When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, [and] the troop of robbers spoileth without.
Ver. 1. When I would have healed Israel, &c.] Whereas Israel, hearing of a happy harvest promised to Judah, Hosea 6:11, and themselves excluded, might complain of hard dealing; God shows them here, that crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit, the fault was merely in themselves. God came with his healing medicines to have cured them, but they hated to be healed, and, like madmen, railed and raged against the physician, spilt the portions, would have none of those slibber-sauces, a as they accounted them; yea, as if on purpose to cross God,
then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness (malitia multiplex) of Samaria] Of so perverse a spirit were they; and therefore (in Solomen's judgment, Pro 12:8) worthy to have been despised and let alone to perish in their corruptions. In Hippocrates' time the physicians were bound by oath to leave such under their wounds to perish by them as were unruly, and would not be ordered. "We would have healed Babylon," (saith the Church), "but she would not be healed; forsake her therefore," saith God, Jeremiah 51:9. "Let them alone," saith Christ, Matthew 15:14. That which will die, let it die: a fearful sentence. Let them swelter and pine away in their iniquities, Leviticus 26:39. In their filthiness is lewdness, their disease is complicated, it is the leprosy in the head, it breaketh forth in their forehead, and my people love to have it so; but "what will they do in the end thereof?" Jeremiah 5:31. Ephraim here discovereth a headstrong wilfulness that was uncounsellable, incurable. He runs away after conviction, with a bit between his teeth, as it were; he runs, I say, upon the rock, Amos 6:12, where he first breaketh his hoofs, and then his neck. Some grow desperately sinful, like those Italian senators, that despairing of their lives (when upon submission they had been promised their lives, yet), being conscious of their villany, made a curious banquet; and at the end thereof every man drank up his glass of poison: and killed himself. So men, feeling such horrible hard hearts, and privy to such notorious sins they cast away souls and all for lust; and perish woefully, because they lived desperately, and so securely. It is a fearful sign of reprobation when God's means and medicines do men no good, but hurt rather; when medicine, which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. The stronger the conviction of sin is the deeper will be the wrath against it, if it be not by repentance avoided.
For they commit falsehood] They do not the truth, 1 John 1:6, but deal falsely, Jeremiah 6:13, every one of them, from the prophet even to the priest; they work a deceitful work, Proverbs 11:18, their bellies prepare deceit, Job 15:35, they have an art in lying, in stitching one lie to another, as the word signifieth, Psalms 119:69, Assuunt mendacium mendacio. Idolatry is a real lie, as she in the Book of Martyrs answered the doctor, that asked her, Dost thou believe that the body of Christ is in the sacrament of the altar really and substantially? I believe, said she, that so to hold is a real lie, and a substantial lie. These idolaters having played false with God, and treacherously dealt with him, what wonder though they lie, deceive, rob, spoil, both within doors and without, in private negotiations and public transactions? but especially forge lies against those that withstood their superstitious vanities, and prey upon their goods, as Hebrews 10:34. Sublata pietate tollitur fides, is a truth irrefutable. Take away piety, and fidelity is gone; as we see in that unrighteous judge, Luke 18:2, and as Abraham concluded of the men of Gerar, Genesis 20:11, and lastly, as Constantinus Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, experimented in his own councillors and courtiers; whence that famous maxim of his, recorded by Eusebius: He cannot be faithful to me who is unfaithful to God; religion being the ground of all true fidelity and loyalty.
a A compound or concoction of a messy, repulsive, or nauseous character, used esp. for medicinal purposes. ŒD