Hosea 12:7

Merchant. In vs. 7-11 we have a further description of the apostasy of the northern kingdom, suggested by the first part of this chapter. Israel’s apostasy presents a strong contrast to Jacob’s earnestness to obtain the divine blessing, the sincerity of his repentance, the evidences of his conversion, and his constant waiting on God. This sad condition of the nation apparently prompts Hosea to repeat the story of Ephraim’s spiritual degeneracy. Balances of deceit. Ephraim was not on the high spiritual plane of the patriarch, wrestling and prevailing with God, but was a materialistically-minded huckster and exploiter, given to fraud and oppression. Instead of the mercy and justice that God required, the Israelites had descended into greedy, dishonest, oppressive trafficking, using the “balances of deceit” (see Lev. 19:36; Deut. 25:13-16).