7 The businessmen engage in wholesale fraud. They love to rip people off! 8 Ephraim boasted, "Look, I'm rich! I've made it big! And look how well I've covered my tracks: not a hint of fraud, not a sign of sin!" 9 "But not so fast! I'm God, your God! Your God from the days in Egypt! I'm going to put you back to living in tents, as in the old days when you worshiped in the wilderness. 10 I speak through the prophets to give clear pictures of the way things are. Using prophets, I tell revealing stories. 11 I show Gilead rampant with religious scandal and Gilgal teeming with empty-headed religion. I expose their worship centers as stinking piles of garbage in their gardens." 12 Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob? He ran off guilty to Aram, Then sold his soul to get ahead, and made it big through treachery and deceit. 13 Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets, who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors. 14 As it is, Ephraim has continually and inexcusably insulted God. Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways. His Master will do to him what he has done.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Hosea 12:7-14
Commentary on Hosea 12:7-14
(Read Hosea 12:7-14)
Ephraim became a merchant: the word also signifies a Canaanite. They carried on trade upon Canaanitish principles, covetously and with fraud and deceit. Thus they became rich, and falsely supposed that Providence favoured them. But shameful sins shall have shameful punishments. Let them remember, not only what a mighty prince Jacob was with God, but what a servant he was to Laban. The benefits we have had from the word of God, make our sin and folly the worse, if we put any slight upon that word. We had better follow the hardest labour in poverty, than grow rich by sin. We may form a judgment of our own conduct, by comparing it with that of ancient believers in the like circumstances. Whoever despises the message of God, will perish. May we all hear his word with humble, obedient faith.