Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor (continued)
kingdom, the royal city, was in that tribe. In the verse immediately preceding the text it is declared in what a terrible manner God was about to deal with Ephraim. (Hos. 5:14) "For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away, and none shall rescue him." In the text God declares how he would deal with them after he had torn as a lion, etc. And here,
First, God declares how he would withdraw from them. "I will go and return to my place;" when I have torn as a lion. I will go away; I will leave them in that condition. I will depart from them, and they shall see no more of me.
Second, what God will wait for in them before he returns to them to show them mercy. There are three things here signified.
1. That they should be sensible of their guilt. "Till they acknowledge their offense." It is in the original, "till they become guilty." That is, till they become guilty in their own eyes, till they are sensible of their guilt; in the same sense as the same expression is used in Rom. 3:19, "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God:" that is, become guilty in their own eyes.
2. That they would be sensible of their misery, implied in the expression, "in their affliction they shall seek me." Their calamity was brought upon them, before God had torn them, and left them. But in their pride and perverseness, they were not well sensible of their own miserable condition, as this prophet observes in Hos. 7:9.