Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; So I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.
: “‘The beauty of the neck’ designates those who sin and take pleasure in their sins. That passing over or ascending, said both in the past and the future, ‘I passed, I will make to ride,’ signifies that what He purposes is most certain. It expresses that same vengeance as, ‘Ye are a stiffnecked people; I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and cosume thee’ Exodus 33:5. The ‘beauty’ of the ‘neck’ here is the same as the ornament there, when the Lord says, ‘therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.’ As long as the sinner goes adorned, i. e., is proud in his sins, as long as he stiffens his fair neck, self-complacent, taking pleasure in the ills which he has done, God, in a measure, knows not what to do to him; mercy knows not how, apart from the severity of judgment, to approach him; and so after the sentence of the judge, ‘thou art a stiffnecked people, etc.’ He gives the counsel ‘put off thine ornaments etc.’ i. e., humble thyself in penitence, that I may have mercy upon thee.”