Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay [even] the beloved [fruit] of their womb.
Ver. 16. Ephraim is smitten] As a tree that hath received a deadly wound, or that hath the bark pulled off it, so that the sap cannot find the way to the branches; or that is blasted, as the fig tree in the Gospel was by Christ's curse; and as a vine smitten by great hailstones, and beaten down to the ground. "The Lord shall smite Israel," saith another prophet, "as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel," &c., 1 Kings 14:15, root and branch in one day.
The root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit] "The root of the righteous shall not be moved," Proverbs 12:3. "The root of the matter is found in me," saith Job, Job 19:28. "The holy seed shall be the substance thereof," Isaiah 6:13; "as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them." The Duke of Florence gave for his ensign a great tree with many spreading boughs, one of them being cut off with this posy, Uno avulso non deficit alter Aureus (Virg.). But it is otherwise with the ungodly; as it was with Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 4:14, nay, worse; for not so much as a stump of their roots is left in the earth, but they are written in the earth, Jeremiah 17:13, written childless, Jeremiah 22:30, their root is dried up, the parents shall perish; they shall bear no fruit, beget no children, which are the fruit of the womb, Deuteronomy 28:11; Deu 28:18 Luke 1:42. Doeg's doom shall befall them, Psalms 52:5, "God shall destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah."
Yea, though they bring forth] As Ahab did seventy sons, after that God had threatened his utter extirpation, following the work of generation so much the rather; See Trapp on " Hos 9:13 "
Yet I will slay] For it is God that lets in and sets on the enemy; it is he that killeth and maketh alive, 1 Samuel 2:6 .
Even the beloved fruit of their womb] Heb. their desires, or their desirable ones, their dearest children, called by Cicero also his desideria, Valete, mea desideria, valete (Cic.). The Latins seem to have their filius, a son, from φιλος, beloved: there is an ocean of love in a father's heart; though the more he loveth the less he is loved sometimes (as David by Absalom), and is sure, if he belong to God, to be crossed in his earthly idol. Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts; they may prove as Augustus' three children did, whom he called his three ulcers or cancers, Tres vomicas tria carcinomata (Sueton.).