As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the 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.
- BSB Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no 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 wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
- Deut 28:18Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
- Gen 41:52And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.
- Hos 4:7As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.
- Hos 10:5The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.
- Eccl 6:3If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
- Ps 58:8As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
- Deut 33:17His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
- Job 18:18–19He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
- Gen 48:16–20The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
- Amos 1:13Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:
- Deut 28:57And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.
- Job 18:5Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
- Luke 23:29For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
- Gen 49:22Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over 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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