Ezekielchapter 16
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Key verse
But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 15 to 34.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Jerusalem as a foundling: born of Amorite and Hittite stock, cast out in the open field on the day she was born, unwashed and unpitied, and God passing by said, 'Live.' Grown, she is washed, anointed, clothed in broidered work and fine linen, decked with jewels and a crown, and her renown goes forth among the nations for her beauty. Then she spends the gifts on her lovers, builds high places of her garments, and passes her children through the fire, a harlot who pays hire instead of taking it. Her sisters are Samaria and Sodom, whose iniquity was 'pride, fulness of bread, and prosperous ease.' Yet the chapter ends in covenant: 'I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.'
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 16 falls in Symbolic acts and judgment on Jerusalem (chapters 4–24). Lying on his side for 430 days; shaving the head with a sword; eating food in anxiety; the glory departs in stages (8–11); the prophet survives his wife's death without mourning (24).
Before it: Call and wheels-vision, chapters 1–3. After it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 25–32.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 16The history
The opening is a picture of newborn care, item by item, and each item is real. The cord was cut, the baby was washed, rubbed with salt, a widely practised custom in the ancient Near East, believed to toughen and cleanse the skin, and then wrapped tightly in strips of cloth. Jerusalem is described as a baby who got none of it, thrown out in an open field, which is what happened to unwanted infants in much of the ancient world.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The marriage language is legal. Spreading the corner of a garment over a woman was a public claim of protection and marriage, the same gesture Ruth asks of Boaz. Entering into a covenant with her is the formal contract language. The gifts that follow are a bride's outfit as a wealthy household would assemble it: embroidered cloth, fine linen, sandals of the costly leather also used for the tabernacle's outer covering, bracelets, a necklace, a nose ring, earrings and a crown.
The betrayal is described in terms of those same gifts. She took the embroidered cloth and made shrine hangings out of it, took the gold and silver jewellery and had images cast, and set God's own oil and flour and honey before them as offerings. Nothing new is bought; everything given is repurposed.
Then the worst charge: she took her sons and daughters and passed them through the fire. Child sacrifice was practised in the Valley of Hinnom below the city at a site called Topheth, and it is condemned by name in the Law and in Kings. Excavated burial grounds of the wider Phoenician world, most famously at Carthage, contain urns of infant remains, which is why scholars treat these biblical descriptions as reporting a real and known practice rather than a slander.
The chapter also ranks the sisters. Samaria to the north and Sodom to the south, and the sin of Sodom is defined here in a way that surprises many readers: pride, plenty of food, careless ease, and no help for the poor and needy, alongside the abomination for which it is remembered.
What it meant to them
This is the most brutal chapter in the book, and it is deliberately shaped as a family history so that the hearers cannot hold it at arm's length. Jerusalem was not a great city that fell on hard times. It was an abandoned baby that lived because someone stopped for it.
And after all that, the last paragraph is a covenant God says He will establish, an everlasting one, in which He forgives and the woman is left silent with shame. The exiles hearing their city's shame recited in public would have expected the story to end at the fire. It ends at a covenant instead.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
A. A newborn cast out, washed, and crowned a queen
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: The chapter opens with the sharpest indictment in the prophets, and the Lord names the address before the argument: cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. The city's origin is unflattering by God's own choice of it, an Amorite father and a Hittite mother, the pagan Canaanite stock the histories record. Henry reads the ancestry as deliberate humbling rather than literal genealogy, a people with no claim on God by birth or merit, chosen and kept by grace alone. Gill notes the same point stands behind Israel's whole story, called while still among idolaters.
Ezekiel 16:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 16:1
“Idolatry is frequently represented by the prophets under the figure of a wife’s unfaithfulness to her husband. This image is here so portrayed, as to exhibit the aggravation of Israel’s guilt by reason of her origin and early history. The original abode of the progenitors of the race was the land of Canaan, defiled with idolatry and moral corruption. Israel itself was like a child born in a polluted land, abandoned from its birth, left by its parents in the most utter neglect to the chance regard of any passer-by.”
Ezekiel 16:3, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:3
“Birth - See the margin; the word represents “origin” under the figure of “cutting out stone from a quarry” (compare Isa 51:1). An Amorite - the Amorite, a term denoting the whole people. The Amorites, being a principal branch of the Canaanites, are often taken to represent the whole stock Gen 15:16; 2Ki 21:11. An Hittite - Compare Gen 26:34. The main idea is that the Israelites by their doings proved themselves to be the very children of the idolatrous nations who once occupied the land of Canaan. Compare Deu 20:17.”
Ezekiel 16:3
“Jerusalem - The whole race of the Jews. Thy birth - Thy root whence thou didst spring. Thy father - Abraham, before God called him, (as his father and kindred) worshipped strange gods beyond the river, Josh. xxiv, 14.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 4-5)
a.in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut: The vision moves to an exposed infant, unwashed, unsalted, unswaddled, and thrown into an open field with no eye to pity her. Calvin reads the details against ordinary birth customs of the time, so the scene lands as total abandonment rather than poetic exaggeration to any hearer. Wesley draws the point of the whole picture forward: Jerusalem owed her life to nothing in herself, and every kindness that follows is unearned from the first verse.
Ezekiel 16:4, 3 voices
Ezekiel 16:4
“It follows: And you were not washed in water for salvation. The bodies of babies, as soon as they are born from the womb, are usually washed with water: so too does the spiritual generation require the saving washing. For no one is clean from filth, not even if his life were of only one day. And in the Psalms we read: In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me. The second birth dissolves the first birth.”
Jerome· written before 420· COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 4:16.4-5patristic
Ezekiel 16:4
“As for thy nativity, etc. - This verse refers to what is ordinarily done for every infant on its birth. The umbilical cord, by which it received all its nourishment while in the womb, being no longer necessary, is cut at a certain distance from the abdomen: on this part a knot is tied, which firmly uniting the sides of the tubes, they coalesce, and incarnate together.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:4
“Its very life was a miracle (Ex 1:15-22). navel . . . not cut--Without proper attention to the navel cord, the infant just born is liable to die. neither . . . washed in water to supple thee--that is, to make the skin soft. Rather, "for purification"; from an Arabic root [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:5, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:5
“None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee,.... Or, "one of these" (k); not so much as one of them: sad must be the case of an infant, when it meets with no tender heart or kind hand from midwife, nurse, or mother, to do these things for it: this is expressive of the helpless, forlorn, and unpitied state of the Israelites in Egypt; who, when their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, had no mercy shown them by Pharaoh and his taskmasters, Exo 1:”
Ezekiel 16:5
“Thou wast cast out in the open field - This is an allusion to the custom of some heathen and barbarous nations, who exposed those children in the open fields to be devoured by wild beasts who had any kind of deformity, or whom they could not support.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 6-7)
a.And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood: The Lord's word to the dying infant is a single command spoken twice for emphasis, Live, and the girl grows under that word alone, multiplying like a plant in the field. Clarke reads the doubled command as covenant language, an oath-like repetition rather than mere narrative flourish. The growth to full womanhood, hair grown and breasts formed, marks Israel's national development from Egypt to the kingdom, still owing everything to the word first spoken over her.
Ezekiel 16:6, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:6
"Live in thy blood," that is, Live, but live a life exposed to many deaths, as was the case in the beginnings of Israel's national existence, in order to magnify the grace of God [CALVIN]. The former view is preferable. Spiritually, till the sinner is made sensible of his abject helplessness, he will not appreciate the provisions of God's grace.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:6
“When I passed by - God here speaks after the manner of men. Live - This is such a command as sends forth a power to effect what is commanded; he gave that life: he spake, and it was done.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:7, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:7
“I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field,.... Or, "made thee millions" (m); like the spires of grass in the field. This refers to the multiplication of the children of Israel in Egypt, especially after the death of Joseph, and even while they were sorely afflicted, and likewise in later times.”
Ezekiel 16:7
“I caused “thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou” didst increase “and” wax “great, and thou” didst come “to excellent” beauty; “thy breasts” were “fashioned and thine hair” was grown, yet wast “thou naked and bare.” The prophet has arrived at the time at which the child grew up to maturity. God preserved the life of the infant which must without His help have died Eze 16:6; and the child grew up to womanhood, but was still desolate and unprotected.”
4. (v. 8)
a.thy time was the time of love: The marriage covenant follows: the Lord spreads his skirt over her, a recognized figure for a marriage proposal, compare Ruth 3:9, swears an oath, and Jerusalem becomes his. Keil reads this as the Sinai covenant pictured as a wedding, the nation bound to the Lord by oath rather than by nature. Gill notes the sequence matters, love and covenant come before any of the adorning that follows, so nothing she wears afterward is ever hers by right.
Ezekiel 16:8, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:8
“Was the time of love - Thou wast marriageable. I spread my skirt over thee - I espoused thee. This was one of their initiatory marriage ceremonies. See Rth 3:9. I - entered into a covenant with thee - Married thee. Espousing preceded marriage.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
5. (vv. 9-14)
a.Then washed I thee with water: The Lord himself washes, anoints, clothes and crowns the bride, fine linen and silk, gold and silver, until her renown for beauty spreads among the nations. The chapter is explicit about the source of it: it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee. Henry reads the section as Israel's prosperity under David and Solomon, and Barnes adds that naming every ornament makes the coming betrayal weigh as heavily as it does; nothing here was self-made.
Ezekiel 16:9, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:9
“Washed - It was a very ancient custom among the eastern people, to purify virgins who were to be espoused. And I anointed - They were anointed that were to be married, as Ruth iii, 3.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:9
“When God said, Israel is my son, my first-born--Let my people go, that they may serve me, that word, backed as it was with so many works of wonder, thoroughly washed away their blood; and when God led them under the convoy of the pillar of cloud and fire he spread his skirt over them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 16:10, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:10
“I clothed thee also with broidered work - Cloth on which various figures, in various colors, were wrought by the needle. With badgers’skin - See Exo 25:6. The same kind of skin with which the tabernacle was covered. Fine linen - בשש beshesh, with cotton. I have seen cloth of this kind enveloping the finest mummies. I covered thee with silk - משי meshi. Very probably the produce of the silk-worm.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:12, 3 voices
Ezekiel 16:12
“And you are adorned with gold and silver. We have often said that gold pertains to the mind, and silver to eloquence. May the Lord grant us to receive divine understanding and wisdom, and to bring forth with eloquence what we conceive in our minds, and by no means to make an idol out of them as heretics do, of whom it is written: 'I gave them silver and gold, but they made a Baal out of silver and gold' (Hosea 2:8). And this, according to spiritual understanding, is more suited to the adornment of women.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 16:12
“And I put a jewel on thy forehead,.... The same with the nose jewel, which was hung upon the forehead, and reached down to the nose and mouth; and, however disagreeable it may seem to us, was reckoned very ornamental in the eastern countries, Isa 3:21; and where now, as in Persia, as well as in all the Levant, the women put rings through their noses, which they pierce with needles, as Monsieur Thevenot (z) relates; so Dr. Shaw (a) says that nose jewels are used still by the Levant Arabs.”
Ezekiel 16:12
“I put a jewel on thy forehead - על אפך al appech, upon thy nose. This is one of the most common ornaments among ladies in the east. European translators, not knowing what to make of a ring in the nose, have rendered it, a jewel on thy forehead or mouth, (though they have sometimes a piece of gold or jewel fastened to the center of their forehead.) I have already spoken of this Asiatic custom, so often referred to in the sacred writings: see Gen 24:22, Gen 24:42; Exo 32:2; Job 42:11; Pro 11:22; Isa 3:21; Hos 2:13.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:13, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:13
“Fine flour, and honey, and oil - These were the choicest kinds of food. Into a kingdom - This part of the description refers to the reigns of David and Solomon, when the kingdom of Israel (still undivided) attained its highest pitch of grandeur.”
B. A harlot who paid her lovers instead of taking hire
1. (vv. 15-19)
a.But thou didst trust in thine own beauty: The turn is abrupt and total: trust in her own beauty becomes harlotry offered to every passerby, and the very gifts of gold, oil, incense and fine flour the Lord gave her are melted into idols and burned before them. Calvin reads the idol-making from God's own gold as the chapter's sharpest irony, ingratitude turning the giver's gifts into weapons against him. Fairbairn notes the political sense running underneath, the high places and foreign shrines built with royal wealth during the divided kingdom.
Ezekiel 16:15, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:15
“The prophet now describes the idolatries of the time of the Kings. The earlier offences in the time of the Judges are not noticed, that being an unsettled time. The conduct of the people after they had “prospered into a kingdom” is to be described. Because of thy renown - The marriages of Solomon with pagan wives, and his consequent idolatries, are a clear instance of such, misuse of glory.”
Ezekiel 16:16, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:16
“Compare 2Ki 23:7. Such decoration of idol-temples in the holy land showed how the ungrateful people were devoting the wealth and energies which Yahweh had given them to the service of those false gods, in whose worship He was especially dishonored. The like things shall not come ... - The abominations reached the very utmost - nothing would hereafter be so bad as these had been.”
Ezekiel 16:17, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:17
“And madest to thyself images of men - צלמי זכר tsalmey zachar, male images. Priapi are here meant, which were carried about in the ceremonies of Osiris, Bacchus, and Adonis; and were something like the lingam among the Hindoos. Herodotus, lib. ii, c. 48, 49, gives us an account of these male images: Πηχυαια αγαλματα νευροσπαστα, τα περιφορεουσι κατα κωμας ται γυναικες, νευον το αιδοιον, ου πολλῳ τεῳ ελασσον εον του αλλου σωματος. This was done at the worship of Bacchus in Egypt: and they who wish to see more may consult Herodotus as above.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:18, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:18
“Hast set mine oil and mine incense before them - It appears that they had made use of the holy vestments, and the different kinds of offerings which belonged to the Lord, to honor their idols.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:19, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:19
“My meat also which I gave thee,.... Or "my bread" (i); a general name for all eatables. The Targum renders it, "my good things.'' The Jews apply it to the manna, which, they say, descended the same day the molten calf was made, and they set it before it.”
Ezekiel 16:19
“Allusion is here made to some rite like the Roman “Lectisternia,” in which public tables were set forth for feasts in honor of idols.”
2. (vv. 20-22)
a.Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters: The indictment reaches child sacrifice, sons and daughters born to the Lord given to the idols to be devoured, language the histories confirm at the valley of Hinnom under Ahaz and Manasseh. Henry calls this the worst count in the whole chapter, the covenant children offered to the gods their mother chased. The verse closes on the root of it all, thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, the forgetting of grace that Ezekiel treats as the deepest sin beneath every other one.
Ezekiel 16:20, 3 voices
Ezekiel 16:20
“Borne unto me - me is emphatic. The children of Yahweh have been devoted to Moloch. The rites of Moloch were twofold; (1) The actual sacrifice of men and children as expiatory sacrifices to, false gods. (2) The passing of them through the fire by way of purification and dedication. Probably the first is alluded to in Eze 16:20; the two rites together in Eze 16:21.”
Ezekiel 16:20
“20, 21. sons and . . . daughters borne unto me--Though "thy children," yet they belong "unto Me," rather than to thee, for they were born under the immutable covenant with Israel, which even Israel's sin could not set aside, and they have received the sign of adoption as Mine, namely, circumcision.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:20
“Sacrificed - Not only consecrating them to be priests to dumb idols; but even burning them in sacrifice to Molech. Devoured - Consumed to ashes. Is this - Were thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast proceeded to this unnatural cruelty?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:21, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:21
“To cause them to pass through the fire - Bp. Newcome quotes a very apposite passage from Dionysius Halicarnass. Ant. Romans lib. i., s. 88, p. 72, and marg. p. 75, Edit.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 23-29)
a.And it came to pass after all thy wickedness: The chapter catalogues Jerusalem's foreign alliances as fornication in turn, Egypt, the Philistines, Assyria, and finally Chaldea, each treaty pictured as a paid affair that leaves her unsatisfied and reaching for the next. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the political history straight through the figure, every alliance of the late kings selling the nation's trust piece by piece. Wesley notes the repeated word unsatiable as the chapter's diagnosis, not merely its complaint; no foreign god or treaty could fill what only the covenant filled.
Ezekiel 16:24, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:24
“Thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place - גב gab, a stew or brothel; Vulg. lupanar; Septuag. οικημα πορνικον. So my old MS. Bible, a bordel house. “Thou hast builded thy stewes and bordell houses in every place.” - Coverdale’s Bible, 1636. Bordel is an Italian word: how it got so early into our language I know not. Our modern word brothel is a corruption of it. Diodati translates, Tu hai edificato un bordello, “Thou hast built a brothel.” Houses of this kind were of a very ancient date.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:25, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:25
“At every head of the way - Not content with what was done in the city, she built her idol temples in the country, wherever it was likely passengers would come.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:27, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:27
“Have diminished thine ordinary food - As a husband lessens the things which minister to the luxury of an unfaithful wife, so did the Lord cut Israel short in consequence of her unfaithfulness. Daughters - The small cities. The Philistines have left a permanent record of their supremacy in the name of the holy land - Palestine. It was a special shame to be subjected to so small a power as that of Philistia (see Isa 14:29); but the very Philistines were ashamed of Judah’s unfaithfulness, and were themselves truer to their false gods than Judah was to Yahweh.”
Ezekiel 16:27
“For this they were justly chastised by the Philistines. Or it may refer to the inroads which the Philistines made upon the south of Judah in the reign of Ahaz, by which it was weakened and impoverished, and which was the beginning of sorrows to them ( 2 Chron. xxviii. 18 ); but they did not take warning by those judgments, and therefore were justly abandoned to ruin at last.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 16:29, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:29
“Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan,.... Or, "with the land of Canaan" (l); with the inhabitants of it, doing the same evils, committing the same idolatries, as the old inhabitants of Canaan did; and so the Targum, "and thou hast multiplied thine idols, that thou mightest be joined to the people of Canaan:'' or, "to the land of Canaan" (m); like to the land of Canaan; according to the abominations of the Canaanites, doing as they did.”
Ezekiel 16:29
“In the land ... - Probably used in the restricted sense of the low lands on the coast of the western sea; occupied by Phoenician colonies. The children of Israel were brought into contact at first with pagans residing within their own borders. Then they extended their contact to foreign nations, trading and forming alliances with Chaldaea, and in so doing were attracted by the idolatries of those with whom they carried on commerce. Some render it: “with the merchants’ land, even with Chaldaea.” Compare Eze 17:4.”
4. (vv. 30-34)
a.How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God: The figure inverts common harlotry itself: an ordinary harlot is paid, but Jerusalem pays her lovers, hiring the nations to accept her advances. Gill calls this the strangest and most damning form of the charge, a nation buying its own subjugation and calling it foreign policy. Clarke reads the inversion as proof the sin was preference and not need, since Jerusalem had far more to offer any ally than she ever needed from one.
Ezekiel 16:31, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:31
“Or according to the Septuagint: You were not like a prostitute gathering wages, but you gave what you should have received, so that you would not be protected by the help of those with whom you fornicated and followed demons, but rather, oppressed by various captivities, you would feel your calamities.”
Jerome· written before 420· COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 5:16.30-31patristic
Ezekiel 16:31
“JEROME translates, "Thou hast not been as a harlot in scorning (that is, who ordinarily scorns) a hire offered," in order to get a larger one: nay, thou hast offered hire thyself to thy lovers (Eze 16:33, 34).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:33, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:33
“The picture is heightened by the contrast between one who as a prostitute receives hire for her shame, and one who as a wife is so utterly abandoned as to bestow her husband’s goods to purchase her own dishonor. Compare 2Ki 16:8.”
C. Stripped bare before the lovers she gathered
1. (vv. 35-39)
a.Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: Sentence is passed in the form the crime named: the lovers she gathered are gathered again as her judges and executioners, and her own nakedness is exposed before them just as she exposed it to them. Keil reads this as the covenant's own penalty for adultery applied nationally, the nations Jerusalem trusted becoming the instruments of Babylon's coming siege. The stripping of ornaments given in love is the chapter's mirror image of the clothing in verses 10 through 13, judgment undoing gift by gift.
Ezekiel 16:35, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:35
“Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. The sentence about to be pronounced; adjudging to be slain with the sword, to be stoned and burned; the crime for which is to be read in the name of harlot, justly given to an apostate people; as it often is to the church of Rome in the book of the Revelation. The Targum is, "whose works are as an harlots; O congregation of Israel, receive the words of the Lord;'' which follow:”
Ezekiel 16:35
“Judah is now represented as undergoing the punishment adjudged to an adulteress and murderess. Only in her utter destruction shall the wrath of the Lord, the jealous God, cease. Eze 16:36 Filthiness - Or, brass, i. e., money, is lavished. The Hebrews generally speak of money as gold Isa 46:6, but brass coins were not unknown in the time of the Maccabees. Compare Mat 10:9; Mar 12:41. Ezekiel may here have put brass for gold contemptuously. Compare Isa 1:22-25; Isa 48:”
Ezekiel 16:36, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:36
“Thy filthiness was poured out - נחשתך nechushtech. As this word signifies a sort of metal, (brass), it is generally supposed to mean money. They had given money literally to these heathen nations to procure their friendship and assistance; but the word also means verdigris, the poisonous rust of copper or brass. It is properly translated in our version filthiness, poisonous filth. Does it not refer to that venereal virus which is engendered by promiscuous connexions?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:38, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:38
“Blood - Thou gavest the blood of thy children to idols in sacrifice; I will give thee thine own blood to drink.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:39, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:39
“And I also will give thee into their hand,.... Into the hand of their lovers and enemies that should be gathered against them, the Assyrians and Chaldeans, with others that joined them, as in Eze 16:37; and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thine high places; the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and altars; and not only these, but even the high places and altars which were set up for idolatrous uses; all should be destroyed by the Chaldean army.”
Ezekiel 16:39
“They shall strip thee also of thy clothes - thy fair jewels - Alluding to a lot common enough to prostitutes, their maintainers in the end stripping them of all they had given them.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 40-43)
a.They shall also bring up a company against thee: The penalty the law set for adultery, stoning and the sword, falls on the city, and the houses are burned, images the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon fulfilled in fact. The Lord's fury is said to rest once it is spent, language Barnes reads as judicial rather than vindictive, a debt paid rather than an appetite satisfied. The chapter's refrain returns at the close, thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations, naming the sin one final time before the tone changes.
Ezekiel 16:40, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:40
“They shall also bring up a company against thee,.... An army, so the Targum; the Chaldean army: and they shall stone thee with stones: cast out of their engines and slings, by which they battered the walls, as well as killed the inhabitants; and so the Targum renders it, with sling stones; the allusion is to the stoning of adulterous persons, Deu 22:24; and thrust thee through with their swords; such as attempted to escape out of the city, or fell into the hands of the enemy when it was taken, were slain with the sword.”
Ezekiel 16:41, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:41
“The result of the awful judgment shall be, when divine vengeance has run its course, it shall cease. burn-- (De 13:16; 2Ki 25:9). women--the surrounding Gentile nations to whom thou shalt be an object of mocking (Ps 137:7).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:42, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:42
“I will be quiet and will be no more angry - I will completely abandon thee; have nothing more to do with thee; think no more of thee. When God in judgment ceases to reprehend, this is the severest judgment.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:42
“My jealousy - The jealousy whereto you have provoked me, will never cease, 'till these judgments have utterly destroyed you, as the anger of an abused husband ceases in the publick punishment of the adulteress.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:43, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:43
“I will put it out of thy power to commit it by cutting thee off. FAIRBAIRN translates, "I will not do what is scandalous (namely, encouraging thee in thy sin by letting it pass with impunity) upon all thine abominations"; referring to Le 19:29, the conduct of a father who encouraged his daughter in harlotry. English Version is much better.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
D. Samaria and Sodom look righteous beside her
1. (vv. 44-45)
a.Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee: A folk proverb, as is the mother so is her daughter, is turned against Jerusalem to fix her true parentage, not Abraham's line by character, but the Amorite and Hittite stock named at the chapter's opening. Wesley reads the proverb as popular mockery the Lord adopts rather than invents, letting the nations' own scorn carry the verdict. The naming of sisters that follows widens the indictment beyond Jerusalem alone.
Ezekiel 16:44, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:44
“As . . . mother . . . her daughter--"Is," and "so is," are not in the original; the ellipsis gives the proverb (but two words in the Hebrew) epigrammatic brevity. Jerusalem proved herself a true daughter of the Hittite mother in sin (Eze 16:3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:44
“The mother - Old Jerusalem, when the seat of the Jebusites, or the land of Canaan, when full of the idolatrous, bloody, barbarous nations. Her daughter - Jerusalem, or the Jews who are more like those accursed nations in sin, than near them in place of abode.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:45, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:45
“Moab and Ammon, the incestuous children of Lot, nephew of Abraham, Israel's progenitor, had their origin from Sodom; so Sodom might be called Judah's sister. Samaria, answering to the ten tribes of Israel, is, of course, sister to Judah.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 46-48)
a.And thine elder sister is Samaria: Samaria, the northern kingdom, and Sodom are named as Jerusalem's sisters, one at her left hand and one at her right, and the comparison runs opposite to expectation: Sodom herself never did as Jerusalem has done. Henry reads the shock as deliberate, invoking history's byword for wickedness only to say Jerusalem outstripped it, covenant privilege named as the reason her guilt runs deeper than a city that never had it. Gill notes the geography is literal, Samaria north and Sodom south of Jerusalem's position, left and right as a Hebrew speaker faced east.
Ezekiel 16:46, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:46
“Thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left - It is supposed that the prophet by Sodom in this place means the Israelites that dwelt beyond Jordan, in the land or the Moabites and Ammonites; or rather of the Moabites and Ammonites themselves. Literally, Sodom could not be called the younger sister of Jerusalem, as it existed before Jerusalem had a name. In looking east from Jerusalem, Samaria was on the left, and Sodom on the right hand; that is, the first was on the north, the second on the south of Jerusalem.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:46
“Samaria--older than Sodom, to whom Judah was less nearly related by kindred than she was to Samaria. Sodom is therefore called her younger sister; Samaria, her "elder sister" [GROTIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:48, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:48
“Judah's guilt was not positively, but relatively, greater than Sodom's; because it was in the midst of such higher privileges, and such solemn warnings; a fortiori, the guilt of unbelievers in the midst of the highest of all lights, namely, the Gospel, is the greatest.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 49-52)
a.Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: Sodom's sin is defined here as pride, excess and idleness, and the neglect of the poor and needy, a description read across church history as the root beneath the city's better known sin. Fairbairn reads the naming as pastoral, refusing to let readers reduce Sodom to one act while Jerusalem is charged with the same root plus far more on top of it. The demand that Jerusalem bear her own shame closes the comparison, her sisters now looking righteous by contrast.
Ezekiel 16:49, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:49
“This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom - If we are to take this place literally, Sodom was guilty of other crimes besides that for which she appears to have been especially punished; in addition to her unnatural crime, She is charged with pride, luxury, idleness, and uncharitableness; and these were sufficient to sink any city to the bottomless pit.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:51, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:51
“Hast justified - Not made them righteous, but declared them less unrighteous, than thou; of the two they are less faulty.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:52, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:52
“The second tablet after the shipwreck is to be ashamed when you have sinned, and not to subject yourself to the reproach that is said against Jerusalem: You have become like a prostitute, you do not know how to blush (Jeremiah III, 3). But he carries his own torture, who is tormented by his own conscience, and in this world endures torment by his own will, lest he endure eternal torments.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 16:52
“They are more righteous than thou - תצדקנה ממך tetsuddaknah mimmech, “They shall be justified more than thou.” They are less guilty in the sight of God, for their crimes were not accompanied with so many aggravations. This phrase casts light on Luk 18:14: “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Less blame in the sight of God was attached to him. He always had fewer advantages, and now he was a true penitent; while the other was boasting of what he had done, and what he had not done.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
E. An everlasting covenant remembered, and shame that silences
1. (vv. 53-55)
a.When I shall bring again their captivity: The Lord promises to restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria alongside Jerusalem's own, folding the proverbial city of judgment into the same restoration as the covenant people. Calvin reads the promise as figurative of the nations generally coming into future mercy alongside Israel, while others read it as addressed to the historical peoples named. The exposition holds the positions without a verdict; the text's plain claim is that Jerusalem's restoration is not more automatic than her sisters'.
Ezekiel 16:53, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:53
“A denunciation of hopeless ruin. When Sodom shall be rebuilt and shall flourish, when Samaria shall be again a mighty people, then, but not until then, shall Jerusalem be restored.”
Ezekiel 16:53
“The sense here thus is, Thou shalt be restored when Sodom and Samaria are, but not till then (Eze 16:55), that is, never. This applies to the guilty who should be utterly destroyed (Eze 16:41, 42); but it does not contradict the subsequent promise of restoration to their posterity (Nu 14:29-33), and to the elect remnant of grace [CALVIN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:54, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:54
“For of whom is it doubted that among three sinners, rather sinners, a gentile, a heretic, and a churchman, he is more deserving of greater punishments, who is deserving of greater dignity? For the powerful, as we have said, endure torments powerfully (Wisdom 6:7). But he who is least deserving is deserving of mercy. And the servant who knows the will of his master, and does not do it, will be beaten with many (Luke 12:47). Therefore Peter also says: It is time for judgment to begin with God's house (1 Peter 4:17).”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
2. (vv. 56-58)
a.For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth: Jerusalem's pride once refused even to speak Sodom's name, too proud for the comparison she now bears in full public shame before the Philistines and the surrounding nations. Henry reads this as the chapter's turn from indictment toward consequence made personal, pride specifically punished by the humiliation it once refused to imagine. The final clause, thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, closes the case before the covenant is named again.
Ezekiel 16:56, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:56
“Sodom was not mentioned--literally, "was not for a report." Thou didst not deign to mention her name as if her case could possibly apply as a warning to thee, but it did apply (2Pe 2:6).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:57, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:57
“Thy reproach - Rather, the “reproach.” In his march toward Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar attacked and overthrew Damascus and other Syrian towns. The Jews exulted, not foreseeing that this was but a precursor of that ruin which should discover their own wickedness.”
Ezekiel 16:58, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:58
“Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations,.... Openly and publicly; their abominable iniquities were written as it were upon their foreheads, and were to be seen of all men; their sin was to be read in their punishment, which is meant by bearing their lewdness and abominations; namely, the punishment due unto them: saith the Lord; who always speaks what is just and true; this is added to denote the truth of what had been, and the certainty of what would be, as follows:”
3. (vv. 59-63)
a.For thus saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done: The chapter's long indictment ends where its own words carry it: the Lord remembers his covenant with her in the days of her youth and establishes an everlasting covenant, mercy standing on the far side of every charge just named. Keil reads the everlasting covenant as the same new covenant Jeremiah names in the same exile, mercy that answers the record rather than erasing it. The closing note is deliberately not triumphant, never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee, restoration held together with an honesty about what it restores.
Ezekiel 16:60, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:60
“I will remember my covenant - That is, the covenant I made with Abraham in the day or thy youth, when in him thou didst begin to be a nation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:60
“Nevertheless - The Lord having denounced a perpetual punishment to the impenitent body of the Jewish nation, doth now promise to the remnant, that they shall be remembered, and obtain covenanted mercy. My covenant - In which I promised I would not utterly cut off the seed of Israel, nor fail to send the redeemer, who should turn away iniquity from Jacob.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:61, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:61
“God means, "not that thou on thy part hast stood to the covenant, but that 'I am the Lord, I change not' (Mal 3:6) from My original love to thee in thy youth" (see Ro 3:3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:61
“But not - Not by that old covenant which was violated; nor by external ceremonies, which were a great part of the first covenant, but by that covenant which writes the law in the heart, and puts the fear of God into the inward parts.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 16:62, 1 voice
Ezekiel 16:62
“And I will establish my covenant with thee,.... See Gill on Eze 16:60; and which is repeated for the comfort of the Lord's people, being ashamed upon the remembrance of their evil ways; and to show the certainty of it, as well as because it is a matter of the greatest importance: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; a covenant keeping God; true and faithful to my promises, and able to make them good: this is a principal blessing of the covenant of grace, to know the Lord, Jer 31:34.”
Ezekiel 16:63, 2 voices
Ezekiel 16:63
"If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged" (1Co 11:31). all that thou hast done--enhancing the grace of God which has pardoned so many and so great sins. Nothing so melts into love and humility as the sense of the riches of God's pardoning grace (Lu 7:47). -- JFB26B.htm --
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 16:63
“Because of thy shame - Such a confusion for thy sin will cover thee. Indeed the more we feel of God's love, the more ashamed we are that ever we offended him. And the more our shame for sin is increased, the more will our comfort in God be increased also.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 16. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 11 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome; John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Twenty Chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel; John Gill; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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