Hosea 9:12

"As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception."

Key Reflection

In Hosea 9:12, the prophet declares that Ephraim’s false pride and spiritual barrenness will vanish as easily as a bird's flight. This metaphor underscores the temporary nature of their supposed glory. Following this, the verse suggests complete sterility—no new life or future hope, indicating a total loss of spiritual vitality and promise for the people of Ephraim.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

Though they bring up children -God had threatened to deprive them of children, in every stage before or at their birth. Now, beyond this, he tells them, as to those who should escape this sentence, he would bereave them of them, or make them childless. That there shall not be a man left -Literally, “from man.” The brief word may be filled up, as the English Version has done (by not infrequent an idiom): (1) “from there being a man;” or (2) “from” among “men;” as Samuel said to Agag (1 Samuel 15:33; addProverbs 30:14), “as thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women;” or (3) “from” becoming “men,” i. e., from reaching man’s estate.

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