Feeding on Wind
Jeremiah Burroughs. Hosea 12:1 Ephraim feeds on wind, and follows after the east wind: he daily increases lies and desolation… This is a proverbial speech to note — 1. The following after vain, unprofitable things. When men please themselves in their own conceits and in their own counsels, and walk in ways that are, and certainly will be, unprofitable to them, they are said to feed on wind. When men think to please God with their own inventions, to escape danger by their own shifts, to prevail against the saints by their deep counsels and fetches, they feed upon wind; when men promise to themselves great matters by ways of their own, that are not God's, they feed upon wind, and for all this the prophet rebukes the ten tribes. 2. The prevailing pride and elation of heart. According to the food, so will the body be; those that feed on wind must needs have hearts puffed up with conceitedness of themselves, and contempt of others that are not in the same way as themselves: they lie sucking imaginary content and sweetness in their own ways; they are full of themselves. They feed on wind, yet one prick of disappointment will quickly let out all the wind from such bladders. 3. Dependence on carnal creature comforts. Evil men that live upon the applause of men, upon honours, feed on wind, and are puffed up for awhile; but any prick of God's appearing against them lets out the windy stuff, and quickly they are dead. Any member of the body that is puffed up with wind seems to be greater than any other part, but it is not stronger; no, it is consequently the weaker: and so it is with the hearts of men that are puffed up with windy conceits and with creature contentments, they have no strength by this inflation; though they seem stronger, yet when they are called either to do or to suffer for God, they then appear to be very weak, and therefore will change as the wind changes. Illustrate by the chameleon. 4. The turbulent, unquiet disposition of such. We know that the wind raises tempests and storms; and so men that are puffed up with, the wind of their own conceits are the men that raise such tempests and storms in the places where they live. The saints have better food to feed upon, food that makes them more solid and more staid.Learn — 1. Creature comforts will prove but wind. Those who seek to satisfy themselves with such, and to stay themselves on their own conceits, not only deceive themselves, and will be disappointed at last in their expectations, but they will find these their ways to be very pestilential, hurtful, and dangerous; they will find that they will undo them and bring them to utter misery. 2. It is a grievous thing, when troubles come, to have nothing within us to bear us out but the wind. Suppose men meet with the rough east wind, or storms and tempests befall them, yet if they have had solid food, whereby they come to get good blood and marrow and spiritS, they may be able to bear it; but when the body is empty and meets with tempests, this is very grievous to the poor frame. So it is with many when they meet with afflictions; but the saints have such solidity within them as bears them out, but other men that are empty, that have fed upon the wind all their days, have nothing to bear them out in great afflictions, but their hearts sink down in horror and despair. (Jeremiah Burroughs.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. WEB: Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt.