery; but their own folly put them back again. Note, If sinful miserable souls be not healed and helped, but perish in their sin and misery, they cannot lay the blame on God, for he both could and would have healed them; he offered to take the ruin under his hand. And there are some special seasons when God manifests his readiness to heal a distempered church and nation, now and then a hopeful crisis, which, if carefully watched and improved, might, even when the case is very bad, turn the scale for life and health.

2. They stood in their own light and put a bar in their own door. When God would have healed them, when they bade fair for reformation and peace, then their iniquity was discovered and their wickedness, which stopped that current of God's favours, and undid all again. (1.) Then, when their case came to be examined and enquired into, in order to their cure, that wickedness which had been concealed and palliated was found out; not that it was ever hid from God, but he speaks after the manner of men; as a surgeon, when he probes a wound in order to the cure of it and finds that it touches the vitals and is incurable, goes no further in his endeavour to cure it, so, when God came down to see the case of Israel (as the expression is, Gen. 18:21), with kind intentions towards them, he found their wickedness so very flagrant, and them so hardened in it, so impudent and impenitent, that he could not in honour show them the favour he designed them. Note, Sinners are not healed because they would not be healed. Christ would have gathered them, and they would not. (2.) Then, when some endeavours were used to reform and reclaim them, that wickedness which had been restrained and kept under broke out; and from God's steps towards the healing of them they took occasion to be so much the more provoking. When endeavours were used to reform them vice grew more impetuous, more outrageous, and swelled so much the higher, as a stream when it is damned up. When they began to prosper they grew more proud, wanton, and secure, and so stopped the progress of their cure. Note, It is sin that turns away good things from us when they are coming towards us; and it is the folly and ruin of multitudes that, when God would do well for them, they do ill for themselves. And what was it that did them this mischief? In one word, they commit falsehood; they worship idols (so some), defraud one another (so others), or, rather, they dissemble with God in their professions of repentance and regard to him. They say that they are desirous to be healed by him, and, in order to that, willing to be ruled by him; but they lie unto him with their mouth and flatter him with their tongue.

3. A practical disbelief of God's omniscience and government was at the bottom of all their wickedness (v. 2): "They consider not in their hearts, they never say it to their own hearts, never think of this, that I remember all their wickedness." As if God could not see it, though he is all eye, or did not heed it, though his name is Jealous, or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful, or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner's atheism; as good say that there is no God as say that he is either ignorant or forgetful, that there is none that judges in the earth as that he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon. It is a high affront they put upon God; it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves; they say, The Lord shall not see, Ps. 94:7. They cannot but know that God remembers all their works; they have been told it many a time; nay, if you ask them, they cannot but own it, and yet they do not consider it; they do not think of it when they should, and with application to themselves and their own works, else they would not, they durst not, do as they do. But the time will come when those who thus deceive themselves shall be undeceived: "Now their own doings have beset them about, that is, they have come at length to such a pitch of wickedness that their sins appear on every side of them; all their neighbours see how bad they are, and can they think that God does not see it?" Or, rather, "The punishment of their doings besets them about; they are surrounded and embarrassed with troubles, so that they cannot get out, by which it appears that the sins they smart for are before my face, not only that I have seen them, but that I am displeased at them;" for, till God by pardoning our sins has cast them behind his back, they are still before his face. Note, Sooner or later, God will convince those who do not now consider it that he remembers all their works.

4. God had begun to contend with them by his judgments, in earnest of what was further coming: The thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoils without. Some take this as an instance of their wickedness, that they robbed and spoiled one another. Nec hospes ab hospite tutus-The host and the guest stand in fear of each other. It seems rather to be a punishment of their sin; they were infested with secret thieves among themselves, that robbed their houses and shops and picked their pockets, and troops of robbers, foreign invaders, that with open violence spoiled abroad; so far was Israel from being healed that they had fresh wounds given them daily by robbers and spoilers; and all this the effect of sin, all to punish them for robbing God, Isa. 42:24; Mal. 3:8, 11.

II. A particular account of the sins of the court, of the king and princes, and those about them, and the tokens of God's displeasure that they were under for them.

1. Their king and princes were pleased with the wickedness and profaneness of their subjects, who were emboldened thereby to be so much them ore wicked (v. 3): They make the king and princes glad with their wickedness. It pleased them to see the people conform to their wicked laws and examples, in the worship of their idols, and other instances of impiety and immorality, and to hear them flatter and applaud them in their wicked ways. When Herod saw that his wickedness pleased the people he proceeded further in it, much more will the people do so when they see that it pleases the prince, Acts 12:3. Particularly, they made them glad with their lies, with the lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince and the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom they knew the princes had a dislike to. Those who show themselves pleased with slanders and ill-natured stories shall never want those about them who will fill their ears with such stories. Prov. 29:12, If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked, and will make him glad with their lies.

2. Drunkenness and revelling abound much at the court, v. 5. The day of our king was a merry day with them, either his birth-day or his inauguration-day, of which it is probable that they had an anniversary observation, or perhaps it was some holiday of his appointing, which was therefore called his day; on that day the princes met to drink the king's health, and got him among them, to be merry, and made him sick with bottles of wine. It should seem the king did not ordinarily drink to excess, but he was not upon a high day brought to it by the artifices of the princes, tempted by the goodness of the wine, the gaiety of the company, or the healths they urged; and so little was he used to it that it made him sick; and it is justly charged as a crime, as crimen laesae majestatis-treason, upon those who thus imposed upon him and made him sick; nor would it serve for an excuse that it was the day of their king, but was rather an aggravation of the crime, that, whey they pretended to do him honour, they dishonoured him to the highest degree. If it is a great affront and injury to a common person to make him drunk, and there is a woe to those that do it (Hab. 2:15), much more to a crowned head; for the greater any man's dignity is the greater disgrace it is to him to be drunk. It is not for kings, O Lemuel! it is not for kings, to drink wine, Prov. 31:4, 5. See what a prejudice the sin of drunkenness is to a man, to a king. (1.) In his health; it made him sick. It is a force upon nature; and strange it is by what charms men, otherwise rational enough, can be drawn to that which besides the offence it gives to God, and the damage it does to their spiritual and eternal welfare, is a present disorder and distemper to their own bodies. (2.) In his honour; for, when he was thus intoxicated, he stretched out his hand with scorners; then he that was entrusted with the government of a kingdom lost the government of himself, and so far forgot, [1.] The dignity of a king that he made himself familiar with players and buffoons, and those whose company was a scandal. [2.] The duty of a king that he joined in confederacy with atheists, and the profane scoffers at religion, whom he ought to have silenced and put to shame; he sat in the seat of the scornful, of those that had arrived at the highest pitch of impiety; he struck in with them, said as they said, did as they did, and exerted his power, and stretched forth the hand of his government, in concurrence with them. Goodness and good men are often made the song of the drunkards (Ps. 69:12; 35:16); but woe unto thee, O land! when thy king is such a child as to stretch forth his hand with those that make them so, Eccl. 10:16.

3. Adultery and uncleanness prevailed much among the courtiers. This is spoken of v. 4, 6, 7, and the charge of drunkenness comes in in the midst of this article; for wine is oil to the fire of lust, Prov. 23:33. Those that are inflamed with fleshly lusts, that are adulterers (v. 4), are here again and again compared to an oven heated by the baker (v. 4): They have made ready their heart like an oven (v. 6); they are all hot as an oven, v. 7. Note, [1.] An unclean heart is like an oven heated; and the unclean lusts and affections of it are as the fuel that makes it hot. It is an inward fire, it keeps the heat within itself; so adulterers and fornicators secretly burn in lust, as the expression is, Rom. 1:27. The heat of the oven is an intense heat, especially as it is here described; he that heats it stirs up the fire, and ceases not from raising it up, till the bread is ready to be put in, being kneaded and leavened, all which only signifies that they are like an oven when it is at the hottest; nay, when it is too hot for the baker (so the learned Dr. Pocock), when it is hotter than he would have it, so that the raiser up of the fire ceases as long as while the dough that is kneaded is in the fermenting, that the heat may abate a little. Thus fiery hot are the lusts of an unclean heart. (2.) The unclean wait for an opportunity to compass their wicked desires; having made ready their heart like an oven, they lie in wait to catch their prey. The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Job 24:15. Their baker sleeps all the night, but in the morning it burns as a flaming fire. As the baker, having kindled a fire in his oven and laid sufficient fuel to it, goes to bed, and sleeps all night, and in the morning finds his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose, so these wicked people, when they have laid some wicked plot, and formed a design for the gratifying of some covetous, ambitious, revengeful, or unclean lusts, have their hearts so fully set in them to do evil that, though they may stifle them for a while, yet the fire of corrupt affections is still glowing within, and, as soon as ever there is an opportunity for it, their purposes which they have compassed and imagined break out into overt acts, as a fire flames out when it has vent given it. Thus they are all hot as an oven. Note, Lust in the heart is like fire in an oven, puts it into a heat; but the day is coming when those who thus make themselves like a fiery oven with their own vile affections, if that fire be not extinguished by divine grace, shall be made as a fiery oven by divine wrath (Ps. 21:9), when the day comes that shall burn as an oven, Mal. 4:1.

4. They resist the proper methods of reformation and redress: They have devoured their judges, those few good judges that were among them, that would have put out these fires with which they were heated; they fell foul upon them, and would not suffer them to do justice, but were ready to stone them, and perhaps did so; or, as some think, they provoked God to deprive them of the blessing of magistracy and to leave all in confusion: All their kings have fallen one after another, and their families with them, which could not but put the kingdom into confusion, crumble it into contending parties, and occasion a great deal of bloodshed. There are heart-burnings among them; they are hot as an oven with rage and malice at one another, and this occasions the devouring of their judges, the falling of their kings. For the transgressions of a land many are the princes thereof, Prov. 28:2. But in the midst of all this trouble and disorder there is none among them that calls unto God, that sees his hand stretched out against them in these judgments, and deprecates the strokes of it, none, or next to none, that stir up themselves to take hold on God, Isa. 64:7. Note, Those are not only heated with sin, but hardened in sin, that continue to live without prayer even when they are in trouble and distress.

Calvin's Commentary

7. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

7. Omnes calent tanquam clibanus, comederunt judices suos: omne reges eorum ceciderunt; nemo in illis clamat ad me.

The Prophet repeats what he had said before, that the Israelites were carried away by a mad zeal into their own superstitions and wicked practices, and could not be allayed or quieted by any remedies; and he shows at the same time that this malady or intemperance raged in the whole people, lest the vulgar should accuse a few men, as if they were the authors of all the wickedness. He gives proof of their frenzy, because they could not have been hitherto amended by any corrections. They have eaten, he says, their own judges; their kings have fallen; and in the meantime not one of them cries to me What the Prophet says here I refer to good kings, or to those who were able to uphold an ordinary government among the people. He says that judges as well as kings had fallen; by which words he means, that the Israelites had been deprived of good and wise governors; and this was a sad and miserable disorder to the people; it was the same as if the head were taken from the body. He says, in short, that the body was mangled and mutilated, because the Lord had taken away the kings and judges. We indeed know that kings in continual succession reigned among the Israelites; but we must consider of what kings the Prophet here speaks.

But let us now notice what he says: Judges have been devoured Some hold that the people through their wantonness had risen up against their judges, and, as if freed from all laws, had by main force upset all order; but this seems to me strained. The Prophet, I doubt not, means that the judges had been devoured, because the people had through their own fault made, as it were, entirely void the favor of God, as it often happens daily. God indeed so begins to do good, that he intends to continue his benefits to us to the end; but we devour his benefits; for we dry up, as it were, the fountain of his goodness, which would otherwise be exhaustless and perpetually flow to us. As then the goodness of God, which is otherwise inexhaustible, is in a manner dried up to us, when we allow it not to approach us; it is in this sense that the Prophet now complains that judges had been devoured by the Israelites; for through their impiety they had been deprived of this singular kindness of God; and they had consumed it, as rust or some other fault in brass destroys good fruit. We now comprehend the meaning of this verse.

God first shows that the Israelites were so ardent, that their frenzy could not be corrected or quieted. How so? "I have tried," he says, "whether their disease was healable; for I have taken away their kings and governors, which was no obscure sign of my displeasure: but I have effected nothing." Then it follows, 'yn qr' vhm 'ly, ain kora beem ali, There is no one, he says, among them who cries to me He had said that all were burning with the lust of committing sin; now, accusing their stupidity, he excepts none. We hence see that the whole people were so seized with frenzy, that when chastised by God's hand, they did not yet cry to him. It is indeed certain that the Israelites did cry, but without repentance; and it is usual with hypocrites to howl when God punishes them; but they yet direct not to him their supplications and their groans, for their heart is locked up by obstinacy. Thus then ought this clause to be expounded, that they repented not, nor fled to God for mercy. Then it follows --

Links

Hosea 7 Commentaries: Barnes • Calvin • Clarke • Darby • Gill • Geneva • Guzik • JFB • Keil / Delitzsch • KJV Translators' • Henry's Concise • Matthew Henry • Scofield • TSK • Wesley

NIV / NLT / ESV / GWT / KJV / ASV / DRB

Jump to Previous Occurrence
Calls Consume Devour Devoured End Fall Fallen Heated Hot Judges Kings Makes Oven Prayer Rulers Warm

Jump to Next Occurrence
Calls Consume Devour Devoured End Fall Fallen Heated Hot Judges Kings Makes Oven Prayer Rulers Warm

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.

GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.

Alphabetical: All an and are as calls consume devour fall fallen have hot kings like me none of on oven rulers their them they

Bible Browser

Inconsideration Deplored. Rev. Joshua Priestley.
"And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness."--HOSEA vii. 2. Is it possible for any man to conceive of truths more fitted to arrest the attention and impress the heart than are those contained in this volume? It has been said that if a blank book had been put into our hands, and every one of us had been asked to put into it the promises we should like to find there, we could not have employed language so explicit, so expressive, and so suited to all our varied wants, …
Knowles King—The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern

Prayer to the Most High
"Lord, teach us to pray."--Luke xi. 1. "They return, but not to the Most High."--Hos. vii. 16. THE Most High. The High and Lofty One, That inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy. The King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the Only Wise God. The Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto: Whom no man hath seen, nor can see. Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are Thy …
Alexander Whyte—Lord Teach Us To Pray

On the Animals
The birds are the saints, because they fly to the higher heart; in the gospel: and he made great branches that the birds of the air might live in their shade. [Mark 4:32] Flying is the death of the saints in God or the knowledge of the Scriptures; in the psalm: I shall fly and I shall be at rest. [Ps. 54(55):7 Vulgate] The wings are the two testaments; in Ezekiel: your body will fly with two wings of its own. [Ez. 1:23] The feathers are the Scriptures; in the psalm: the wings of the silver dove. …
St. Eucherius of Lyons—The Formulae of St. Eucherius of Lyons

The Assyrian Captivity
The closing years of the ill-fated kingdom of Israel were marked with violence and bloodshed such as had never been witnessed even in the worst periods of strife and unrest under the house of Ahab. For two centuries and more the rulers of the ten tribes had been sowing the wind; now they were reaping the whirlwind. King after king was assassinated to make way for others ambitious to rule. "They have set up kings," the Lord declared of these godless usurpers, "but not by Me: they have made princes, …
Ellen Gould White—The Story of Prophets and Kings

Book vii. On the Useful or the Ordinary
The bread is Christ or conversation of the Lord; in the gospel: I am the living bread. [John 6:41] The wine is the same as above; in Solomon: and drink this wine, which I have blended for you. [Prov. 9:5] Olive oil is mercy or the Holy Spirit; in the psalm: I have anointed him with my holy oil. The same in another part: Let not the oil of the sinner, that is, admiration, touch my head. [Ps. 88(89):21(20); Ps. 140(141):5] Pork is sin; in the psalm: they are sated with pork. [Ps. 16(17):14 (unknown …
St. Eucherius of Lyons—The Formulae of St. Eucherius of Lyons

I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also-
OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY DISCOVERED, 1. WHAT PRAYER IS. 2. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT. 3. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT AND WITH THE UNDERSTANDING ALSO. WRITTEN IN PRISON, 1662. PUBLISHED, 1663. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:--the Spirit--helpeth our infirmities" (Rom 8:26). ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven. "It is …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Seventh Commandment
Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Exod 20: 14. God is a pure, holy spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In this commandment he has entered his caution against it; non moechaberis, Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The sum of this commandment is, The preservations of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this commandment there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament