How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? [how] shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
Ver. 8. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim] Here beginneth the second part of this chapter, full of many sweet evangelical promises, and here, if ever, mercy rejoiceth against judgment, or treadeth on the very neck of it, as St James's word importeth, James 2:18, κατακαυχαται from αυχην (cervix). The Lord seemeth here to be at a stand, or at strife with himself, about the destruction of this people fore warning; which well might have been a guff to swallow them up, and a grave to bury them in for ever, being most worthy to perish, as were the cities which God destroyed in his wrath, Genesis 19:23,25. Howbeit God in the bowels of his mercy yearning and taking pity of his elect among them (for he had reserved seven thousand hidden ones that had not bowed their knees to Baal), spareth to lay upon them the extremity of his wrath, and is ready to save them for his mercy's sake. Hear how father-like he melts over them:
How should I expose thee, O Ephraim? how should I deliver thee up, O Israel? How should I dispose thee as Admah? how should I set thee as Zeboim] q.d. Justice requires that I should lay thee utterly waste, and even rain down hell from heaven upon thee, as once upon Sodom and her sisters. But mercy interposeth her four "hows" (in the original two only expressed, but the other two necessarily understood, and by interpreters fitly supplied), for such pathetic interrogations as the like are not to be found in the whole book of God, and not to be answered by any but God himself; as indeed he doth to each particular in the following words: "My heart is turned within me," that is the first answer; the second, "My repentings are kindled together"; the third, "I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath"; the fourth, "I will not return to destroy Ephraim." And why? First, "I am God and not man"; secondly, the "Holy One in the midst of thee."
My heart is turned, or turneth itself, within me] That is, my mind is changed, or at least is in doubt what to do in this business. This is spoken, ανθρωποπαθως, after the manner of men, and must be understood, θεοπρεπως, agreeably to God's greatness. Here is mutatio rei non Dei, effectus non affectus, facti non consilii, a change of a matter not of God, to effect and not to alter, to do senselessly. Repentance with man is the changing of his will. Repentance with God is no more than the willing of a change: ill is not a change of his will, but of his work. Confer Lamentations 1:20; Lamentations 2:11 Amos 1:12. There are those who render it, My heart is turned against me, that is, against my former severe sentence of cutting them all utterly off at one blow; Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus. Oh! I cannot find in my heart to do it. For my
Repentings are kindled together] Simul aestuant viscera mea poenitentia. So Tremellius; My bowels are altogether on a light fire with repentings, as Genesis 43:30 1 Kings 3:26. Now repentings are as improperly attributed to God as bowels. There were a sort of ignorant monks in Egypt, who started this foolish and ridiculous question (which yet bred no small stirs there, A.D. 403), An Deus corporeus sit? Whether the Divine essence be a body, having hands, heart, bowels? &c. The ruder sort of them held it affirmatively. What blasphemies Vorstius hath vented in that base book of his, de Deo, I need not relate. How God is said to repent hath been said already. Sure it is, that herein he graciously accommodateth himself to our rudeness, and speaketh as we are able to bear (Calvin). It appeareth that fury is not in God, Isaiah 27:4. Our sins put thunderbolts into his hands, and it is, Non nisi coactus with him, when he proceeds to punishment. His bowels are very ready to work in the ways of grace and mercy toward sinners; and the least act of faith in that mercy would certainly set bowels on work amain. This the Church in Isaiah well knew, and therefore prayed when deserted, Look down from heaven, &c. Where is thy zeal, and thy strength? the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained? Doubtless thou art our Father, notwithstanding thine austerities, Isaiah 63:15,16. God seemeth sometimes to lose his bowels, and then we must find them for him; to sleep, and we must awake him; to hide himself, and then we must fetch him out, as the woman of Canaan did by the force of her faith, Mark 7:24,25. God will come, but he will have the faithful prayers of his people to lead him. I came for thy word, Daniel 10:12 .