The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins and idolatry.

¹ Do not choose to rejoice, Israel; do not celebrate as the crowds do. For you have been committing fornication against your God; you have loved a prize upon every threshing floor of wheat.

² The threshing floor and the oil press will not feed them, and the wine will deceive them.

³ They will not dwell in the land of the Lord. Ephraim has been returned to Egypt, and he has eaten polluted things among the Assyrians.

⁴ They will not offer a libation of wine to the Lord, and they will not please him. Their sacrifices will be like the bread of mourners. All those who eat it will be defiled. For their bread is of their soul; it will not enter into the house of the Lord.

⁵ What will you do on the solemn day, on the day of the feast of the Lord?

⁶ For, behold, they have been sent away by devastation. Egypt will gather them together; Memphis will bury them. Nettles will inherit their desired silver; the burr will be in their tabernacles.

⁷ The days of visitation have arrived; the days of retribution are here. Know this, Israel: that the prophet was foolish, the spiritual man was mad, because of the multitude of your iniquities and the great extent of your foolishness.

⁸ The watcher of Ephraim was with my God. The prophet has become a snare of ruin over all his ways; insanity is in the house of his God.

⁹ They have sinned profoundly, just as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity, and he will repay their sin.

¹⁰ I discovered Israel like grapes in the desert. Like the first fruits of the fig tree, I saw their fathers on the end of its branches. But they went in to Baal-peor, and they have been estranged by intermingling, and they have become abominable, just like the things that they chose to love.¹

1. 9:10The word ‘dilexerunt’ means to choose or to love, or, in this case, it means a little of both: what they choose to love instead of God.(Conte)

¹¹ Ephraim has chased away their glory like a bird: from birth, and from the womb, and from conception.¹

1. 9:11It is not that the glory of Ephraim has ‘flown away’ on its own like a bird. No, instead Ephraim has chased their glory away, as one chases a bird away.(Conte)

¹² And even if they should nurture their sons, I will make them without children among men. Yes, and woe to them, when I have withdrawn from them.

¹³ Ephraim, as I see it, was a Tyre, founded by beauty. And Ephraim will lead his sons to execution.¹

1. 9:13The word ‘interfectorem’ does not generally refer to murder, but to killing under authority, as when a king orders an execution, or when God so orders. Ephraim is leading his sons astray from God’s law, so they are justly condemned by God’s authority.(Conte)

¹⁴ Give them, O Lord. What will you give them? Give them a womb without children, and dry breasts.

¹⁵ All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for I held them there, in their hatred. Because of the malice of their inventions, I will expel them from my house. I will no longer say that I love them; all their leaders have retreated.¹

1. 9:15God is not hating them, ‘exosos,’ but rather, God held them there, ‘ibi habui eos,’ hating (i.e. because they were hating, or in their hatred).(Conte)

¹⁶ Ephraim has been struck; their root has been dried out: by no means will they yield fruit. And even if they should conceive, I will execute the most beloved of their womb.

¹⁷ My God will cast them aside because they have not listened to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.