Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!
The prophet, in any case, does not mcan absolute excision, for he says, “they shall be wanderers among the nations,” and had foretold, that they should abide, as they now are, and be converted in the end. But since their pride was in their numbers, he says, that these should be reduced in every stage from conception to ripened manhood. So God had forewarned Israel in the law, “If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law - ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude” Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 28:62. A sentence, felt the more by Ephraim, as being the head of the most powerful division of the people, and himself the largest portion of it.