8 The Lord sends a [j]message against Jacob,
And it falls on Israel.
9 And all the people know it,
That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
Asserting in pride and in arrogance of heart:
10 “The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with smooth stones;
The sycamores have been cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”
11 Therefore the Lord raises against them adversaries from Rezin
And spurs their enemies on,
12 The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west;
And they devour Israel with [k]gaping jaws.
In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away
And His hand is still stretched out.13 Yet the people do not turn back to Him who struck them,
Nor do they seek the Lord of hosts.
14 So the Lord cuts off head and tail from Israel,
Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day.
15 The head is the elder and honorable man,
And the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail.
16 For those who guide this people are leading them astray;
And those who are guided by them are [l]brought to confusion.
17 Therefore the Lord does not take pleasure in their young men,
Nor does He have pity on their [m]orphans or their widows;
For every one of them is godless and an evildoer,
And every mouth is speaking foolishness.
In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away
And His hand is still stretched out.18 For wickedness burns like a fire;
It consumes briars and thorns;
It even sets the thickets of the forest aflame
And they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19 By the fury of the Lord of hosts the land is burned up,
And the people are like fuel for the fire;
No man spares his brother.
20 [n]They slice off what is on the right hand but still are hungry,
And [o]they eat what is on the left hand but they are not satisfied;
Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm.
21 Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh,
And together they are against Judah.
In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away
And His hand is still stretched out.
This passage is full of doom and gloom for Israel (and Judah, since they were split up at this point). Three times the prophet repeats the refrain, “His anger does not turn away and His hand is still stretched out.” Buy why? Why was God so upset with Israel–beside the obvious things of worshipping idols and the like.
We find the answer in vv. 8-10. God sent ruin on the people, and they knew it was from God, and in their pride, they basically said, “We don’t care what you break, we’ll build it back better.” Huh, that sounds familiar, but I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say, we have a lot of pride going around today, and they had plenty of it back then, and none of it was any good.
You’ve probably heard the oft misquoted sentiment, “Money is the root of all evil”, but more often you can trace it back to pride. Somehow we think we know more than God, or we know better. Or maybe we just think we’re better than that guy over there, when we aren’t. We may be in better shape, due to no doing of our own, and all because of God, but we have no reason for pride.
Even in our work, we may feel we’ve been doing something so long there couldn’t possibly be a better way than what we’re doing. Instead, we should see to be humble, to imitate what Jesus showed us on this earth. Paraphrasing a bit, He did not consider equality with God to be something to grasp or hold onto, but humbled himself. He was literally God, in the flesh, but he laid it down.
It should be no surprise that God told Israel the antidote for all the evil that plagued their land, way back in the days of Solomon, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves…” It doesn’t end there, but that’s the best start any of us can make. Be humble enough to admit you don’t know it all, never will, and never could.
But someone does, and He is working everything for the best. Will we cling to what we think we know, or let go and let Him do a work in our lives. Not just spiritually, but God is interested in every area of our life, work, family, friends, our passions, our hobbies, all of it. Don’t let pride drag you down as it did the very people who were called by His name. Lift God up instead, let Him be exalted in your life, today, tomorrow, and forever.