Ezekiel 16:1
in Ezekiel 16Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Again the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,
KJV
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
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This verse in Ezekiel 16
Commentary
3 notes on this verseon Ezekiel 16:1-2
(Chapter 16, Verses 1, 2.) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, make known the abominations of Jerusalem and say: Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, testify against Jerusalem for her iniquities, and say to her: Thus says the Lord God. In which the brief summary of each prophecy was, we have included the entire chapter, immediately following as it seemed to us.
This site's exposition
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
on Ezekiel 16:1-3
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.
The record, by era
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
And the word of prophecy from before the LORD was with me, saying:
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 3 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וַיְהִ֥י | vayhi | and it came | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| דְבַר־ | devar- | [the] word of | H1697 → | 1440 times |
| יְהוָ֖ה | yahweh | Yahweh | H3068 → | 6520 times |
| אֵלַ֥י | ʾelai | to me | H413 → | 5510 times |
| לֵאמֹֽר׃ | lemor | <to> saying | H559 → | 5305 times |
וַיְהִ֥יand it came
vayhiH1961 →3559 times
דְבַר־[the] word of
devar-H1697 →1440 times
יְהוָ֖הYahweh
yahwehH3068 →6520 times
אֵלַ֥יto me
ʾelaiH413 →5510 times
לֵאמֹֽר׃<to> saying
lemorH559 →5305 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Ezekiel

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
