Hosea 7:11
Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense
In other words, as Ben Zornes once pointed out, Ephraim is being a bird brain.
I love discovering stuff like this, hidden in plain sight. One of my favorite things about the Bible is how much I still don't know about it. My other favorite thing is all that I have already gleaned from it. It rewards return visits which incentivizes additional investigation.
Reading and re-reading the Bible is like Chesterton's hypothetical traveler who set out to discover a new land and ended up landing on the other side of his home country. That man felt all the thrill of discovery and all the warmth of sentimentality at the same moment. He was on an adventure and coming home in one fell swoop. He was able to enjoy the risk of the foreign with the rewards of the familiar and the excitement of courage with the contentment of comfort. The Bible is warm and familiar and foreign and exotic. It is ancient and applicable, timeless and timely, regal and familial, lofty and practical, ethereal and earthy.
The Bible is my favorite book. It's the kind of book that calls someone a bird brain, but in such a way as to make you work for it. But also the kind of book that teaches you to see by revealing what was previously invisible to you. Much of God's gold is hidden in plain sight because He is eager to give it away.
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