Hosea12chapter 12

Hosea 12:1-2

Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind pictures a nation chasing what cannot nourish, the daily increase of lies and desolation running alongside a foreign policy played both ways at once, a covenant made with Assyria while oil is carried south as tribute to Egypt, trust split between two powers instead of resting in the Lord who alone had delivered them before. The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah extends the charge south, according to his doings will he recompense him stating the law of just recompense that governs the rest of the chapter's Jacob material.

Hosea 12:3-5

He took his brother by the heel in the womb recalls Jacob's birth (Gen 25:26) and by his strength he had power with God turns at once to Peniel, where he wept, and made supplication unto him, wrestling all night until daybreak (Gen 32:24-30). The Lord God of hosts; the Lord is his memorial names the God Jacob met there by his covenant name, the same name Israel the nation now bears and now dishonors, the ancestor's midnight struggle and tears set as the pattern of true prevailing the descendants have abandoned for the calves of Beth-el, the very place Jacob found him.

Hosea 12:6-8

Therefore turn thou to thy God applies Jacob's own history directly to his descendants, keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually naming the very virtues Jacob learned through decades of exile and struggle. Verse 7 turns to Ephraim as a merchant with balances of deceit, loving to oppress, the patriarch's own early cunning (his name meaning supplanter) resurfacing in the nation's commerce, and Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich answers every accusation with self-justification, wealth mistaken for innocence, in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin standing as the boast the rest of the book answers.

Hosea 12:9-10

I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast points to the feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:39-43), the Lord promising a return to the wilderness simplicity of the exodus years, discipline recalling the nation to what it was before prosperity corrupted it. I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes names the whole prophetic ministry, parable and vision alike, as the Lord's patient method of address across generations, a witness Israel had no excuse for missing.

Hosea 12:11-14

Is there iniquity in Gilead: Is there iniquity in Gilead names a place notorious for idol altars raised in heaps in the furrows of the fields, worship multiplied past counting. Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife recalls the flight from Esau and the years under Laban (Gen 29-31), the patriarch's servitude for love set beside verse 13's greater deliverance, by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved, naming Moses and reminding a people who had turned on their own prophets exactly who had carried them this far. Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly closes the chapter with the debt still owed, his reproach shall his Lord return unto him, judgment matching the provocation measure for measure.