Ezekiel 16:3
in Ezekiel 16and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father, and thy mother was a Hittite.
KJV
And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
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This verse in Ezekiel 16
Commentary
13 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
This site's exposition
Again the word of the LORD came to me
on Ezekiel 16:1-3
“Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” The city has no claim on God by birth, and Gill notes that Israel’s whole story begins with a people called while still among idolaters.
This site's exposition
Your father was an Amorite
Barnes notes that the word for origin pictures stone cut from a quarry, as in Isaiah 51:1. Wesley recalls Joshua 24:14, where Abraham's fathers served other gods beyond the River. Jerusalem itself was a Jebusite city before David took it.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers4 voices
(Verse 3) Your ancestors and your lineage are from the land of Canaan (Vulgate: Canaan). Your father is Amorite, and your mother is Hittite. Great faith and immense boldness of the prophets, to accuse one man and the whole city of ignobility. Marvelous is Daniel, who dared to say to the delinquent elder, committing adultery and murder: The seed of Canaan, not Judah, has deceived you (Dan. 13:56).
Which of the cities in the world were so elevated and so deep in knowledge as the city of God?
If so many things are said in Jerusalem about which such great and wonderful things are written that have been promised to her, what future is there for unhappy me, if I sin? Who will I have for a father, who will I have for a mother?
If we are on the alert, these evils that came into life as a result of the sins of our forebears will in no way be able to harm us, because in fact they go no further than the level of terminology. It was the first formed human being who through the fall brought on the punishment of death and was responsible for spending his life in pain and distress, and it was he who was the cause of servitude. But Christ the Lord came and permitted all these evils to occur only at the level of terminology, provided we are of the right mind. You see, death is now not death but only carries the name of death—or, rather, even the very name has been abolished.
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
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.
5 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Terrible judgments threatened, ver. 35-43. An aggravation of their sin and of their punishment, ver. 44-59. A promise of mercy to a remnant, ver. 60-63 Commentary on Chapter XVI
quarantine:anchor (2026-07-29) — cites-ver-35/44/60-anchored-1-5
And say, thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem,....
Joseph, who had been the shepherd and stone of Israel, was dead; the king of Egypt, who should have been kind to them for Joseph's sake, set himself to destroy this man-child as soon as it was born ( Rev. xii. 4 ), ordered all the males to be slain, which, it is likely, occasioned the exposing of many as well as Moses, to which perhaps the similitude here has reference.
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
Translate rather, "the Amorite . . . the Canaanite," that is, these two tribes personified; their wicked characteristics, respectively, were concentrated in the parentage of Israel (Ge 15:16). "The Hittite" is made their "mother"; alluding to Esau's wives, daughters of Heth, whose ways vexed Rebekah (Ge 26:34, 35;
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan - It would dishonor Abraham to say that you sprung from him: ye are rather Canaanites than Israelites. The Canaanites were accursed; so are ye. Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite - These tribes were the most famous, and probably the most corrupt, of all the Canaanites. So Isaiah calls the princes of Judah rulers of Sodom, Isa 1:10; and John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a generation or brood of vipers, Mat 3:7. There is a fine specimen of this kind of catachresis in Dido’s invective against Aeneas: - Nec tibi Diva parens, generis nec Dardanus auctor, Perflde; sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens Caucasus, Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres. Aen. lib. 4:365. “False as thou art, and more than false, forsworn; Not sprung from noble blood, nor goddess born: But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock, - And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck.” Dryden. This is strong: but the invective of the prophet exceeds it far. It is the essence of degradation to its subject; and shows the Jews to be as base and contemptible as they were abominable and disgusting.
The words behind it
14 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְאָמַרְתָּ֞ | veamarta | and you will say | H559 → | 5305 times |
| כֹּה־ | koh- | thus | H3541 → | 577 times |
| אָמַ֨ר | ʾamar | he says | H559 → | 5305 times |
| אֲדֹנָ֤י | ʾadonai | [the] Lord | H136 → | 440 times |
| יְהוִה֙ | yahweh | Yahweh | H3069 → | 306 times |
| לִיר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔ם | lirushalim | to Jerusalem | H3389 → | 643 times |
| מְכֹרֹתַ֙יִךְ֙ | mekhorotayikh | origins your | H4351 → | 3 times |
| וּמֹ֣לְדֹתַ֔יִךְ | umoledotayikh | and birth<s> your | H4138 → | 22 times |
| מֵאֶ֖רֶץ | meeretz | [were] from [the] land of | H776 → | 2504 times |
| הַֽכְּנַעֲנִ֑י | hakenaani | the Canaanite[s] | H3669 → | |
| אָבִ֥יךְ | ʾavikh | father your | H1 → | 1212 times |
| הָאֱמֹרִ֖י | haemori | [was] <the> Amorite | H567 → | |
| וְאִמֵּ֥ךְ | veimekh | and mother your | H517 → | 220 times |
| חִתִּֽית׃ | chitit | [was] a Hittite | H2850 → |
וְאָמַרְתָּ֞and you will say
veamartaH559 →5305 times
כֹּה־thus
koh-H3541 →577 times
אָמַ֨רhe says
ʾamarH559 →5305 times
אֲדֹנָ֤י[the] Lord
ʾadonaiH136 →440 times
יְהוִה֙Yahweh
yahwehH3069 →306 times
לִיר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔םto Jerusalem
lirushalimH3389 →643 times
מְכֹרֹתַ֙יִךְ֙origins your
mekhorotayikhH4351 →3 times
וּמֹ֣לְדֹתַ֔יִךְand birth<s> your
umoledotayikhH4138 →22 times
מֵאֶ֖רֶץ[were] from [the] land of
meeretzH776 →2504 times
הַֽכְּנַעֲנִ֑יthe Canaanite[s]
hakenaaniH3669 →
אָבִ֥יךְfather your
ʾavikhH1 →1212 times
הָאֱמֹרִ֖י[was] <the> Amorite
haemoriH567 →
וְאִמֵּ֥ךְand mother your
veimekhH517 →220 times
חִתִּֽית׃[was] a Hittite
chititH2850 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
John 8:44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him.…
it leads to
- Acts 13:10
and said, “O child of the devil and enemy of all righteousness, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery! Will you never stop perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
- 1 John 3:12
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.
- 1 John 3:8–10
The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the…
- 2 Corinthians 11:3
I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ.
- Revelation 12:9
And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
- Acts 13:10
Through
Nehemiah 9:7You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
it leads to
- Genesis 11:31
And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan.…
- Genesis 17:5
No longer will you be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.
- Genesis 11:31
Through
Ezekiel 16:45You are the daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and children. You are the sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father…
it leads to
- Zechariah 11:8
And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.
- Zechariah 11:8
Where this verse is studied
About Ezekiel
Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Chrysostom, HOMILIES ON GENESIS 29:23; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON EZEKIEL 6:3.