Feeding on wind.
The conduct of Ephraim is in many respects very instructive to all readers of Scripture. There is nothing in that conduct upon which Hosea lays greater stress than the extreme folly, unreasonableness, fatuity of sin. This is a forcible image which the prophet here employs to describe the vanity of a course of life distinguished by forgetfulness of God and rebellion against God, by a constantly recurring though constantly disappointing endeavor to find satisfaction in the pursuits and pleasures of sin. "Ephraim feedeth on wind, and chaseth the east wind."
I. A VAIN AND FALSE STANDARD AND AIM. Compare the wind with wholesome food, and you feel at once the absurdity of regarding the one as though it were equivalent to the other. The objects upon which the ungodly and the worldly set their heart are as unsubstantial as the" viewless air." Such persons call evil good, and commit the sin of forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out to themselves broken cisterns which can hold no water.
II. A FOOLISH PURSUIT. As are a man's conceptions of excellence, such we may expect will be his life. It is natural that we should seek that which we deem good. Seekers of satisfaction in the pleasures of sin, if they could but understand their real life, would see themselves to be chasing the east wind. All earthly aims, when substituted for God's glory—the one true end of our existence—are unworthy of our nature, and undeserving of our devotion.
III. AN UNSATISFYING REWARD. To swallow the wind is a poor substitute for eating suitable and sustaining food. And sooner or later every person who has given himself to the quest of worldly and selfish aims must discover their utter vanity, their inability to afford a true and lasting satisfaction. When the illusions of earth and time have vanished, and men stand face to face with eternal realities, how empty and unworthy will appear what has so often inflamed their desire and excited their strenuous effort! Anticipating so clear a judgment, let the hearers of God's Word be wise in time.—T.