I will ransom them, &c.— Shall I deliver them from the jaws of the grave? Shall I redeem them from death? O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy destructive power? Houbigant. If the ideas here used primarily refer to the restoration of the Jews; they have also, no doubt, an immediate reference to that great subject to which St. Paul applies them; 1 Corinthians 15:54-55.
Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes— The frequent and sudden transitions from threatening to promise, from indignation to pathetic persuasion, and the contrary, produce much obscurity in the latter part of this prophet; which however disappears, when breaks are made in the proper places. In the 13th verse, the peril of Ephraim's situation, arising from his own hardened thoughtlessness, is described in the most striking images. In the 14th, God the Saviour comforts him with the promise of the final deliverance of the Jewish nation. In these words, which may be rendered, No repentance is discoverable to my eye, the Saviour complains, that these terrors and these hopes are all ineffectual: that he perceives no signs of repentance wrought by them. The Hebrew sounds literally, "Repentance is hidden from mine eyes." The total defect of the thing is most strongly expressed in the assertion, that nothing of it is to be discerned by the all-searching eye of the divine Saviour. This complaint of universal impenitence, with the reason assigned, introduces new threatening, with which the chapter ends. The reason assigned for the impenitence is, that Ephraim is run wild among savage beasts, broken loose from the restraints of God's holy law, given up to his depraved appetites, and turned mere heathen.