So Ephraim and Judah went to the wrong person, and did not gain much by their application. The same fatal error is being perpetrated by multitudes amongst us still. The error is as ancient as Cain, and as modern as today.
I. It is pretty plain that Israel could not choose to be independent. They had not the forces at their control to enable them to defy all comers. Either the nation must lean on its God, or else it must lean on some arm of flesh, and king Jareb seemed as eligible a helper as anyone else. And neither can we be independent. Our nature is so constituted, and our conditions of existence are so ordered, that we must needs look beyond ourselves for solace and support amidst the strange and trying vicissitudes of life.
II. It would have been no true kindness on God's part if He had granted the Israelites prosperity when they were apostate from Him. This must have led them to feel the more satisfied with their apostasy, and the less disposed to repent. And it is no less His love to us that makes Him deal with us in a similar manner. He has to thwart us just that He may show us how little king Jareb can do for us.
III. When we draw near to God, we find a good Physician binding up our wounds. Listen to these wondrous words, and see foreshadowed in them all the glories of the Resurrection. "After two days will He revive us... and we shall live in His sight." The life hitherto cut off from us can once again flow into us; after two days in the sepulchre two days of self-despair and sitting in darkness and the shadow of death He revives us, and we begin to live in His sight.
W. Hay Aitken, Mission Pulpit,No. 77.