(15) The whole seed of Ephraim.--The fate of the tribes of the Northern kingdom, among which Ephraim had always held the leading position, was already familiar to the people. They were dwelling far off by Habor or Gozan, and the cities of the Medes (2Kings 15:29; 2Kings 17:6; 2Kings 18:11). A like exile was, they were now told, to be their own portion.

Verse 15. - I will cast you out of my sight; viz. into a foreign land (see Deuteronomy 29:28). The land of Israel was in a special sense "Jehovah's land" (Hosea 9:3; Leviticus 25:23). Ephraim; here used for the northern tribes collectively, as Isaiah 7:2; Hosea 4:17; Hosea 5:9; Hosea 12:1.

7:1-16 No observances, professions, or supposed revelations, will profit, if men do not amend their ways and their doings. None can claim an interest in free salvation, who allow themselves in the practice of known sin, or live in the neglect of known duty. They thought that the temple they profaned would be their protection. But all who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, make Christ the minister of sin; and the cross of Christ, rightly understood, forms the most effectual remedy to such poisonous sentiments. The Son of God gave himself for our transgressions, to show the excellence of the Divine law, and the evil of sin. Never let us think we may do wickedness without suffering for it.And I will cast you out of my sight,.... Or, "from before my face", or "faces" (n); out of the land of Judea, and cause them to go into captivity; and so the Targum paraphrases it,

"I will cause you to remove out of the land of the house of my majesty:''

as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim; or Israel, as the Targum; that is, the ten tribes so called, because Ephraim, a principal tribe, and the metropolis of the kingdom, was in it, and Jeroboam, the first king of the ten tribes, was of it: now, as they were carried captive into Babylon, so should the Jews; or they of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; who could not expect to fare better than their brethren, who were more in number than they; and especially since they were guilty of the same sins.

(n) "desuper faciebus meis", Montanus; "a faciebus meis" Schmidt.