Hosea 9:11 [As for] Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.
Ver. 11. As for Ephraim, their glory shall flee away as a bird] Heb. Ephraim, by a nominative absolute. Or, O Ephraim, as with a sigh, or a shriek, for grief and horror of their ensuing calamity, exilium, excidium, et exitium. "The Lord afflicts not willingly, nor grieves the children of men," Lamentations 3:33. It goes as much against the heart with him as against the hair with us; witness this pathetic expression. See also Hosea 11:8. Their glory, that is, their God, as in the next verse. Or, their children, as in the next words. They worshipped Baalpeor for fruitfulness; but it shall not do: for either they shall be punished with barrenness, or else with a luctuosa foecunditas (as Jerome saith of Loeta, who buried many children), a doleful fruitfulness.
Their glory shall flee away as a bird] Suddenly, swiftly, irrecoverably, shall their numerous posterity, which they looked upon as themselves multiplied and eternalized, be cut off, be snatched away by the hand of death; so that, Rachel-like, they shall refuse to be comforted, because her children were not: or as Cratisiclea, in Plutarch, who, seeing her dear children slain before her, and herself ready to be served in like sort, uttered only this word, Quo pueri, estis profecti? Poor children, what is become of you?
From the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception] In all these states shall the curse follow them close: either they shall not conceive, or die in the womb, or be stifled in the birth; they shall all prove Ichabods. It is God that gives strength to conceive, as he did to Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, &c. It is he that formeth us in the womb, and that by the book, Psalms 139:15,16, and preserveth us there, Job 10:8, when neither we can shift for ourselves, nor our parents provide for us. It is he that taketh us thence, Psalms 22:9,10, as a nurse or midwife doth the newborn babe. It is he that keepeth us in the cradle, and in childhood, when we are subject to a thousand deaths and dangers; for puerilitas est periculorum pelagus; it is a just wonder that any child attains to maturity. But if wicked men's children do so, a soft they do (for "they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes," Psa 17:14), yet it follows,