Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, And the house of Israel with deceit; And Judah still us unruly with God, And is unfaithful to the Holy One.
And is faithful with the saints - Or (better perhaps, with the E. M) “with the All-Holy.” The same plural is used of God elsewhere (Joshua 24:19; and in Proverbs 30:3); and its use, like that of the ordinary name of God, is founded on the mystery of the Trinity. It does not teach it, but neither can it be accounted for in any other way. This faithfulness of Judah was outward only, (as the upbraiding of the prophet to Judah testifies,) yet did it much favor inward holiness. “The body without the soul is dead;” yet the life, even when seeming to be dying out, might be brought back, when the body was there; not, when it too was dissolved. Hence, Judah had many good kings, Israel none. Yet, in that he says, “yet ruleth with God,” he shows that a time was coming when Judah too would be, not “with God” but against Him, and also would be cast off.