_Whenever Ephraim spake there was trembling._[632] _Prince_[633] _was he in Israel; but he fell into guilt through the Ba'al, and so--died. Even now they continue to sin and make them a smelting of their silver, idols after their own model,_[634] _smith's work all of it. To them_--to such things--_they speak! Sacrificing men kiss calves!_ In such unreason have they sunk. They cannot endure. _Therefore shall they be like the morning cloud and like the dew that early vanisheth, like chaff which whirleth up from the floor and like smoke from the window. And I was thy God_[635] _from the land of Egypt; and god besides Me thou knowest not, nor saviour has there been any but Myself. I shepherded_[636] _thee in the wilderness, in the land of droughts_--long before they came among the gods of fertile Canaan. But once they came hither, _the more pasture they had, the more they ate themselves full, and the more they ate themselves full, the more was their heart uplifted, so they forgat Me. So that I must be_[637] _to them like a lion, like a leopard on the way I must leap._[638] _I will fall on them like a bear robbed of its young, and will tear the caul of their hearts, and will devour them like a lion--wild beasts shall rend them._[639] When _He hath destroyed thee, O Israel--who then may help thee?_[640] _Where is thy king now? that he may save thee, or all thy princes? that they may rule thee;_[641] _those of whom thou hast said, Give me a king and princes._ Aye, _I give thee a king in Mine anger, and I take him away in My wrath!_ Fit summary of the short and bloody reigns of these last years. _Gathered is Ephraim's guilt, stored up is his sin._ The nation is pregnant--but with guilt! _Birth pangs seize him, but_--the figure changes, with Hosea's own swiftness, from mother to child--_he is an impracticable son;_[642] _for_ this _is no time to stand in the mouth of the womb_. The years that might have been the nation's birth are by their own folly to prove their death. Israel lies in the way of its own redemption--how truly this has been forced home upon them in one chapter after another! Shall God then step in and work a deliverance on the brink of death? _From the hand of Sheol shall I deliver them? from death shall I redeem them?_ Nay, let death and Sheol have their way. _Where are thy plagues, O death? where thy destruction, Sheol?_ Here with them. _Compassion is hid from Mine eyes._