Hosea 9:16
Ephraim is struck down; their root is withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay the darlings of their wombs.
Sermons
Bereavement, Barrenness, and BanishmentC. Jerdan Hosea 9:10-17
Ephraim's WoeJ. Orr Hosea 9:11-17














Woe also to them when I depart kern them (ver. 12). It is this thought of woe as the result of God departing from Ephraim - "hating them," "loving them no more" (ver. 15) - which is the key-note of the passage. The prophet compares the ideal which God set up for Ephraim - fruitfulness, Tyre-like pleasantness of situation, settled habitation in Canaan - with the miserable end now awaiting the people. His mind dwells with a sort of fixity of horror on the bringing forth of the children to slaughter with the sword (vers. 12, 13, 16). Woe would descend on Ephraim to the reversal of the Divine ideal.

I. IN RESPECT OF FRUITFULNESS. (Vers. 11, 12.) Fruitfulness and strength of numbers was an especial part of the promise to Ephraim (Genesis 49:22, 26; Deuteronomy 33:17), even as a numerous posterity was the promise to Israel generally. This "glory" would now be taken from the people that boasted of it. Licentiousness had already, in part, undermined the nation's strength (Hosea 4:10). The sword would now finish what their own misconduct had begun. As in a previous figure (Hosea 8:7), and in ver. 16, the curse is represented as working to the frustration of the people's wishes at every stage in the advance of their hopes. First, there is no conception; then, in the cases where there is conception, there is "a miscarrying womb" (ver. 14); then, at the stage of birth, there is failure to bring forth; even if the child is born, it is doomed to be killed by the sword. Nothing goes right; everything goes wrong; there is but woe, failure, frustration, disappointment, when God departs from us. The numbers of a nation are in God's hand. He can bless or he can blast. His judgment works both through natural laws and events of providence.

II. IN RESPECT OF PLEASANTNESS. (Vers. 13, 14, 16.) God designed for Ephraim a situation pleasant as that of Tyre; he had in reserve for him all "precious things" "blessings of the heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under" (Genesis 49:25, 26; Deuteronomy 33:13-15). Thus gloriously planted, Ephraim was to be the cynosure of the tribes, a paragon of sweetness and beauty. How ghastly the contrast - "But Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer" (ver. 13)!

1. A worm at the root. "Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit," etc. (ver. 16). This is the fate of all glory without God. Its root is not drawn from the sources of perennial life in the eternal One. It has in it the principle of decay. It is a glory of the world, fading, perishing. Sic transeat. The Christian's inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4).

2. Ruthless butchery. (Vers. 13, 16.) The pleasantness of Ephraim would be smutched with the blood of his own children - the "beloved ones, the darlings of the womb. The very thought of the carnage that is to come almost makes the prophet's brain reel. He has threatened Ephraim with barrenness, but now that he has to frame a prayer for his people, he can think of no kinder one than that they may have a miscarrying womb and dry breasts" (cf. Luke 23:29). One woe swallows up another, and makes it all but seem a blessing in comparison. Terrible, truly, when God departs!

III. IN RESPECT OF SETTLEMENT. (Vers. 15, 17.) Ephraim would be driven from God's house, i.e. rejected from being his people, or spiritual house, and would be sent abroad as "wanderers among the nations." This, again, was in contradistinction to the original design of a permanent settlement as the Lord's people in the Lord's land.

1. The often-reiterated cause of the banishment is here again specified. The people were driven out

(1) for their wickedness, which had assumed peculiarly aggravated and concentrated forms ("in Gilgal"); and

(2) for their obduracy: "They did not hearken unto him," i.e. God. Even their wickedness would not have ruined them, had they repented of it when God reproved and pleaded with them. Now the day for repentance was past. "I will love them no more."

2. The doom is further individualized. "Wanderers among the nations." Such are the Jews at this day. Prophecy never spoke a truer word. - J.O.

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them.
Translated into modern life, the prophet's plea would read thus. "All their wickedness is in the house of God; all their wickedness is after coming from the table of the Lord, or after receiving some faithful letter, or after their own painful convictions and sorrowful confession, or after their repeated resolutions and vows. This helps us to realise how a Jew would feel who heard the prophet make this reproach.

1. At Gilgal the covenant of circumcision was renewed for the second time since they came out of Egypt. What circumcision was to the Jew, religious instruction is to us: circumcision was God's seal to the Jews that He would cleanse them from taint of Egyptian idolatry.

2. At Gilgal they celebrated the passover for the first time after they came out of Egypt. The Lord's supper is our passover.

3. It was at Gilgal that God Himself appeared in a most remarkable manner to assure the people of Israel that He would be their deliverer. The captains of the Lord's host came. Observe Joshua's momentary surprise, courage, reverence.Notice the communication.

1. Beginning life in humble circumstances may be a Gilgal to us.

2. So may a season of affliction be. Or

3. The loss of a dear friend. But the wickedness of Gilgal may be taken away.

(W. G. Barrett.)

People
Baalpeor, Hosea
Places
Assyria, Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, Gibeah, Gilgal, Memphis
Topics
Bear, Beloved, Blighted, Bring, Cherished, Dried, Ephraim, Forth, Fruit, Kill, Offspring, Ones, Root, Slay, Struck, Though, Withered, Womb, Yet, Yield
Outline
1. The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 9:16

     4504   roots
     4802   blight
     4819   dryness

Hosea 9:15-17

     5724   offspring

Library
Of Councils and their Authority.
1. The true nature of Councils. 2. Whence the authority of Councils is derived. What meant by assembling in the name of Christ. 3. Objection, that no truth remains in the Church if it be not in Pastors and Councils. Answer, showing by passages from the Old Testament that Pastors were often devoid of the spirit of knowledge and truth. 4. Passages from the New Testament showing that our times were to be subject to the same evil. This confirmed by the example of almost all ages. 5. All not Pastors who
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Earliest Chapters in Divine Revelation
[Sidenote: The nature of inspiration] Since the days of the Greek philosophers the subject of inspiration and revelation has been fertile theme for discussion and dispute among scholars and theologians. Many different theories have been advanced, and ultimately abandoned as untenable. In its simplest meaning and use, inspiration describes the personal influence of one individual upon the mind and spirit of another. Thus we often say, "That man inspired me." What we are or do under the influence
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

John's Introduction.
^D John I. 1-18. ^d 1 In the beginning was the Word [a title for Jesus peculiar to the apostle John], and the Word was with God [not going before nor coming after God, but with Him at the beginning], and the Word was God. [Not more, not less.] 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him [the New Testament often speaks of Christ as the Creator--see ver. 10; I. Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 13, 17; Heb. i. 2]; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. [This
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

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

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