Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Hosea 13:12 - 13:12

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Hosea 13:12 - 13:12


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“The guilt of Ephraim is bound together: his sin is preserved. Hos 13:13. The pains of a travailing woman come upon him: he is an unwise son; that he does not place himself at the time in the breaking forth of children.” Hos 13:12 is a special application of Deu 32:34 to the ten tribes. Tsârūr, bound up in a bundle, like a thing which you wish to take great care of (compare Job 14:17; 1Sa 25:29). The same thing is applied in tsâphūn, hidden, carefully preserved, so as not to be lost (Job 21:19). “All their sins are preserved for punishment” (Chald.). Therefore will pains overtake Ephraim like a woman in labour. The pains of childbirth are not merely a figurative representation of violent agony, but of the sufferings and calamities connected with the refining judgments of God, by which new life was to be born, and a complete transformation of all things effected (cf. Mic 4:9-10; Isa 13:8; Isa 26:17; Mat 24:8). He cannot be spared these pains, for he is a foolish son (cf. Deu 32:6, Deu 32:28.). But in what respect? This is explained in the words כִּי עֵת וגו, “for at the time,” or as עֵת cannot stand for לְעֵת, more correctly “when it is time,” he does not place himself in, i.e., does not enter, the opening of the womb. Mishbar bânı̄m is to be explained as in 2Ki 19:3 and Isa 37:3; and עָמַד, c. ב as in Eze 22:30. If the child does not come to the opening at the right time, the birth is retarded, and the life of both mother and child endangered. The mother and child are one person here. And this explains the transition from the pains of the mother to the behaviour of the child at the time of birth. Ephraim is an unwise son, inasmuch as even under the chastening judgment he still delays his conversion, and will not let himself be new-born, like a child, that at the time of the labour-pains will not enter the opening of the womb and so come to the birth.