I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim. The promise of this verse is in harmony with the spirit of compassion expressed in the preceding. It is at once the effect and evidence of that feeling of Divine compassion. God would neither execute the burning heat of his wrath, for so the words literally mean, nor destroy Ephraim utterly, or again any more as formerly. The historic event referred to may be the destruction effected by Tiglath-pileser, ally of Ahaz King of Judah against Pekah King of Israel and Rezin King of Syria, when he carried away captive the inhabitants of Gilead, Galilee, and Naphtali, as we read in 2 Kings 15:29, "In the days of Pekah King of Israel came Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazer, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." But while this is probably the primary allusion, there is an ulterior reference to the future restoration of Israel. For I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city (or, come into bumming wrath, Keil). A reason is here assigned for the exercise of the Divine commiseration just expressed; this reason is God's covenant of everlasting love. He is God, and must be measured by a Divine standard—not man, implacable and revengeful; though his people's provocation had been grievous, God was in the midst of them as their God, long-suffering and steadfast to his covenant of love and purposes of mercy. He would not enter
(a) into the city as an enemy, and for the purpose of utter destruction, as he had entered into the cities of the plain for their entire and final ruin; or,
(b) if the alternative rendering be preferred, he would not come into burning wrath. The fiery heat or fierceness of God's wrath tends to destruction, not the amendment of the impenitent. The expression, "I will not return," may also be understood as equivalent to
"I will not do according to the fervent of my wrath,
I will not return£ to destroy Ephraim:
For I am God, and not man;
Holy in the midst of thee, though I inhabit not thy cities."