Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation.
The east wind in Palestine
Coming from Arabia and the far East, over large tracts of sandy waste, is parching, scorching, destructive to vegetation, oppressive to man, violent and destructive on the sea, and by land also, having the force of the whirlwind. “The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth, and as a whirlwind hurleth him out of his place” (Job 27:21). In leaving God and following idols, Ephraim fed on what is unsatisfying, and chased after what is destructive. If a hungry man were to feed on wind, it would be light food. If a man could overtake the east wind, it were his destruction. Israel “fed on wind when he sought by gifts to win one who could aid him no more than the wind; ‘he chased the east wind’ when, in place of the gain which he sought, he received from the patron whom he had adopted no slight loss.” Israel sought for the scorching wind, when it could betake itself under the shadow of God. “The scorching wind,” says St. Cyril, “is the burning of calamities, and the consuming fire of affliction.” “He increaseth lies and desolation”; for unrepented sins and their punishment are, in God’s government, linked together; so that to multiply sin is, in fact, to multiply desolation. Sin and punishment are bound together as cause and effect. “Lying will signify false speaking, false dealing, false opinions, false worship, false pretences for colour thereof, false hopes, or relying on things that will deceive. In all these kinds was Ephraim at that time guilty, adding one sort of lying to another.” (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Feeding on wind
This is a proverbial speech to note--
1. The following after vain, unprofitable things. When men please themselves in their own conceits and in their own counsels, and walk in ways that are, and certainly will be, unprofitable to them, they are said to feed on wind. When men think to please God with their own inventions, to escape danger by their own shifts, to prevail against the saints by their deep counsels and fetches, they feed upon wind; when men promise to themselves great matters by ways of their own, that are not God’s, they feed upon wind, and for all this the prophet rebukes the ten tribes.
2. The prevailing pride and elation of heart. According to the food, so will the body be; those that feed on wind must needs have hearts puffed up with conceitedness of themselves, and contempt of others that are not in the same way as themselves: they lie sucking imaginary content and sweetness in their own ways; they are full of themselves. They feed on wind, yet one prick of disappointment will quickly let out all the wind from such bladders.
3. Dependence on carnal creature comforts. Evil men that live upon the applause of men, upon honours, feed on wind, and are puffed up for awhile; but any prick of God’s appearing against them lets out the windy stuff, and quickly they are dead. Any member of the body that is puffed up with wind seems to be greater than any other part, but it is not stronger; no, it is consequently the weaker: and so it is with the hearts of men that are puffed up with windy conceits and with creature contentments, they have no strength by this inflation; though they seem stronger, yet when they are called either to do or to suffer for God, they then appear to be very weak, and therefore will change as the wind changes. Illustrate by the chameleon.
4. The turbulent, unquiet disposition of such. We know that the wind raises tempests and storms; and so men that are puffed up with, the wind of their own conceits are the men that raise such tempests and storms in the places where they live. The saints have better food to feed upon, food that makes them more solid and more staid.
Learn--
1. Creature comforts will prove but wind. Those who seek to satisfy themselves with such, and to stay themselves on their own conceits, not only deceive themselves, and will be disappointed at last in their expectations, but they will find these their ways to be very pestilential, hurtful, and dangerous; they will find that they will undo them and bring them to utter misery.
2. It is a grievous thing, when troubles come, to have nothing within us to bear us out but the wind. Suppose men meet with the rough east wind, or storms and tempests befall them, yet if they have had solid food, whereby they come to get good blood and marrow and spiritS, they may be able to bear it; but when the body is empty and meets with tempests, this is very grievous to the poor frame. So it is with many when they meet with afflictions; but the saints have such solidity within them as bears them out, but other men that are empty, that have fed upon the wind all their days, have nothing to bear them out in great afflictions, but their hearts sink down in horror and despair. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Worthless soul-food
Delitzsch renders, “Ephraim grazeth wind.” The idea is that it sought for support and satisfaction in those things which were utterly unsubstantial and worthless “wind.”
I. Sensual indulgences are worthless soul-food.
II. Worldly instructions are worthless soul-food.
III. Religious formalities are worthless soul-food. (Homilist.)
And will punish Jacob according to his ways.
None can sin with impunity
You are only under grace as long as you keep clear of God’s law. The moment you do wrong you put yourself under the law, and the law will punish you. Suppose that you went into a mill, and the owner of that mill was your best friend, even your father. Would that prevent your being crushed by the machinery if you got entangled in it through ignorance or heedlessness? I think not. Even so, though God be your best of friends, ay, your Father in heaven, that will not prevent your being injured, it may be ruined, not only by wilful sins, but by mere folly and ignorance. (Charles Kingsley.)