Warnings and exhortations to the king, to the priests, and to the people
5
📚“Hear this,O priests! Pay attention,
house of Israel! Give ear,
O royal house!
For judgment is against you,
because you have been
a snare at Mizpah,
and a net 📖 spread on Tabor.
5:1 Political leaders, religious leaders and people were all guilty.⚜
2 📚And the rebels are deep in slaughter,
though I have rebuked them all.
5:2 God’s rebukes are often ignored by those who are determined to go on their own way.⚜
3 📚I know 📖 Ephraim 📖, and
Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim,
you engage in prostitution 📖,
and Israel is defiled.
4 📚“They will not employ
their deeds to turn 📖 to their God,
for the spirit of prostitution 📖 is among them,
and they do not know 📖 the LORD.
5 📚And the pride 📖 of Israel testifies
against him.
Therefore Israel and Ephraim stumble
in their wickedness.
Judah 📖 also stumbles with them.
6 📚They will go with their flocks
and with their herds to seek 📖 the LORD,
but they will not find him.
He has withdrawn himself from them.
7 📚They have dealt treacherously
against the LORD;
for they have begotten alien children.
Now a New Moon 📖 festival
will devour them with their portions.
8 📚“Blow the horn in Gibeah,
and the trumpet in Ramah!
Cry out loudly at Beth-Aven 📖,
‘Behind you, O Benjamin 📖!’
5:8 War was about to come on the northern kingdom.⚜
9 📚Ephraim will be desolate
in the day of rebuke.
Among the tribes of Israel
I make known what is sure 📖.
10 📚The princes of Judah 📖 are like
those who remove boundary
stones, therefore I will
pour out my wrath on them
like water.
11 📚Ephraim is oppressed and
broken in judgment,
because he willingly followed
human orders.
12 📚Therefore I will be to Ephraim
like a moth,
and to the house of Judah like rot.
5:12 God had decided to destroy both Israel and Judah.⚜
13 📚When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah saw his wound,
then Ephraim went to the Assyrian,
and sent a message to King Jareb.
But he could not cure you,
or heal you of your wound.
5:13 Both Israel and Judah had been defeated by foreign armies and left like a wounded body. Compare Isa 1:5-7. Note on Assyria at 2 Kings 15:19.⚜
14 📚For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house
of Judah.
I myself will tear them 📖
and go away.
I will take them away,
and no one will rescue then.
5:14 This is why the king of Assyria was not able to help Israel. God was against Israel and had decreed its destruction – v 9. If God is against us who can be for us?⚜
15 📚I will go away and return
to my place, until 📖 they acknowledge
their offense,
and seek my face.
In their affliction they will seek me earnestly”.