Ephraim, he has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
Read Chapter 7
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Mixed, like oil and flour. (Hebrew)
Ashes. Thin cakes (Calmet) of this kind are used by the poor, in Spain, (Sanctius) and by the Arabs. (Thevenot. Levant. xxxii.)
Turned. There was no time allowed by the enemy, who came and took the Israelites away. (Calmet) -- They became like other nations, and would not repent. (Worthington)
Ephraim is a cake under the ashes not turned. For a cake under the ashes, which has ashes on it, has its cleaner side flat to the ground and its upper side the fouler, in proportion as it carries the ashes on it. And so with the mind that harbors earthly thoughts: what else does it carry on itself but a load of ashes? But if it will be “turned,” the clean surface (which it had kept downward) it brings back to the top and shakes off the ashes that it had on it. If therefore we shake off from the mind the ashes of earthly thoughts, as it were, we “turn the cake under the ashes,” that this bent of our mind may henceforth go to the rear, which the ashes of groveling thought before overlaid. And the clean face may come to the top, that our right bent of mind may not henceforth be surcharged with the weight of earthly desire. .
The kingdom of the ten tribes has become like any other nation because they went away from the Lord. And he [Ephraim] is like a bread beneath the ashes that is not turned, that is, he does not repent.
