CHAPTER 16 A FURTHER DEPICTION OF JERUSALEM - AN UNWANTED FOUNDLING. Having depicted Jerusalem as a wild and useless vine, it is now depicted as having been an unwanted foundling, wallowing in its distress, until Yahweh came and had pity on it. Then He had bestowed favour on it, but it had proved t... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Again the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations.” ' God will now recount Israel's great sin and apostasy, to show her the greatness of the sin that she has committed. ‘Abominations' especially as in mind idolatry but anything that possesses a man'... [ Continue Reading ]
“And say, thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem, Your birth and your nativity is the land of the Canaanite. The Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.” ‘To Jerusalem.' This word conjures up two thoughts, Jerusalem as a city, which God had chosen as His dwellingplace (Psalms 132:13... [ Continue Reading ]
“And as for your nativity, in the day that you were born your navel was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. No eye pitied you to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you. But you were cast out in the open field becaus... [ Continue Reading ]
“And when I passed by you and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you, ‘In your blood, live.' Yes I said to you, ‘In your blood live.' ” Yahweh found her in her dreadful state, kicking and struggling in her own blood and had pity on her. There is divided opinion as to whether ‘in your blood'... [ Continue Reading ]
“I caused you to multiply (literally ‘made you a myriad') as the bud of the field, and you increased and flourished (‘waxed great') and you attained to exceptional ornament (‘ornament of ornaments'). Your breasts were fashioned and your hair was grown. Yet you were naked and bare.” The vivid pictur... [ Continue Reading ]
“Now when I passed by you and looked on you, behold your time was the time for love. And I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord Yahweh, and you became mine.” The time moves on and Israel was maturing. The Great... [ Continue Reading ]
“Then I washed you with water, yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered work and shod you with sealskin, and I girded you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk. I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets... [ Continue Reading ]
“Thus were you decked with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered work. You ate fine flour, and honey, and oil, and you were extremely beautiful and you prospered to royal estate.” The picture is idealised. It was how God saw His people once they were cleansed... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ “And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through my majesty which I had put on you,” says the Lord Yahweh.' Their covenant with Yahweh, and His faithfulness to it, had given them renown among the nations, and God had bestowed on them His majesty. In their... [ Continue Reading ]
ISRAEL'S BASE RESPONSE TO THE GOODNESS OF YAHWEH. “But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your whoredoms on all who passed by. His it was.” The beauty and renown that God had given them proved their downfall. It led to disobedience and idola... [ Continue Reading ]
“And you took of your clothes and made for yourself high places decked with various colours (RSV ‘gaily decked shrines'), and played the prostitute on them. The like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.” She stripped off her clothes so as to attract her lovers. Then the fine and rich clot... [ Continue Reading ]
“You took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images, and played the prostitute with them.” The picture is vivid. It was as though they had made the god-images in order to make love to them. But it was of course done with the cult male and... [ Continue Reading ]
“And you took your bordered clothes and covered them (the idols), and set my oil and my incense before them.” The catalogue of dastardly behaviour continues. They put the fine clothes that Yahweh had given them on idols. The oil and incense that He had given them in abundance they offered to false... [ Continue Reading ]
“My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey with which I fed you, you even set it before them for a sweet savour. And thus it was, says the Lord Yahweh.” All the things which Yahweh had given them they passed on to their idols. The bread on which they had fed abundantly, and the... [ Continue Reading ]
“Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and these you have sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whoredoms a small matter that you have slain my children, and delivered them up, making them pass through the fire to them?” To all that had gone before... [ Continue Reading ]
“And in all your abominations and your whoredoms you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and were weltering in your blood.” He referred them back to what had been their miserable condition. He pointed out how they had forgotten the past, and what He had done for... [ Continue Reading ]
“And so it is after all your wickedness - woe, woe to you, says the Lord Yahweh - that you have built yourself an eminent place (or vaulted chamber) and have made yourself a lofty place on every street. You have built your lofty place at every head of the way, and have made your beauty an abominatio... [ Continue Reading ]
“You have committed fornication with the Egyptians, your neighbours, great of flesh, and have multiplied your whoredom to provoke me to anger.” It began when Solomon took Pharaoh's daughter as his wife to magnify himself and to cement a political alliance with Egypt (1Ki 3:1; 1 Kings 9:16; 1 Kings 9... [ Continue Reading ]
“Behold therefore I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your allotted portion, and delivered you into the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd ways.” Compare here 2 Chronicles 28:18; Isaiah 9:12 which demonstrate that the Phi... [ Continue Reading ]
“You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians because you were insatiable, yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you were not satisfied.” The resume of their history continues. They had welcomed the Assyrians and their gods with open arms (2 Kings 16:7; 2 Kings 21:5). And... [ Continue Reading ]
“You have moreover multiplied your whoredom in the land of Canaan as far as Chaldea and yet you were not satisfied herewith.” Now the Babylonian gods were included in their worship, both in Jerusalem and in exile (as we have seen earlier they had a whole miscellany of gods - chapter 8). So the whol... [ Continue Reading ]
“How weak is your heart,” says the Lord Yahweh, “seeing you do all these things, the work of an imperious, whorish woman, in that you build your eminent place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been like a prostitute in that you scorn hire. A wife who c... [ Continue Reading ]
“They give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your whoredoms. And the contrary is in you from other women in your whoredoms, in that none follows you to commit whoredom. And whereas you give hire, and no h... [ Continue Reading ]
GOD'S JUDGMENT ON HER BEHAVIOUR - SHE WILL BE TREATED AS AN ADULTERESS. “For this reason, O prostitute, hear the word of Yahweh, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, because your brass was poured out and your nakedness discovered through your whoredoms with your lovers, and because of all the idols of your a... [ Continue Reading ]
“Therefore behold I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those you have loved, with all those you have hated, I will even gather them against you on every side, and will reveal your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness.” Prostitutes who offer the... [ Continue Reading ]
“And I will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged. And I will bring on you the blood of fury and jealousy.” Because of her licentious behaviour and sacrifice of her children to idols she will be treated as an adulterous wife and a child exposer, and judged accordingly. ‘Exp... [ Continue Reading ]
“I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your eminent place, and break down your lofty places, and they will strip you of your clothes, and take your fair jewels, and they will leave you naked and bare. They will also bring up an assembly against you, and they will stone you w... [ Continue Reading ]
“So will I cause my fury on you to cease, and my jealousy will depart from you, and I will be quiet, and angry no more.” Yet in all this God's purpose is finally merciful. He wants to rid His people of idolatry so that they will again respond in full to the covenant. Once their sin has been dealt wi... [ Continue Reading ]
GOD COMPARES JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL WITH SAMARIA AND SODOM. SHE IS WORSE THAN BOTH. “Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have fretted me in all these things, therefore, behold, I also will bring your way on your head,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and you will not go on committing l... [ Continue Reading ]
“Behold every one who uses proverbs will use a proverb against you, saying, ‘As is the mother, so is her daughter.' You are your mother's daughter, who loathes her husband and her children, and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathe their husband and their children. Your mother was a Hittite... [ Continue Reading ]
“Yet you have not walked in their ways nor done after their abominations, but, it is a very little thing, (or ‘in a very little time') you were more corrupt than them in all your ways.” The statement is sarcastic. They had not behaved like Sodom and Samaria, no, they had behaved far worse. Sodom an... [ Continue Reading ]
“As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom; pride, fullness of bread and prosperous ease were in her and in her daughters. Nor did she strengthen the hand of t... [ Continue Reading ]
“Neither has Samaria committed half of your sins. But you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and put your sisters in the right by all your abominations which you have done. You also bear your own shame in that you have given judgment for your sisters. Through your sins which you have... [ Continue Reading ]
THE COMING RESTORATION WILL BRING SHAME ON JERUSALEM. Suddenly in the gloom there comes again the promise of future restoration. With all the blackness of the future before them final restoration is guaranteed, as is the restoration of Sodom and Samaria. But that restoration will fill them with sha... [ Continue Reading ]
“And your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters will return to their former estate, and you and your daughters will return to your former estate.” Eventually both Palestine and the Jordan valley would be restored to their former state, a... [ Continue Reading ]
“Was not your sister Sodom a byword (‘report, news item') in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was discovered? Just as the time of the reproach of the daughters of Aram and of all who are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines who do despite to you round about. Y... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For thus says the Lord Yahweh, “I will even deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in the breaking of the covenant.” Because they have despised the oath they made to God, by breaking the covenant, God will deal with them accordingly. He will initiate the curses of the covenant... [ Continue Reading ]
THE PROMISE OF FINAL HOPE. THE NEW EVERLASTING COVENANT. Once again Ezekiel surprises us by introducing hope in the midst of gloom. He reminds us that God's purpose behind all that is to come is the final restoration of His people. This is a trait of the book, the shining of a light in the midst of... [ Continue Reading ]
“That you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouths any more because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done, says the Lord Yahweh.” The result of this restoration under a new, everlasting covenant will be a full realisation of their own undeserving and an a... [ Continue Reading ]