Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, [is] planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.
Ver. 13. Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place] And therefore pleaseth himself as not forsaken of God. But he may be angry enough with those that yet outwardly prosper; as he was with the old world buried in security; with Sodom, who had fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness; with the land of Shinar (where Babel was built, Gen 11:2-4), fruitful beyond credulity, as Herodotus and Pliny testify; with Tyre, a maritime and magnificent city, planted in a pleasant place, in the very heart of the sea; as Venice is at this day, media insuperabilis unda, environed with her embracing Neptune, to whom (as the ceremony of her throwing a ring into the sea implies) she marrieth herself with yearly nuptials, and hath for her motto, Nec fluctu nec flatu movetur, Nor winds nor waves can stir her. Of the pomp, pride, and populousness of Tyre read Ezekiel 26:1,21; Ezekiel 27:1,36; Ezekiel 28:1,19. Lo, such a one was Ephraim, when ripe for ruin, near to an utter downfall. What can be more fair and flourishing than a grainfield or vineyard a little before the harvest, the vintage? Physicians say that the uttermost degree of bodily health is next unto sickness. Glass, or other metals, cast into the fire, shine most when ready to melt and run. This was Tyre's case, this was Ephraim's, pleasantly planted, but marked out for destruction; as a carpenter cometh to a wood, and with his axe marketh out the fairest trees for felling. Ephraim is the worse because he seeth Tyre yet prosper. But God will take that from heathen Tyre that he will not take from Ephraim; and the sunshine of prosperity doth but ripen the sins of them both for divine vengeance.
They shall bring forth children to the murderers] As to God's executioners; and so show themselves not parents, but parricides; because they betray their children (as Babel did by her idolatry, Psa 137:8 Isa 13:8) into the hands of the enemy. Wherein they are more cruel than that false schoolmaster in Italy (mentioned by Livy and Florus), that brought forth his scholars, the flower of the nobility and gentry there, to Hannibal; who, if he had not been more merciful than otherwise, they had all been murdered. But what shall we say of such wretched parents, as bring forth children to that old manslayer, the devil? and how shall such undone children curse their careless parents in hell, throughout all eternity! If the Lord also could say of those poor children that were sacrificed to Moloch (the Chaldee paraphrase understands this text of those children), "Thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them" (namely, for the images of the foresaid idols), Ezekiel 16:21, what will he say, or rather, what will he not say, to those bloody parents, that carry their children with them, to Satan's slaughter house?