Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.
Parallel translations
- WEB As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception.
- KJV As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.
- NKJV As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird— No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!
- NASB As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird— No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!
- NLT The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will not be born or grow in the womb or even be conceived.
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
Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, pregnancy, or conception.
Overview
The judgment touches Ephraim's very fruitfulness, as the glory of children and posterity vanishes. The threefold loss of conception, pregnancy, and birth reverses the blessing of fertility that idolatrous worship had sought to secure. This devastating withdrawal shows that life itself is God's gift, denied to those who reject Him and restored in the abundant life Christ gives.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Hos 9:14Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!
- Deut 28:18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.
- Gen 41:52And the second son he named Ephraim, saying, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
- Hos 4:7The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against Me; they exchanged their Glory for a thing of disgrace.
- Hos 10:5The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.
- Eccl 6:3A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.
- Ps 58:8Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.
- Deut 33:17His majesty is like a firstborn bull, and his horns are like those of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations, even to the ends of the earth. Such are the myriads of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh.”
- Job 18:18–19He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.
- Gen 48:16–20the angel who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”
- Amos 1:13This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their territory.
- Deut 28:57the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.
- Job 18:5Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.
- Luke 23:29Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’
- Gen 49:22Joseph is a fruitful vine—a fruitful vine by a spring, whose branches scale the wall.
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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 9:11 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
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