I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from Me.
Knowledge as a basis of judgment
To know Ephraim is to know all his shifts, evasions, and cunning devices, all his plots, pretences, and base ends.
1. God’s eye is upon the secrets of men’s hearts.
2. God’s eye upon our hearts and ways is a special means to humble us.
3. God will deal with men according to their present ways.
4. Defiled worship exceedingly defiles the souls of people.
5. A morally and religiously defiled nation is near to ruin. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
God’s knowing
Emphasis is laid on the “I.” God had known Ephraim all along. However deep they may have laid their plans of blood, I have all along known them; nothing of them has been hid from Me. Even now, when under a fair outward show, they are veiling the depth of their sin, when they think their way is hid in darkness, I know their doings, that they are defiling themselves. Sin never wants specious excuse. Although (in some way unknown to us) not interfering with our free will, known unto God are our thoughts and words and deeds, before they are framed, while they are framed, while they are being spoken and done; known to Him is all which we do, and all which, under any circumstances, we should do. This He knows with a knowledge before the things were. How strange, then, to think of hiding from God a secret sin, when He knew, before He created thee, that He created thee liable to this very temptation, and to be assisted amidst it with just that grace which thou art resisting. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Nothing hid from God
While the Americans were blockading Cuba, several captains endeavoured to elude their vigilance by night, trusting that the darkness would conceal them as they passed between the American war ships. But in almost every case, the dazzling rays of a searchlight frustrated the attempt, and the fugitive vessel was captured by the Americans. The brilliant searchlight, sweeping the broad ocean and revealing even the smallest craft on its surface, is but a faint type of the Eternal Light from which no sinner can hide his sin. (Sunday School Chronicle.)