Hosea 13:12-13

Hosea 13:12-13. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up This verse may be better rendered, The iniquity of Ephraim is treasured up, his sin is laid up That is, laid up in my memory, as that which ought to be punished at a proper time. The sentence is manifestly equivalent to that expression in Job 14:17, My transgression is sealed up in a bag; that is, thou keepest an exact account of it, as men do of money which they seal up in a bag, to be forthcoming on a proper occasion. To the same purpose are those words, Deuteronomy 32:34, Is not this laid up in store for me, and sealed among my treasures? To me belongs vengeance, &c. The sorrows of a travailing woman Grievous sorrows, or pains, shall come upon him Great calamities are often compared to the pains of child- bearing. He is an unwise son: for he should not Or rather, else he would not, stay long, &c. As a child, if it could be supposed to have understanding, would deliver itself out of the womb, and not tarry there to the manifest danger of itself and the mother; so if Ephraim or Israel had acted wisely, they would have prevented their approaching destruction by a speedy reformation. Horsley’s version is, He is of the thoughtless race, for it is the critical moment, when he ought not to stand still; the children are in the aperture: Hebrew, in the breach. “They are actually passing through the opening of the parts distended by the throes of labour. It is the very moment when the pains must terminate in the delivery or the death of the woman. A proverbial expression, for a crisis of extreme danger and doubtful catastrophe: see Isaiah 37:3. At such a moment as this, thoughtless Ephraim is supine and unconcerned.”