Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.
Here again God amplifies the sin of the people, by saying, that by no kindness, even for a long time, could they be allured, or turned, or reformed, or reduced to a sound mind. It was surely enough that the people of Israeli who had been brought by the hand of God from the grave to the light of life, should have repudiated every instruction...
When Israel was weak and helpless as children, God set His love upon them and bore them as a nurse bears the sucking child. Those whom God loves He calls out of bondage into the glorious liberty of His children.
AI summary
Commenting on Hosea 11:1-7
I taught Ephraim also to go,.... All the tribes of Israel and Ephraim, or the ten tribes with the rest; these the Lord instructed in the way of his commandments, and taught them to walk therein; he his angel before them, to conduct them through the wilderness; yea, he himself went before them in the pillar of cloud by day, and in the pillar of...