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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Hosea 13:15 - 13:15
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“For he will bear fruit among brethren. East wind will come, a wind of Jehovah, rising up from the desert; and his fountain will dry up, and his spring become dried. He plunders the treasuries of all splendid vessels.” The connection between the first clause and the previous verse has been correctly pointed out by Marck. “Hos 13:15,” he says, “adduces a reason to prove that the promised grace of redemption would certainly stand firm.” כִּי cannot be either a particle of time or of condition here (when, or if); for neither of them yields a suitable thought, since Ephraim neither was at that time, nor could become, fruit-bearing among brethren. Ewald's hypothetical view, “Should Ephraim be a fruitful child,” cannot be grammatically sustained, since kı̄ is only used in cases where a circumstance is assumed to be real. For one that is merely supposed to be possible, אִם is required, as the interchange of אִם and כִּי, in Num 5:19-20, for example, clearly shows. The meaning of יַפְרִיא is placed beyond all doubt by the evident play upon the name Ephraim; and this also explains the writing with א instead of ה fo d, as well as the idea of the sentence itself: Ephraim will bear fruit among the brethren, i.e., the other tribes, as its name, double-fruitfulness, affirms (see at Gen 41:52). This thought, through which the redemption from death set before Israel is confirmed, is founded not only upon the assumption that the name must become a truth, but chiefly upon the blessing which the patriarch promised to the tribe of Ephraim on the ground of its name, both in Gen 48:4, Gen 48:20, and Gen 49:22. Because Ephraim possessed such a pledge of blessing in its very name, the Lord would not let it be overwhelmed for ever in the tempest that was bursting upon it. The same thing applies to the name Ephraim as to the name Israel, with which it is used as synonymous; and what is true of all the promises of God is true of this announcement also, viz., that they are only fulfilled in the case of those who adhere to the conditions under which they were given. Of Ephraim, those only will bear fruit which abides to everlasting life, who walk as true champions for God in the footsteps of faith and of their forefathers, wrestling for the blessing of the promises. On the other hand, upon the Ephraim that has turned into Canaan (Hos 12:8) an east wind will come, a tempest bursting from the desert (see at Hos 12:2), and that a stormy wind raised by Jehovah, which will dry up his spring, i.e., destroy not only the fruitful land with which God has blessed it (Deu 33:13-16), but all the sources of its power and stability. Like the promise in Hos 13:14, the threatening of the judgment, to which the kingdom of Israel is to succumb, is introduced quite abruptly with the word יָבוֹא. The figurative style of address then passes in the last clause into a literal threat. הוּא, he, the hostile conqueror, sent as a tempestuous wind by the Lord, viz., the Assyrian, will plunder the treasure of all costly vessels, i.e., all the treasures and valuables of the kingdom. On kelı̄ chemdâh compare Nah 2:10 and 2Ch 32:27. We understand by it chiefly the treasures of the capital, to which a serious catastrophe is more especially predicted in the next verse (Hos 14:1), which also belongs to this strophe, on account of its rebellion against God.