Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not.
Read Chapter 7
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Strangers: kings of Assyria, Damascus
Hairs. He is grown old in misery, and yet is insensible of it, and sees not that he will shortly cease to be a people, Isaias vii. 8.
“Strangers have devoured his strength, and he has known it not.” “Strangers” is usually understood to be apostate angels, who devour our strength when they consume the virtue of the mind by perverting it. Ephraim endured both and did not know it, because through the temptation of malignant spirits he both lost the strength of his mind and did not understand that he had lost it. .
Not content with these words, the blessed Anthony entered upon a wider field of discussion, and he said, “This way of life and this most lukewarm condition not only causes you the loss that I have spoken of, even though you yourself may not feel it now. You may even somehow say in keeping with a sentence from Proverbs: ‘They strike me, but I did not grieve, and they mocked me, but I was unaware.’ And remember what is said by the prophet Hosea: ‘Aliens devoured his strength, and he himself did not even recognize it.’ ” .
