The Unflipped Cake

[Hosea 7:8] “Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.”

The Northern Kingdom of Israel mingled with other nations, gradually losing the distinctiveness of God’s people. God’s people were meant to be a “people who live apart,” meant to solely follow and rely on God. However, the Northern Kingdom sought help from foreign powers and became assimilated by Gentiles, losing its single-hearted devotion to God.

The “cake” in Hosea’s analogy is a thin, round, flatbread baked on hot coals (1 Kings 19:6). Unlike the bread baked in an oven from the previous analogy, this type of bread needs to be constantly flipped while cooking. An “unflipped cake,” because it’s unevenly heated, gets burned on the side touching the stone while the other side remains raw, rendering it inedible.

At this point, the Northern Kingdom was in an extremely perilous situation, like an “unflipped cake.” On the surface, it might seem like it could continue to bake, but one side was already completely charred, and it would ultimately be thrown away. “Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.” The destruction of the Northern Kingdom was imminent.