Affliction shall be a means to bring many to Christ, a complaint of the
untowardness of the Jews. God loves mercy more than sacrifice.
6:1. In their affliction they will rise early to me: Come, and let us
return to the Lord.
6:2. For he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he
will cure us.
6:3. He will revive us after two days: on the third day he will raise
us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall know, and we shall
follow on, that we may know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as
the morning light, and he will come to us as the early and the latter
rain to the earth.
6:4. What shall I do to thee, O Ephraim? what shall I do to thee, O
Juda? your mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth away
in the morning.
6:5. For this reason have I hewed them by the prophets, I have slain
them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments shall go forth as the
light.
6:6. For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God
more than holocausts.
6:7. But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have
they dealt treacherously against me.
6:8. Galaad is a city of workers of idols, supplanted with blood.
Supplanted with blood. . .that is, undermined and brought to ruin, for
shedding of blood: and, as it is signified in the following verse, for
conspiring with the priests (of Bethel) like robbers, to murder in the
way such as passed out of Sichem to go towards the temple of Jerusalem.
Or else . . .upplanted with blood. . .signifies flowing in such manner
with blood, as to suffer none to walk there without imbruing the soles
of their feet in blood.
6:9. And like the jaws of highway robbers, they conspire with the
priests who murder in the way those that pass out of Sichem: for they
have wrought wickedness.
6:10. I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: the
fornications of Ephraim there: Israel is defiled.
6:11. And thou also, O Juda, set thee a harvest, when I shall bring
back the captivity of my people.