_I will heal their backsliding,_ _I will love them freely:_ _For Mine anger is turned away from them._ _I will be as the dew unto Israel:_ _He shall blossom as the lily,_ _And strike his roots_ deep _as Lebanon;_ _His branches shall spread,_ _And his beauty shall be as the olive-tree,_ _And his smell as Lebanon--_
smell of clear mountain air with the scent of the pines upon it. The figure in the end of ver. 6 seems forced to some critics, who have proposed various emendations, such as "like the fast-rooted trees of Lebanon,"[658] but any one who has seen how the mountain himself rises from great roots, cast out across the land like those of some giant oak, will not feel it necessary to mitigate the metaphor.
The prophet now speaks:--
_They shall return and dwell in His shadow._ _They shall live well-watered as a garden,_ _Till they flourish like the vine,_ _And be fragrant like the wine of Lebanon._[659]
God speaks:--
_Ephraim, what has he_[660] _to do any more with idols!_ _I have spoken_ for him, _and I will look after him._ _I am like an ever-green fir;_ _From Me is thy fruit found._
This version is not without its difficulties; but the alternative that God is addressed and Ephraim is the speaker--_Ephraim_ says, _What have I to do any more with idols? I answer and look to Him: I am like a green fir-tree; from me is Thy fruit found_--has even greater difficulties,[661] although it avoids the unusual comparison of the Deity with a tree. The difficulties of both interpretations may be overcome by dividing the verse between God and the people:--
_Ephraim! what has he to do any more with idols:_ _I have spoken_ for him, _and will look after him._
In this case the _speaking_ would be intended in the same sense as the _speaking_ in chap. ii. to the heavens and earth, that they might _speak_ to the _corn and wine_.[662] Then Ephraim replies:--
_I am like an ever-green fir-tree;_ _From me is Thy fruit found._
But the division appears artificial, and the text does not suggest that the two _I_'s belong to different speakers. The first version therefore is the preferable.
* * * * *
Some one has added a summons to later generations to lay this book to heart in face of their own problems and sins. May we do so for ourselves!
_Who is wise, that he understands these things?_ _Intelligent, that he knows them?_ _Yea, straight are the ways of Jehovah,_ _And the righteous shall walk therein, but sinners shall stumble upon them._