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a permanent end of Ephraim, because He has pledged that Israel will remain His people and because Israel, innately good as it is, will eventually heed God's call to repent and resume its mission.  * When God will roar like a lion that the End has come, even Ephraim's children will come rushing from the west to declare their renewed allegiance to Him. 
       Hosea continues to rebuke the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes, which….led by Ephraim...had come to think that it was invincible, because of its wealth and power.  It had forgotten its humble origins…* that Jacob had once been a humble shepherd who had been reduced to tending sheep in order to earn the right to his bride, and that Ephraim had achieved its eminence as a leading tribe only because it spoke harshly against Solomon's successor, Rehoboam, who abused his holy calling.    It should have been clear to Ephraim that protection and success are gifts of God, and are not acquired by strength, guile, or coincidence.
        Ephraim sinned through arrogance and idolatry, and therefore was condemned to defeat, exile, and death.  God does not forget sins; He binds them up and stores them away, as it were, to punish the perpetrators when His wisdom decrees that they are no longer entitled to Divine forbearance.  Israel's sins are all the more serious because the nation ignored its infinite debt to God.  Had He not brought them forth from Egypt and made them a nation? 
         God does not abandon Israel.  Hosea's warning of retribution concludes with a loving call to repentance.  True, Israel, as symbolized by Ephraim, has sinned grievously, but its essence remains good and pure.  IT is not hopelessly evil, it has stumbled into sin.  The potential for repentance always remains, and God is always ready to accept it and forgive.

* (footnotes added by Mlaw) This is a fascinating verse.  Many of us believe that HaShem is talking here about people who have become so assimilated into the non-Jewish world that they have no idea they are from the tribe of Ephraim (or the 10 lost tribe).  We also believe that these "Jews" are coming out of Christianity by the groves because (and many don't even know why) the finger of HaShem is leading them back to their roots….the Jewish people and the land of Israel.  These people are zealots for the "truth" and steadfast in their belief of who the Jewish people are and who the Land of Israel belongs to.  Once they discard their belief in "Jesus/Yeshua" they begin to see "truth" in a very different light.  They can then enter into the world that they have been gone from for so many centuries…...these are truly the days of the Mashiach…..May we merit that He come quickly…..(also meaning that the Messiah is Israel and that as the Jews return home to complete Israel, that is the Messiah coming)

There are also those seeking conversion in order to infiltrate the Jewish people and make them Christians.    We are not talking about these missionaries.  We are talking about those who renounce Jesus/Yeshua and are embracing true Torah-observant Judaism.  These people have great Amuna (faith), which was cultivated in the church, and are walking in a path that they are taking each day...step by step….and they are coming to us (the Jewish people)  and home to our blessed Land of Israel.

To conclude….the roar of a Lion suggests a finality and power.  There will be no mistake who is giving the message and what that message is.
     
* (footnotes added by Mlaw) We are in the "times of Jacob" in so many ways.  HaShem shows us the hardships that Jacob went thru to gives us hope….yet to find similarities.  Read Jacobs story carefully and you will see that Israel is truly a difficult place to earn….yet we show are desire and love of HaShem in our perseverance and steadfastness.  I believe this pleases HaShem in that He sees our strong desire to claim  what He has given us as an inheritance and that we see great value in it.

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