Hosea 7:8

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people,.... Either locally, by dwelling among them, as some of them at least might do among the Syrians; or carnally, by intermarrying with them, contrary to

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

Ephraim; the kingdom of Israel. Hath mixed himself among the people, by leagues and commerce, by imitation of their manners, and by either entertaining their gods, and sacrificing to them, or at least worshipping idols as the nations about them did, directly contrary to the express law of God, 12:2,3. This was their sin, and the greater because voluntary: the expression seems to represent it as a thing of their own seeking, they did mix themselves with the heathen, whereas had the heathen sought it, it would in likelihood have been said that the nations mixed themselves with Ephraim; but this is in other words the same with ,7. Or this passage may be (as some conceive) a threat that the Ephraimites should be scattered among the nations, be captives to them, and dispersed amongst them, with whom, to ease their condition a little, they should endeavour to mix by friendship and alliances: if so, this is the punishment of their former sinful confederacies. Ephraim is a cake not turned: some interpret this of the particoloured temper of Ephraim, by such a proverb as ours, Is neither fish nor flesh; neither Israelite nor heathen, but a mongrel; neither a heathen idolater nor yet a worshipper of God, a hotch-potch of different religions and policies, like them, ; neither bread nor yet dough, but partly both, as the unturned cake on the coals is: but it better expresseth their danger and sudden ruin, whose hungry enemies will eat them up quickly, as men do who for haste will not stay the full baking of their cake.

Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.Ver. 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people] viz. in confederacies, marriages, manners, superstitions. They were conformed to those nations from whom God had separated them with a wonderful separation, Exodus 33:16, and put them up by themselves from all the world in the promised land, as it were in an island, Isaiah 20:6. And this they had done not once, but often, as the conjugation importeth; and that wilfully, without any necessity; yea and that constantly and of custom, or desperate obstinace (Heb. ιϊαμμ he will mingle himself). so that there was little difference to be discerned between Ephraim, the professed people of God: and profane heathens. Hence that, Amos 9:7. "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord." Hence Saul is called Cush, or an Ethiopian, fox his black and ill conditions, Psal. vii., title, as the Chaldee interpreteth it. Cast we may be upon bad company, but we must not mingle with them. The rivers of Peru, after they have run into the main sea, yea, some write twenty or thirty miles, they keep themselves unmixed with the salt water; so that a very great way within the sea men may take up as fresh water as if they were near the land. At Belgrad, in Hungary, where the Danube and Sava (two great rivers) meet, their waters mingle no more than water and oil (Abbat’ s Geog.); not that either float above other: but join unmixed: so that near the middle of the river I have gone in a boat (saith mine author, Sir Henry Blount), and tasted of the Danube as clear and pure as a well; then putting mine hand not an inch farther, I have taken of the Sava as troubled as a street-channel, tasting the gravel in my teeth. Thus they run 60 miles together, and for a day’ s journey I have been an eyewitness of it. To come nearer home, the river Dee, in Merionethshire, running through Pemblemere, remains entire, and mingleth not her streams with the water of the lake. Let not Ephraim mix himself among the people, but cry with David, "Gather not my soul with sinners," Psalms 26:9, and Hosea 7:5, "I have hated the congregration of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked," Ephraim is a cake not turned] And so but half-baked, or dough-baked; neque crudus, neque coctus, neither hot nor cold, as Laodicea, Revelation 3:15, halting between two, as 1 Kings 18:21. Mongrels, as those 2 Kings 17:33 Zephaniah 1:5. Barnacles, that are neither fish nor flesh; Amphibians, that will conform to the world, and yet seem to be for the Lord. But he likes no such retainers, no such holy day servants; he requireth to be served truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving; he cannot away with dough baked duties.

(8) Cake not turned.—Referring to the destructive effect of foreign influences. Ephraim was consumed by the unhallowed fire of Baal-worship, with all its passion and sensualism—a cake burnt on one side to a cinder, and on the other left in a condition utterly unfit for food. So the activity of foreign idolatries and foreign alliances, and the consequent unfaithfulness to Israel’s God, are the nation’s ruin.

Verse 8. A cake not turned.] In the East having heated the hearth, they sweep one corner, put the cake upon it, and cover it with embers; in a short time they turn it, cover it again, and continue this several times, till they find it sufficiently baked. All travellers into Asiatic countries have noted this.

8–16. The outward evidences of Israel’s decay 8. he hath mixed himself among the people] Rather, he mixeth himself among the peoples. How? By courting the favour now of Egypt, now of Assyria (Hosea 7:11). a cake not turned] Burnt to a coal at the bottom, raw dough at the top: an apt emblem of a character full of inconsistencies (Bishop Horsley). The explanation is plausible, as long as we look at the figure by itself. But the context, which refers only to Israel’s political decline, favours another view. ‘A brand snatched from the burning’ is a figure of a country, rescued only just in time from destruction. Hosea’s ‘cake not turned’ may equally well be an emblem of a country half ruined by calamities, and not rescued. The calamities of Israel, alas! are of his own making; by mingling with ‘the peoples’ he sought for warmth, but found a destroying conflagration (cf. Isaiah 47:14). The ‘cake’ is the round flat cake of bread which was baked on hot stones (1 Kings 19:6) or on hot ashes, and required frequent turning, to prevent its being burned.

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people - i. e., with the pagan; he “mixed” or “mingled” himself among or with them, so as to corrupt himself, as it is said, “they were mingled among the

8. Ephraim — As elsewhere, Israel. Hath mixed himself among the people — R.V., following the Hebrew, “peoples,” that is, the surrounding nations.