It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them in My arms, but they never realized that it was I who healed them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yet I taught Ephraim to walk. I took them by his arms; but they didn’t know that I healed them.
- KJV I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
- NKJV “Itaught Ephraim to walk, Taking them by their arms; But they did not know that I healed them.
- NASB Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in My arms; But they did not know that I healed them.
- NLT I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God lovingly taught Ephraim to walk and healed them, yet they failed to recognize his care. It pictures God's patient, parental kindness toward an ungrateful people.
Overview
The image of teaching a child to walk and holding them by the arms conveys God's intimate, nurturing love throughout Israel's history. Their failure to acknowledge that he healed them highlights spiritual blindness and ingratitude. The tenderness here magnifies the tragedy of their rejection of such a God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Jer 30:17But I will restore your health and heal your wounds, declares the LORD, because they call you an outcast, Zion, for whom no one cares.”
- Deut 1:31and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”
- Exod 15:26saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
- Hos 7:15Although I trained and strengthened their arms, they plot evil against Me.
- Hos 2:8For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, who lavished on her silver and gold—which they crafted for Baal.
- Deut 32:10–12He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
- Isa 46:3“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth.
- Exod 23:25So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take away sickness from among you.
- Isa 63:9In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
- Hos 14:4I will heal their apostasy; I will freely love them, for My anger has turned away from them.
- Deut 8:2Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.
- Acts 13:18He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness.
- Hos 7:1When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed, as well as the crimes of Samaria. For they practice deceit and thieves break in; bandits raid in the streets.
- Isa 30:26The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter—like the light of seven days—on the day that the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.
- Isa 1:2Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.
- Jer 8:22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
- Num 11:11–12So Moses asked the LORD, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant? Why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid upon me the burden of all these people?
- Exod 19:4‘You have seen for yourselves what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
God's relentless love for an unfaithful bride dramatizes the gospel: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' is fulfilled in Jesus, who redeems an adulterous people at his own cost.
How Hosea 11:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.