(11) Gave . . . Took.--The past tenses should be present: "I give . . ." "take away." The whole succession of Israelite kings, who generation after generation had been taken away, some by violent death, would close with Hoshea, who was to disappear as "a fragment on a stormy sea" (Hosea 10:7).

Verse 11. - I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. The imperfects אחי and אקי here are correctly explained by Keil as denoting "an action that is repeated again and again, for which we should use the present; and refer to all the kings that the kingdom of the ten tribes had received and was receiving still, and to their removal." Hitzig calls it here the historical present. Jerome, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi refer the first clause to Saul as given in anger; and the second to Zedekiah as taken away in wrath.

13:9-16 Israel had destroyed himself by his rebellion; but he could not save himself, his help was from the Lord only. This may well be applied to the case of spiritual redemption, from that lost state into which all have fallen by wilful sins. God often gives in displeasure what we sinfully desire. It is the happiness of the saints, that, whether God gives or takes away, all is in love. But it is the misery of the wicked, that, whether God gives or takes away, it is all in wrath, nothing is comfortable. Except sinners repent and believe the gospel, anguish will soon come upon them. The prophecy of the ruin of Israel as a nation, also showed there would be a merciful and powerful interposition of God, to save a remnant of them. Yet this was but a shadow of the ransom of the true Israel, by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. He will destroy death and the grave. The Lord would not repent of his purpose and promise. Yet, in the mean time, Israel would be desolated for her sins. Without fruitfulness in good works, springing from the Holy Spirit, all other fruitfulness will be found as empty as the uncertain riches of the world. The wrath of God will wither its branches, its sprigs shall be dried up, it shall come to nothing. Woes, more terrible than any from the most cruel warfare, shall fall on those who rebel against God. From such miseries, and from sin, the cause of them, may the Lord deliver us.I gave thee a king in mine anger,.... Not the king of Assyria, sent to waste and destroy them, and carry them captive, as some, for of him the next clause cannot be said; nor Jeroboam, the first king of the ten tribes, as others, who was not given in anger to Israel, but to Solomon; rather Saul, as Kimchi and Aben Ezra, the first king of all Israel; and who was given at the request of the people, though in anger and resentment, they rejecting God their King; or it may design the kingly office and power in general, in a succession of kings from him the first of them:

and took him away in my wrath; not Jeroboam, who does not appear to be taken away by death in wrath; rather Saul, who died in battle with the Philistines, and fell on the mountains of Gilboa: but it may be rendered better, "I will take him away" (o); and refers not to Zedekiah the last king of Judith, as some in Kimchi; but to Hoshea, the last king of the ten tribes; for it is of there more especially the words, both in the text and context, are spoken; and so it respects the entire removal of kingly power from them, which ceased in Hoshea; see Hosea 3:4.

(o) "et auferam", Zanchius, Piscator, Cocceius, V. L. "recipiam", Drusius; "accipiam", Schmidt.