With the wild-birds round and against her?
Is Israel a slave,
Or house-born serf?
Why he for a prey?[786]
All the desolation of Judah is on Him alone: no man lays it to heart, upon Me is the waste.[787] And what we have seen to be the most human touch of all, the surprise of an outraged father at feeling, beneath His wrath against a prodigal son, the instincts of the ancient love which no wrath can quench,
Is Ephraim My dearest son,
The child of delights?
That as oft as against him I speak
I must think of him still![788]
That these instincts are so scattered rather increases their cumulative effect.