The Prophet here inveighs against the vain hopes of the people, for they were inflated with such arrogance, that they despised all instruction and all admonitions.

It may seem strange that the Prophet should now say, that God had a controversy with Judah; for he had before said, that Judah stood faithful with the saints.

In all this discourse the Prophet condemns the ingratitude of the people; and then he shows how shamefully they had departed from the example of their father, in whose name they yet took pride. This is the substance.

And since this was especially worthy of being remembered, he repeats, that he had power with the angel, and prevailed. But we have already said how Jacob prevailed not indeed of himself, but because God had so distributed his power, that the greater part was in Jacob himself.

The Prophet is now here urgent on the people. Having referred to the example of the patriarch, he shows how unlike him were his posterity, with whom God could avail nothing by sound teaching, though he was constantly solicitous for their salvation, and stirred up his Prophets to bring back the lost…

But while the Prophet exhorted the Israelites to repentance, he adds, that such was their perverseness, that it was done without any fruit. Canaan! he says; I read this by itself; for what some consider to be understood is frigid, as, “He was assimilated to, or was like Canaan, in whose hand,”…

Here God complains by his Prophet, that the Israelites flattered themselves in their vices, because their affairs succeeded prosperously and according to their wishes: and it is a vice too common, that men felicitate themselves as long as fortune, as they commonly say, smiles on them, thinking that…

In the first clause God reproaches the Israelites for having forgotten the benefit of his redemption, the memory of which ought ever to have prevailed and flourished among them.

The Prophet amplifies the sin of the people in having always obstinately opposed God, so that they were without any pretext of ignorance: for men, we know, evade God’s dreadful judgement as long as they can plead either ignorance or thoughtlessness.

It is an ironical question, when the Prophet says, Is there iniquity in Gilead? and he laughs to scorn their madness who delighted themselves in vices so gross, when their worship was wholly spurious and degenerated.

The Prophet now employs another kind of reproof, – that the Israelites did not consider from what source they had proceeded, and were forgetful of their origin. And the Prophet designedly touches on this point; for we know how boldly and proudly the people boasted of their own eminence.

And God, he says, brought you up by a Prophet from Egypt, and by a Prophet you have been preserved This was, as it were, their second nativity. Some think that the comparison is between their first origin and their deliverance; as though Hosea had said, “Though you were born of a very poor and…

The Prophet says first, that Ephraim had provoked God by his high places Some, however, take the word תמרורים, tamerurim, for bitternesses. Then it is, “Israel or Ephraim have provoked God to bitterness.” But since this word in other places as in the thirty-first of Jeremiah, is taken for high…